Interview with Amartya Sen

This week, I published my argument for Labour’s approach to creating a country of ‘powerful people’. I mentioned that over the last ten years, I have been much influenced by the way I thought about this, by my practical experience trying to regenerate Hodge Hill, and philosophically, by Amartya Sen. Sen’s book, An Idea of [...]

Guarantees not gambles

Some will have seen news in the Guardian and elsewhere today about rights to new services for people with suspected cancer. For those who want more background about the government’s approach to rights, have a look at Working Together  – our strategy for public service reform; World Class Public Services, where we looked at how [...]

Thanks to Big Lottery Fund

Yesterday, we had simply the most extraordinary turn-out for our Big Lottery Fund Awards for All masterclass at the Beaufort Sports & Social. Building a stronger network of social entreprenuers is at the absolute core of Hodge Hill 2020 – our programme for regenerating the constituency. I’ll be posting some of the information we went [...]

Jaguar Land Rover

Lots of workers at Jaguar Land Rover live in Hodge Hill, and they’ll be worried about the plans that Jaguar Land Rover announced today.
I rang the directors to discuss their plans this afternoon. Here’s what they said.
Firstly, and most importantly, JLR said that they are absolutely committed to the West Midlands – and want to [...]

The New Opportunity Economy

Below is the full text of my John Smith Annual Finance Lecture; The New Opportunity Economy. There’s a bit of a trail in the Guardian today. The argument is simple; is we make the right choices now, we can not only rebalance our economy towards investment and exports, but we can open the new jobs [...]

Mr Osborne’s pattern of behaviour

Here’s the link to my rather long Channel 4 interview about George Osborne’s school-boy economics. A transcript of my Sky interview is below.
Basically George Osborne first said there were ’secret’ tax plans. So secret they were set out in Table 2.9 (page 40) of the Budget’s ‘Economic and Finances’ document, and Table C7 (page 235) [...]

Thanks to NICE

First, a huge thank you to the great race organisers at the National Institute for Conductive Education, who organised the fab 10K in Cannon Hill Park this morning…a personal best for me – 51 minutes 20 seconds…my knees now hurt quite a lot….

Some of the week’s economic news

The OECD says fighting unemployment – not cutting back inthe middle of the recession – has to be everyone’s top priority; ‘Helping the unemployed and getting economies moving again will be among the most pressing issues on the table at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh on 24-25 September 2009.’  Keynes, I think, would have agreed. Reviews of [...]

Lessons from Sweden; video report now up

Video of Hodge Hill youth group report back from Sweden on how we could – and should – put sport for young people within easy reach now online

The two faces of David Cameron

A simply incredulous attack on the cost of fighting the recession, from Mr Cameron today. He has attacked this month’s deficit figures; and yet admitted in his press conference earlier this week, that his plan for £5 billion cuts in public spending this year wouldn’t reduce the deficit by a penny – the money he said [...]

Swedish lessons for Hodge Hill

After street surgeries in Bordesley Green yesterday, I had the incredible privilige last night of hearing the report back of a dozen teenagers who visited Sweden to research how we can use sport to transform our community. The group, organised by Comm:Pact, spent some time in Sweden looking at the extraordinary availability – and accessibility [...]

Some of this week’s economic news…

So here’s a bit of a round-up. Bottom-line; encouraging signs that the shot in the arm we gave the economy is beginning to work – hence we’re cautiously optimistic that growth will return by the end of the year.
NIESR, a leading independent forecasting team, said in its rolling 3 month estimate of GDP was now [...]

The help Mr Cameron would axe

More on the the precise nature of the extra help from Government that Mr Cameron says we ‘can’t afford’. As economists Paul Krugman, Danny Blanchflower and others have said, we still run the risk of people losing their jobs, despite the encouraging signs that the shot in the arm we gave the economy is working. [...]

Our fantastic new school

I’ve reported before on the fantastic £9.5 million new Colebourne and Beaufort School, which I helped open with Schools Secretary Ed Balls on Monday. My video report is now online on LiamTV. The even better news? We have won some £40 million from the Education Secretary to rebuild more schools for our young people across [...]

The economic divide

Nick Robinson put it rather well last night. The political divide in Britain has been clear for some time. But with Mr Cameron’s speech last night, the economic divide became crystal clear. Mr Cameron has set himself against the fiscal stimulus we put in place. Here’s what he said; ‘”You need to start the process [...]

Osborne detached on Marr

George Osborne today did a good impression on the Marr show, of being completely detached from the economic realities of the moment. On the one hand, he said the recovery wasn’t in the bag. Then he refused to support any of the measures we’ve put in place to make sure the recovery is delivered! (globally, [...]

Update on G20 progress yesterday

Here’s a summary of some of the key G20 outomes, agreed yesterday. The meeting of finance ministers was ahead of this month’s Pittsburgh Summit. Yesterday, Alistair Darling brokered agreement to tough global rules on pay, and ordered the Financial Stability Board to thrash out how the rules will be implemented ahead of the Pittsburgh Summit [...]

PM and Chancellor on public spending…

For those who take an interest in these things…here’s the link to Alistair Darling’s interview in the Times, and below is the part of the Prime Minister’s speech to the G20 today…
“Now, we have also made clear that over the following years we will
invest in the future within a framework of sustainable public finances
that we [...]

Amartya Sen

I interviewed Amartya Sen today for something I’m writing about how important communities are to helping people really get on in life, and turn dreams into reality. I’ll post a few comments shortly – but in the meantime, here’s some of the key links to the Nobel prize winner’s work. He’s had a massive impact [...]

Labour’s local action network

When I scraped home in the 2004 Hodge Hill by-election by 450 votes, I knew I had a fight on my hands to win the next election.
But as we organised endless street surgeries and coffee mornings, we realised that victory was not going to come from politics as usual. There was a “frustrated force” of [...]