The shift to subsidies is more than the timely, targeted and temporary measures that we saw during the pandemic, and signifies a bigger change in global public policy.
The Government urgently needs a growth package – to boost investment in energy, food, transport and other areas in which there are shortages.
These changes would be resisted by the trade unions – understandably as it would render them pretty irrelevant. But their members would be empowered.
Warm words about those serving oversees ring hollow when their families are shivering in sub-standard accommodation.
He is challenged on the claim that public sector pay demands would cost up to £1000 per household if met.
Officials will argue it is a slippery slope. But unless we get a grip on how to push our long-term productivity rate up, the only way is down.
MPs have spied a winning row over the RMT’s Christmas strike, but the broader issue of public sector unrest is not going away.
Foreign labour is an alternative to ministers facing up to how successive governments have gummed up domestic training and recruitment of medical staff.
The public sector has just swallowed another semi-autonomous set of institutions with little protest or controversy.
Where there is need, front line staff like doctors and nurses are underpaid, relative to what they should receive, and where there isn’t, a whole host of people are well paid.
There are few policies that do not require additional spending or borrowing that have the potential to deliver such a profound windfall.
Pity poor Hunt, facing the most miserable in-tray ever to greet a Tory Chancellor when even rising to the challenge will benefit only Starmer.
There is a limit to what can fairly and sensibly be achieved by raising other taxes and cutting public spending – especially when it comes to pay.
Insisting on degrees is an example of pointless red tape, and I want to get rid of all such bureaucratic burdens. Sir Stephen House’s Operational Productivity Review is designed to do just that.