Tag Archives: jobs

Liberal Democrats should campaign to fix Brexit

What should Lib Dems do now?

Should we just be campaign to rejoin the EU? Or something else?

I suggest that we fix Brexit first.

Last year people voted Conservative because they thought Brexit was a distraction from Britain’s real problems. Over 70% of the public thought this. Most people who voted Remain thought this. They thought that the only way to get Brexit out of the way, was to push it through.

Of course this isn’t true. Brexit isn’t over. And we’ll be stuck with the problems it creates for decades.

But if we campaign to rejoin straight away, it will be counter-productive. People won’t see the problems caused by Brexit, because most of them won’t be obvious until the transition period ends.

And, just as everybody sighs in relief that Brexit is over, we’ll look like obsessives wanting to restart the argument. A bit like John Redwood in the 1990s.

The British people have given the government a chance to get Brexit right.

Lib Dems should therefore work to fix Brexit. Fixing Brexit means accepting it’s happening. For now.

That means minimising the damage. Damage done to the economy. And damage done to our friends and neighbours.

Today there are three things we can campaign on.

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Jo Swinson MP writes: Another week of Brexit chaos, another week of government ignoring the big issues

On Monday morning the ONS revealed that 1.5 million workers in England alone could lose their jobs to automation, with young people, women and the low-skilled most at risk. Just as we start yet another week of absolute chaos in Parliament over Brexit, I am seriously concerned that no one in Government is thinking about how technology will shape our society.

As liberals, we instinctively embrace change, and we want to harness technological progress to solve challenges from disease to climate change. However, we must take steps now to ensure that everyone in society benefits from that progress. This is why we have called on companies with more than 250 employees to develop plans to support staff vulnerable to automation, and for Government to grant every adult £9,000 over their lifetime to fund lifelong learning.

Also on Monday morning, I hosted the second meeting of the Lib Dem Tech Commission together with Professor Sue Black. We started with a discussion about what kind of economy we want to build and broadly agreed that as a country we need to be better at encouraging entrepreneurship and at encouraging individuals to make mistakes and learn from failure.

However, to try something and be comfortable with failing is a luxury that only few can afford at the moment. As a society, we need to offer much stronger safety nets to ensure that many others can transform their ideas into successful businesses.

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10 January 2019 – today’s press releases

I’m posting on the fly today, as I’ve allowed myself to become distracted by other things. So, if this posting changes before your very eyes, don’t be surprised… It’s a bit like Brexit in many ways, a kaleidoscope of images, none of which you can ever recreate again…

  • Lib Dems in bid to change asylum seeker employment rules
  • Cable: Moment of reckoning for our economy
  • Cable: No confidence in Govt or Corbyn
  • Lib Dems: We will use “any means possible” to secure proper Brexit debate
  • Lib Dems call for Venezuelan President to step down
  • Blackwood appointment shows Tories ignoring demands for House of Lords reform

Lib Dems

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6 November 2018 – today’s press releases

Tory Minister slammed for accusing police of exaggerating pressures

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey has today slammed Policing Minister Nick Hurd for accusing police chiefs of routinely exaggerating the pressures they face.

Speaking in Parliament today, Ed Davey warned “Police chiefs say the pension deficit, if it’s filled, could cost up to 10,000 police officers.” He asked the Minister “Does he agree with them?”

Responding to Ed Davey, the Minister said: “No I don’t. I think the number is exaggerated, which is not unusual for the police.”

Following the exchange, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey said:

Police chiefs are warning of

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Brighton debate: Good Jobs, Better Businesses, Stronger Communities

Roll up, roll up – take your seats.  Monday afternoon of conference week in Brighton brings a debate on proposals for creating a new economy, one that really works for everyone in Britain.  As the party “demands better”, this forward-looking plan shows how we can tackle the root causes of our current dysfunctional economy and to provide real content to our campaigning on that central political issue of “the economy, stupid” (as Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist inelegantly put it).

The debate on Motion F28 – Good Jobs, Better Businesses, Stronger Communities – is your chance to accept, reject, amend or better still improve upon the ideas contained in the FPC’s paper of the same name, available to download here.  Do have a good read in advance, there’s a lot of great content to digest.  

On this site, Katharine Pindar has already helpfully examined it  through the lens of how Labour voters might see us, as an alternative to Corbynomics.

Developed over two years through our deliberative policy-making process, the package of proposals had a longer gestation period even than an African bush elephant: the working group (which I co-chaired with Julia Goldsworthy until she was appointed to a politically restricted job) took evidence and consulted widely, and then had to pause for Theresa May’s ill-fated snap general election. 

Our original consultation paper back in 2017 set out the challenges we had identified in creating a more prosperous and sustainable economic future for Britain in the 21st century – low productivity, new technologies, changing demographics, the folly of Brexit, resource depletion, rising inequalities, a trends towards ever bigger companies and reduced competition, and much more.  Despite this depressing back-drop, we said Liberal Democrats are inherently optimistic and should embrace the potential of change and of the big economic shifts that we saw coming.  We should not retreat, we argued, either to the little Britain ‘drawbridge economy’ envisaged by post-Brexit Conservatives or to Labour’s ‘big government knows best’ 1970s style siege economy.

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New thinking on job creation

 

One of the big challenges of our time is to provide work for all those who need it, work which is useful, fulfilling and which pays enough to live on. And although the British economy is creating around half a million jobs (net) a year, many of them do not satisfy those simple criterion.

The need for good quality jobs will increase as the population increases and working careers get longer, yet hardly anyone is thinking about where these jobs are to come from.  Government departments, unions and think-tanks tend to concentrate on where jobs have been created in the past or predicting where they may come in the future, or on skills training or how to improve conditions for those already in work. The private sector seems to regard jobs as a by-product, a necessary evil in the process of making a profit, and in the public sector the government wants to cut as many jobs as possible to save tax-payers’ money.  No one is actively looking at areas where new and worthwhile jobs can be created and how to do it.

Let me be bold and suggest six sectors where this might be done, in what I call the “infinite industries” ie where there is no limit to the amount of production that can be done: education, health, energy, environment, sport and the arts.

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Opportunities? Brexiteers, please specify

The motives and backgrounds of leave-voters are by now sufficiently understood to conclude that many of them cannot afford to and would not have voted for becoming substantially and permanently poorer. Some may, but had it been widely understood that Brexit comes at a high economic price for everybody, the result would have been a different one.

Apparently, most leavers dismissed the economic arguments of remain, and instead of asking for better arguments from leave bought the “scaremongering”-claim (admittedly, leave was much better at creating slogans). And this continues: leave already claims victory on the economy after 6 months in which nothing (apart from a 15% devaluation of the country) has happened. Luckily, consumers so far remain complacent and keep spending.

I know the typical response I can expect from Brexiteers: unsubstantiated claims (“see the opportunities”, “champions of free trade”…), denial (“Q3 was good”), fluffy sovereignty-talk (“Brussels”), and pressure (“how dare you not respecting the will of the people?”). Is that all you have got?

May I challenge you to think a little harder? Specify trading opportunities the UK currently misses because of EU membership, which outweigh the losses from leaving the single market. In other words: How and when will you have replaced the benefits of preferential access to 27 EU member states and the EUs’ 53 third-country agreements with higher yielding UK-deals? How and when will you recover the transitional losses? Will the current generation of young people recover from the damage within their professionally active lifetime? No leave-campaigner has ever presented any such case. Can you?

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Of chocolate and jobs

Last month I visited York’s Chocolate Story, a visitor attraction in the centre of the city of York. A very lively tour guide told us about the Quakers who established the chocolate industry in York, and we saw how filled chocolates are made (and got to eat some) and made our own chocolate lollies (and got to eat them too). The other visitors included several grandparents, who seemed to be enjoying the experience at least as much as their grandchildren!

As the UK population gets older, the leisure industry has observed that we are becoming far more interested in acquiring ‘cultural capital’. Since 2009 household spending on recreation and culture has risen faster than total household consumption (VisitEngland, 2013). Older people, whilst more numerous, are getting ‘younger’ wanting to undertake new experiences and acquire new knowledge and skills – whether it’s baking, gardening or learning about history or art.

This creates new employment opportunities that we should be actively promoting.  Rather than working in yet another retail mall, young people can acquire knowledge that they can then share. Enriching an older person’s life is far more rewarding than stacking shelves or driving a delivery van. Of course there are concerns that these will be low paid jobs. However older people, whose incomes have been protected most in the years since the recession are likely to be able and willing to pay, and indeed this could be a good transfer of cash from the old to the younger generation.

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Lib Dem Jobwatch special: Last chance to apply for internship with ALDC

The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners is this party’s foremost authority on local campaigning. They know how to win council seats and run councils like nobody else. A chance to work for them is a brilliant opportunity.

They run an internship scheme and are currently advertising for a campaigns and communications intern to work for them for a year from 1st September. Details are as follows:

This is a full-time role, paid at the UK National Minimum/Living Wage (currently £7.20 per hour for 25 year olds and over, and the applicable rate for under 25s) based at our offices in Manchester city centre.

ALDC is the national organisation for Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners. This is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the work of the organisation as we continue to build on the gains in this year’s local elections and by-elections.

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Lib Dem Job watch – lots of campaigning jobs going across the country

There are some excellent jobs going in the Liberal Democrats at the moment. The most prestigious is the Head of Press. The party is seeking someone to:

lead a small but effective media team to promote the Liberal Democrats and the party Leader Tim Farron in regional and national media. You will be expected to lead the party’s mission to secure daily coverage in national and regional print, broadcast and online news media.

As a key player in the wider Liberal Democrat team, the Head of Press will take a significant role in the rebuilding and fightback of Liberal Democrats, offering creative and engaging ideas, and take a leading role in interacting with journalists and key influencers on social media.

This role will be focused on delivering positive coverage for the party and for candidates of all levels across the United Kingdom, as well as be able to inspire best practice to help volunteers support the party’s media operation.

The Head of Press will also take a lead in managing crisis communications, and have a clear ability to work well under pressure.

The master of understatement, don’t you think?

If you are good at design and political messaging, you might be interested in the content designer post based at LDHQ in London:

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Stephen Lloyd MP writes… The jobs agenda – a lot done, more still to do for single parents

Budding Artists Create Holiday MasterpiecesIn my constituency of Eastbourne, one in four households with children is headed by a single parent. This mirrors the diversity of modern families across Britain, where families come in all shapes and sizes, and reinforces my commitment to support and promote policies which enable each and every one of these families to balance work with bringing up their kids.

I am proud of the coalition government’s record on job creation and bringing down unemployment – reflected in the latest statistics out last week which showed that unemployment had fallen to its lowest level in nearly six years – but recognise that there is still more for us to do to ensure that everyone is able to benefit from the economic upturn.

This week, single parent charity Gingerbread has published a new report, Paying the Price: The long road to recovery, which highlights single parents’ experiences in work and of finding work. In reading the report, I was struck by how motivated single parents are to work and support their families – indeed 60% of single parents are already in work – a fact which is reinforced by the stories I hear from the single parents I meet at my constituency surgeries.

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Opinion: The East Midlands would suffer without Europe

Vince Cable speaking York Europe Jobs Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsIf we needed reminding how vital Europe is to British jobs in regions like the East Midlands, the bosses of car giants Hyundai and Toyota spelt it out.

As a European candidate in May’s elections I was alarmed to read that Hyundai, who have a base in Corby, warned against leaving the EU saying that if the UK were no longer in the single market it would throw up ‘barriers’ to doing business. There was a similar message from …

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Opinon: The Calder Valley needs a modern transport system to maximise economic potential

The declaration that Hebden Bridge is the UKs ‘second city’ – lying at the heart of the suburbs of Bradford, Leeds & Manchester – has come as something of a shock to most people living there, including myself. However, underneath the hyperbole lies a serious point; that the Calder Valley lies in a sweet spot for ease of commute to the major employment centres.
But what the Calder Valley lacks – and what holds back prosperity and employment opportunities within it – is a modern, efficient transport system.
We are cursed on the Caldervale line which runs along the Calder Valley

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Guy Verhofstadt writes… 2014 European elections and the challenge for Liberals

This year’s European elections are bound to be a tough fight. Eurosceptics such as UKIP and the French National Front are determined to turn back the clock and tear down the internal market, stoking xenophobia and putting millions of jobs at risk. In the UK context, the Conservatives appear to want to throw in the towel and leave the EU, whilst Labour are still sitting uncomfortably on the fence. Only Lib Dems are clear where they stand as the party of In.

Being the main pro-European party, across the EU, though does not mean defending the status quo. As Liberals we …

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Stephen Lloyd writes… It’s all about the jobs!

Stephen Lloyd with Matt Hancock MP, the Minister for Skills & Unemployment Stephen Lloyd with Matt Hancock MP, the Minister for Skills & Unemployment

The “jobs agenda” is one of the top priorities for all Liberal Democrats; whether you’re an activist on the doorstep, someone who is concerned for the future of our young people – or indeed a parliamentarian. I happen to be all three!

In Government, our party has actively pursued policies that are enabling many people to benefit from work and to a greater extent, they are working! Almost one and a half million new private sector jobs have been created; a million new apprenticeships are getting our young people into work and Liberal Democrat policies are helping businesses grow with the £3.2 billion Regional Growth Fund.

We have seen real results from core Liberal Democrat policies. The achievement I am most proud of so far is a subject I am passionate about. In fact, it is one of the issues that drew me back to politics: the dignity afforded to us by being in a job. The scar of benefit dependence that has built up over generations, alongside the apparently intractable problem of high youth unemployment, is something I have been keen to tackle, and have worked furiously on both locally in Eastbourne and nationally in Parliament.

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Liblink… Vince Cable: Europe is an anchor for British business

For centuries, Britain has developed economically through being an open, outward-looking country. Today, the economy has a high level of global integration. The UK is the world’s fifth largest exporter of goods and services, and we attract more foreign direct investment than any other European country.

…Vince Cable, writing in the Guardian.

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Tim Farron writes… British businesses say we must stay in the EU. Let’s go out and make that case.

UKIP and the many Conservatives who say we should pull out of the EU might want to keep a low profile today. The CBI, which represents some 240,000 businesses up and down the country, has published a landmark report in support of Britain’s EU membership. It found that 8 out of 10 of its members would vote to remain part of the EU, including 77% of small businesses, and concluded that the overall benefits of EU membership massively outweigh the costs. In fact, each of us is thought to be around £1225 better off a year thanks to …

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Phil Bennion MEP writes: Manufacturers say Britain must stay in the EU

 EU flag - Some rights reserved by European ParliamentOn Monday, the UK’s manufacturing sector gave us a clear message. In Europe, in work. In a landmark report by the EEF, a trade association representing 6000 companies, manufacturers emphasised the importance of being part of the EU for their exports and business plans. 85% of firms surveyed would vote to remain in the EU.  One third said that they would be less likely to increase investment in Britain if we were to leave the EU.

Politicians across the political spectrum

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Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

Michael Moore MP with apprentices Cameron Collins and Mark Tully at Mainetti 30 08 13 Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore MP, writes a regular column for newspapers in his Borders Constituency. Here is the latest edition. 

Jobs campaign

I recently launched a local jobs initiative as part of the Liberal Democrats’ ‘A Million Jobs’ campaign.

Apprenticeships are a really effective way of tackling youth unemployment because they enable young people to develop the training, skills and experience they need to enter fulltime paid employment. They also benefit businesses who gain value …

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Edward Davey MP writes: The greenest government ever – at an affordable price

The announcement I made today of the levels of support for renewable generation for the period 2013-17 will unlock generation and network capital investment worth £20-25 billion between 2013 and 2017 This is the kind of sustainable long run growth and green jobs we need to get the economy moving again. This is further evidence that pursuing green policies can bring real economic benefits. The CBI recognised this  in their report earlier this month stressing the need for a stable climate for green investment. I just wish that some of the critics of green growth policies would pay heed …

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Opinion: Lib Dems must avoid “all growth is good” fallacy

Every politician who remains in the public mind, after their term in office has ended, becomes associated, in time, with a particular sound bite or phrase.

John Major will forever be associated with “back to basics”. Tony Blair with “pretty straight kind of guy” and Gordon Brown with “abolishing boom and bust”.

At this stage, David Cameron is probably hoping that “hug a hoodie” is the phrase with which he becomes …

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Michael Moore’s Westminster Notes

Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore MP writes a weekly column for local newspapers in his constituency. Here’s this week’s edition.

Scottish Questions

Last week was Parliament’s first week back after the Easter break and on Wednesday I had one of my regular sessions of Scottish Questions as Secretary of State for Scotland. Question time is an opportunity for the opposition frontbench and backbench MPs to ask the Government questions about policy and any current issues affecting Scotland. Last week’s questions were therefore mainly focussed on the March budget and the progress of the Scotland Bill through Holyrood and Westminster.

The economy …

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Opinion: Jobs and the economy must feature in Brian Paddick’s mayoral campaign

Last weekend, in common with many Team London activists, I was out delivering literature for the upcoming mayoral election.

In a recent Ipsos MORI poll, commissioned by BBC London, some 59% of respondents cited jobs; growth and the economy as the most important issues that Londoners say will help them decide who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral election. This chimes with my own experience of feedback on the doorstep.

Tackling crime (49%), improving public transport (38%) and building cheap homes (37%) were the other top issues.

During the 2008 election, our candidate Brian Paddick, polled a little less than 10% of …

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