News & Insight

21 September 2014

The key to a successful Labour government from May 2015 lies in abandoning Tory/Lib Dem austerity and going for growth. All our ambitions for seeing that everyone shares in higher living standards, for restoring security at work, for expanding public services,...

21 September 2014

During the recent debate surrounding the future of the United Kingdom, the separatists’ ugly and deliberate conflation of England with Toryism represented a calculated insult. England: the country of the Tolpuddle martyrs, Clement Atlee, George Orwell, William Morris, William Blake...

21 September 2014

Over the last couple of years I’ve campaigned with MPs and charities to regulate unscrupulous payday lending, and with some success.  But we haven’t tackled the underlying problem. The harsh truth is that too many people simply can’t make it from one payday to the next. The economic model introduced by Margaret Thatcher, with reducing labour costs at its heart, reversed a...

21 September 2014

As the party conference season begins, Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers and former ministers seem determined to create a PR smokescreen over the gaps and errors in their policies affecting carers. David Cameron said the government will become “family friendly” and...

20 September 2014

Almost every Labour councillor and most Labour MPs, especially those representing inner city communities, will tell you that their largest area of casework involves housing. For many, it’s the lack of any social housing to meet their constituents’ needs, for...