Robert Taylor proposes a new charter of rights for the manual working class in Britain should be adopted if Labour is serious about protecting them in the recession
Archive for February, 2009
Westminster Watch: Positive message must follow grieving process
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 15th, 2009THE mixed reviews Barack Obama’s financial stimulus package received this week proves that framing policy to deal with a global downturn is a challenge which taxes even the most accomplished of political operators.
Oli Usher: Kicking against the pricks on pseudoscientific rubbish
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, February 15th, 2009LIKE a nasty case of genital herpes, the controversy over the MMR vaccine just keeps coming back. Every time it seems to have been brought under control, bang, another outbreak of denial comes along to ruin everything. With every outbreak of scepticism comes the risk of an outbreak of disease. Let’s not forget, measles can kill or cause brain damage, mumps causes male sterility and rubella leads to birth defects.
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009
ONE of those grilled by MPs this week inadvertently revealed the key to the alchemy that has become standard practice in the banking industry. Asked whether he fully understood the full complexity of the deals he was authorising, Sir Fred “the shred” Goodwin said: “No, I didn’t, that’s part of the secret of how you [...]
Joy Johnson: Lamb-like approach to greedy banks means Labour slaughter
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009THE masters of the universe – those of them who had the nerve to turn up – were mired in deep gloom at Davos in the Swiss Alps last week. Come April in the Watford Gap, representatives of the G20 group of nations may well feel suicidal as the social and economic consequences of the financial disaster deepens and widens. Economist Nouriel Roubini – previously dubbed “Dr Doom” when he predicted the catastrophe and who has now been entirely vindicated – forecasts that 2009 will be a painful year of global recession and further financial stress, losses and bankruptcies.
Paul Routledge: Train in vain with Hague’s vague Tory transport plans
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009TORY politicians are obsessed with the idea of winning the general election up ’ere by throwing trains at it. After his announcement in Birmingham last year of a high-speed rail link from London to Leeds, William Hague flogged up to Bradford the other day to announce an all-singing, all-dancing commission on transport in the north.
Grapes of wrath – bitter harvest for vineyard workers
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009Simon McRae says that South African wine isn’t an ethical tipple
Maximise our efforts to enforce all minimum wage payments
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009Ashok Kumar argues for greater penalties against bosses seeking to deny workers their rights, but stresses we must remember the responsibilities that go with these
Ian Williams: Paradise not yet regained, but inferno is postponed
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, February 14th, 2009THE “revolution now” crowd is disappointed, but actually feels vindicated that Barack Obama has not immediately overthrown the hegemony of Wall Street and the Israel lobby and declared the end of poverty and the advent of universal healthcare. I admit to sharing their disappointment at his silence on Gaza, but as I predicted, Obama’s presidency is not the Second Coming. However, it is is the end of the reign of the Anti-Christ, if a born-again atheist might use such eschatological metaphors. He even included non-believers in his inaugural speech.
By Tribune Web Editor /Friday, February 13th, 2009
LORD Truscott, one of the peers at the centre of the cash-for-legislation affair, is not fondly remembered by his former staff when, as plain Peter Truscott, he was elected MEP for Hertfordshire in 1994. When the list system came into place four years later, he was humiliatingly put in fourth place for the enlarged new [...]