Angela Rayner’s “New Deal for Working People” is set to be unveiled in parliament tomorrow after jostling over the finer details with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. Disgruntled union officials claim it will be a “skeleton” thanks to Labour’s promise to introduce it in the first 100 days of government…
The expectation is that a ban on zero-hours contracts will be delayed until the completion of a consultation on it and other measures. Labour has made a big deal of banning the popular contractual arrangement, claiming in its manifesto that an outright ban would be immediately enforced as one of the party’s “initial steps to confront poverty.” They might be surprised by the views of actual people…
New research from the Centre for Social Justice finds that what is dubs “precarious work” is actively sought out by 16-34-year-olds, who don’t want to see it banned and the vast majority of whom (75%) are fully satisfied with their working conditions. Satisfaction remains high at 68% among the very poorest groups surveyed and in total only 24% say they are dissatisfied. Meanwhile data newly released from the Centre for Economic Performance finds that zero-hours contracts actually attract 25% more applicants than “comparable permanent jobs.” It’s almost like having greater freedom in your work contract is progressive and popular. Labour and the unions will have to arbitrarily flood the consultation to get their preferred result…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”