Skills and education for the future of Britain
One of the consequences of Brexit must be that employers will no longer be allowed to dodge their responsibility to invest in training…
News/Views
RMT in Westminster rally over guards
26 April 2018
A national protest against Driver Only Operation outside Parliament on 25 April drew rail workers and union banners from many towns and regions across the country.
Brightest and best?
A focus on importing skilled labour denies skill here – and damages foreign countries…
British trade unions: early origins
The British working class was the first proletariat in the world to emerge out of the land. It had to make a stand or go under…
Populism and reaction
Despite the supposed threat to democracy from populism, the anti-populist reaction is worse…
Year-long campaign for engineering
The government has declared 2018 to be the year of engineering, a year-long campaign to tackle the engineering skills gap and widen the pool of young people who join the profession.
Apprenticeships: Poor match
In an unusually blunt speech the head of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, highlighted the key issues her inspectors had found in their pilot inspections of apprenticeship providers since the new apprenticeship levy scheme began.
Stop the EU war machine!
During the 2016 referendum those who warned that the EU was developing its own army were dismissed as fantasists. Instead, we were told the EU had kept the peace in Europe. The truth is totally different…
Small can be beautiful
Britain could take a world lead in a new nuclear technology, and boost its energy self-sufficiency too…
Apprenticeship levy – we need a better way
For too long companies in Britain had relied on being able to import ready-skilled workers. That creates low levels of skill (not to be confused with low levels of potential) said to cost the British economy £2 billion a year.
Truce in uni pensions fight
The long-running dispute over pensions conducted by members of the University and College Union (UCU) has been suspended after they voted by 64 per cent to 36 per cent to accept the employers’ latest proposals.