A former colleague recently tweeted that "what UK really needs is Cambridge on the Coast; a new University for the Coast..." Certainly, we need something. England’s coast is largely poorer than the rest of England and the UK. Skills levels and wages/productivity are typically lower than the English and UK average, as are progression rates…
Built on discussions, members meetings and wider engagement with Labour members from across the country, as well as a number of round tables with Labour MPs we have sent the following submissions to this year's National Policy Forum consultation: Early Years, Education and Skills Economy, Business and Trade Environment, Energy and Culture Health and Social Care…
The Lords Select Committee on ‘The Future of Seaside Towns’ paints a familiar picture of what can happen to communities that get left behind in a two speed economy. Many of us watched in the 80’s as the Thatcher government ruthlessly deconstructed the industrial economy through a mix of privatisation, state disinvestment and plant closures.…
When people talk of the Southeast region of England, it can often come across in two distinct ways. One way people mention the area is in a pejorative way, alluding to the region’s perceived blandness, as if it were the magnolia paint of British regions. On the other hand, it can sometimes sound as if…
While much of the Labour family is rightly occupied with their local election campaign for tomorrow, some of the early steps in preparing for ‘The English election’ of 2019 (elections in 192 District Councils, 47 Unitaries and 33 Mets on 2nd May '19), began last week. Labour:COAST&COUNTRY (LCC) brought together seven of our newer MPs…
You can’t cut 49% from council support and expect everything to keep humming. It wasn’t as though when Cameron and Clegg rode their big blue and yellow bulldozers into power that councillors were saying “Hi guys, we have loads of slack, so plough down local services, they don’t matter and we can take it.” All…
It does not take much for figures on social mobility to astound our consciousness. Given one in every six children are still in relative poverty, it seems Britain is still a broadly unequal society. This situation underpins any modern progressive: spurring each of us on in finding solutions to tackle these problems. Under the last Labour…
