Government still out of touch on economy one year on

How many more jobs must be lost and businesses go bust before this out of touch Government realises it needs to change tack on the economy?
 
Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the Government’s Spending Review and the decision to cut the deficit further and faster than any other major economy.
 
These out of touch, out of date plans simply haven’t worked. The economy hasn’t grown at all in the last year, inflation is soaring and unemployment is at its highest for 17 years.
 
We need to make this Tory-led Government understand how tough things really are for families, pensioners and businesses.
 
Labour has called for an Emergency Budget in Parliament to get things back on track. Our 5-point plan for jobs and growth calls for:

1. A £2 billion tax on bank bonuses to fund 100,000 jobs for young people and build 25,000 more affordable homes.
2. Bring forward investment projects like new school buildings.
3. Temporarily reverse the VAT rise – a £450 boost for families with children.
4. Cut VAT on home improvements to 5% for a year.                                                                                                                        5. A tax break for every small firm which takes on extra workers.

Our plans would make a real difference in Coventry North East. The tax break for small firms has the potential to benefit approximately 2,095 of our local firms. Good news too for the 21 local schools in Coventry whose building projects were cancelled by the Tory-led Government back in July of last year. If the Government adopted our plan, projects like these could come back on line, creating much-needed local jobs and a stronger future for young people in Coventry.
 
The Government must accept that its plan for the economy is hurting, but it’s not working. It’s time they got back in touch with the lives of ordinary people and started delivering jobs and growth in Britain.

Bob Ainsworth makes a speech in the House of Commons during the Public Bodies Bill debate on the need to establish the Office of Chief Coroner

“The most telling intervention on the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who moved the amendment, was from the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), who asked how we got to where we are. After three years of consultation, cross-party agreement and a full examination of what was needed, how did we get to a position in which that has been scrapped and thrown away by the Government as part of a bundle of measures intended to save costs—costs that they will not even share? How did we get to a position in which the Government continually say that there was constructive dialogue with organisations which basically claim that there has been skulduggery and no effective dialogue with them at all?

When the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said he wanted clarification, the Minister made it clear from a sedentary position that no High Court judge would have the words “chief coroner” added to his title. There will be no independent leadership for the coronial system under what is proposed. It is the Government themselves who are causing that delay, not the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole or those of us who want to see the creation of the office of the chief coroner. It is the Government who are causing the delay and the only way to move them is to support the amendment so ably moved by [the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole]”. 

(Hansard, 25^th October 2011)

Bob Ainsworth MP becomes Real-Life Entrepreneur Champion

Bob Ainsworth MP has signed up to be a Real-Life Entrepreneur Champion.

As a Real-Life Entrepreneur Champion, Bob Ainsworth MP for Coventry North-East agrees to:

• Listen to the concerns of Real-Life Entrepreneurs and champion their cause
• Represent the interests of Real-Life Entrepreneurs on a national and local level
• Recognise the many thousands of hard-working entrepreneurs that support the UK economy
• Support the FSB in its endeavours to get the best deal for Real-Life Entrepreneurs

 Steve Mills , FSB Coventry Branch Chairman, said:

“Small businesses are vital to our economy and it is imperative we recognise their importance so I am pleased that Bob Ainsworth MP has committed to helping us in our cause. With the Government wanting the private sector to lead the recovery, we need to see policies put in place at a local and national level that can help businesses to grow and for more people to have the confidence to become a Real-Life Entrepreneur.”

Bob Ainsworth MP for Coventry North-East said:

“If we are going to get growth and create jobs this is the sector it is going to come from so we cannot underestimate the importance of small businesses”

 

The “Ethical” Journalist

Yet another utterly predictable diatribe from Les Reid in today’s Coventry Telegraph. This “ethical” journalist doesn’t tell people that these attacks never started until immediately after I gave a story to a rival Mathew Bates at the Coventry Observer, he doesn’t say that his behaviour on Twitter became totally intrusive, barging into an amicable serious debate about press reform with another journalist Warren Manger in order to disrupt it.

The government, with cross party support, has set up the Leveson inquiry into the press, all MPs and all citizens are entitled to their views, Les Reid clearly thinks and indeed has said that I am not! I have two choices, cave in to these attempts to intimidate and gag or continue to tell people what is going on here. I chose to do the latter.

He shouldn’t abuse his position at the newspaper to run repeat vindictive articles, but he clearly thinks he should. This is not ethical journalism.

Bob writes an article on Conditional Fee Agreements for the Coventry Observer

 Bob writes an article in the Coventry Observer regarding the Government’s proposed changes to Conditional Fee Agreements