Left hand: Make work pay; Right hand: Not

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Saturday, 1 January 2011 at 4:28 pm Chris Grayling, Employment minister (right), said it again yesterday: We are reforming the welfare system to ensure that work always pays. Perhaps someone could ask him how that principle is compatible with Nick Clegg’s wizard scheme to pay tuition fees, worth up to £18,000, to students …

Eighty-five per cent of new jobs go to British workers

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Saturday, 3 September 2011 at 6:08 pm There is an important post at Coffee House by Jonathan Portes, an economist who is Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which thoroughly debunks the fallacy implied by the Statistic of the Week, that 90 per cent of the net increase in …

1415 And All That

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Sunday, 29 January 2012 at 2:20 pm David Cameron’s premiership is a shambles except for a few things that matter. I have an article in The Independent on Sunday that compares him to Henry V. Everyone on the defensive pro-European side of British politics was snooty about his saying No at last month’s …

Who came up with the idea of a benefits cap?

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 1 February 2012 at 3:31 pm Someone asked a question this morning to which I have previously tried and failed to find the answer. So it is time to take to the internet and use its power to solve this problem. Whose idea was it to set a cap on …

“Unemployment is the root of all social evil”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Friday, 10 February 2012 at 9:54 am I was impressed the interview in Total Politics with Neil O’Brien, director of Policy Exchange, the other day. He identified the most important item on my long and eagerly awaited list of things that Tony Blair did wrong: When Britain was in this incredibly hubristic phase, going around …

Tesco: a good company and a responsible employer

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Sunday, 19 February 2012 at 2:47 pm I caused a breach in the left-right continuum yesterday by saying: Tesco: a good company and responsible employer that sells things people want at prices they can afford. I was condemned the length and breadth of Twitter and was asked to go on Radio …

The 1945 Paradox

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Tuesday, 11 December 2012 at 8:19 pm Frank Field is giving a speech tonight in which he suggests that austerity, paradoxically, offers the best chance of welfare reform. As Simon Landau points out, this recalls the Attlee government’s achievement in creating the modern welfare state at a time of austerity after the war. Field’s …

What they didn’t like about Osborne’s speech

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Tuesday, 2 April 2013 at 10:38 pm I have written about Ed Miliband for The Independent tomorrow, and my fear that the worst outcome of the election, only two years and one month away, would be that Labour will win it in its present unprepared and happy-lefty state. As I was writing, George …

What is Labour policy on the benefits cap?

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Saturday, 27 April 2013 at 5:12 pm The benefits cap, which limits household welfare benefits to £26,000 a year, the level of average earnings, was brought in on 15 April in four London boroughs. It will be extended to the rest of the country in July. Ed Balls last week told LBC that …

IDS’s finger-wagging at finger-wagging

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Tuesday, 17 September 2013 at 9:56 pm I have a brief comment at Independent Voices on Iain Duncan Smith’s speech in Washington yesterday, in which he warned the Conservatives to avoid “finger-wagging” at the poor and unmarried lest the party be thought “uncaring”. His speech, to the Heritage Foundation, was called …