Employment isn't a simple matter - the numbers hide complex picture of poverty, precarity and the need for opportunity

The government's favourite fallback when criticised is to turn to the employment figures. Theresa May pulled the figures out at last week's PMQs, saying that she noticed the opposition leader hadn't raised the subject with her.

But the government's excitement about those figures is hard to square with the reality of life in this economy for ordinary workers.

The fact that the dominant corporate culture in Britain sees it as a viable strategy to lay off thousands of workers in 'restructuring', explains a lot about how most of the people in poverty in Britain can be in work - suffering in poverty despite having paying jobs.

Employment may be high, but big questions remain about the quality of employment. Retail may not be work that produces the greatest satisfaction, but it does provide opportunities for those who need them most - like a ladder to management experience and the stability that can provide.

The latest threat to that slender social mobility ladder is the restructuring happening at Tesco, where unions are afraid that as many of 15,000 jobs are going to be cut, some two dozen per store - more job losses at the firm, that follow on from some ten thousand others lost in the last four years.

Uncertainty and precarity are becoming the norm. Average wages remain below what they were in 2010. Income equality in Britain continues to decline. And amidst these pressures, the welfare safety net has been diminished. This is the pattern that lies hidden behind the employment figures.

Over time, of course employment won't stay the same. Some kinds of work will disappear and others will replace them. Perhaps, over time, work itself will change beyond recognition - to no longer be the 'work to live' system we are familiar with. But it will change.

It isn't good enough for Conservatives to preach innovation, to preach flexibility. That approach is leaving people with no stability and rising anxiety. Trapped in a precarious working life that isn't rewarding people. There has to be a better way.

Brexit looms, hovering menacingly over everything, threatening to diminish workers rights and job security, ordinary people need reassurances about the future. The old ladders to prosperity for working class people are being kicked down.

It's no good talking up the figures when thousands are facing layoffs. What people need is to be able to depend upon practical support when they lose work, and the same as they try to develop the skills to find a new path forward. To know that there are paths they can take, opportunities for a stable life.

That means more intervention and more guidance. More communication, to let people know where the paths are and what people will need on those roles. This is only the beginning of what is needed, but in a time of crisis you have to deal with the emergency first.

The disappearance of high street retail jobs hurts working class most, taking away crucial ladder to opportunities

In the year 2000, the European Union issued it's Lisbon Strategy.The plan, under then President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, was to prepare Europe for the 'knowledge economy', in which the continent was to be the skill and knowledge centre for the world.

The advance of technology on the high street is part of what that strategy was preparing for - to transition to a position where low skill work was done by machines, giving people more time, education and training needed  to prepare for more technical and high skilled work.

The problem across Europe, including here in Britain, is that the expansion of skills, education and the opportunities to exploit them - necessary to making this transition work for the working class - hasn't happened.

Low skill work is going away, but it's loss is only hindering the working class. In the past year alone in Britain, twenty two thousand high street retail jobs have been cut. Many more are planned. With them, crucially, goes job and income security for the working class.

And it's not just shop floor work. Management positions are being lost too. With them goes the ladder that working class people could, in the past, have climbed towards greater opportunities with more responsibility and higher pay - the entry level access point to a well paying career.

Now. The decline of any particular market sector is not, by itself, a disaster - so long as opportunities for people to make a living continue to appear to offset the losses of security of work & income, and that ladder to opportunity.

However, the stats do not look great. While unemployment is at a forty year low, working poverty is high. Child poverty is high. Precarious work is high. Security of income is under threat at a time when pay has not yet recovered from the long post-2008 slump.

Moving to a knowledge economy is the right direction. But only if it takes working class people with it. Abolishing entry level work to reduce corporate bottom lines at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable is despicable.

Without a framework of education and training, and a responsive social security network - built around a reliable means of making a living and a flexible income guarantee for a volatile, and frequently 'gig' oriented, economy - the transition becomes a step backward, techology in the hands of business again reducing people rather than elevating them.

And elevation is the point. Liberation is the point. If technology is not going to free us, increasing our capacities and opportunities, then what is the point of it?

While the government will want to clear up its messy year of Finance Bills with an orderly status quo Budget, it needs to be bolder and start investing

Next month is Chancellor Philip Hammond's first Autumn Budget. Yet the pomp for the event might be diminished by the fact that the previous finance bill will only just reach it's third reading this Tuesday.

The Chancellor's Spring Budget had been one for pluggling holes. There were Reliefs for those affected by business rate changes. A tax rise for the self-employed (on which he later u-turned). And there was spending - in the millions rather than billions - across key areas like health and social care, construction and education.

All of these came as the clearance of the debt and deficit, and restoration of growth - the long term promises of the Conservatives - remained a long way from being a achieved.

With the truncated Parliamentary session, the Finance Bill reappeared in the Summer once the new MPs took their seats. It has a been a messy and confusing year that will have left many in confusion as to what is and isn't in the Treasury's plans.

The first obstacle the government must navigate is the amendments to the Finance Bill. Labour and Cooperative backbencher Stella Creasy put forward a series of amendments that press the government to action on tax evasion and the exploitative gains made by those corporations who engaged in PFI, private-public investment schemes under Blair and Brown.

These are yet more subjects on which the Tories are divided. And Labour pressure, with Conservative backbench support has ensured that changes will need to be made to the Universal Credit rollout come the Autumn Budget. 

That will have to mean another government U-turn - a term that is coming to be the lasting testament to how ineffective Conservative government has been. They promised stability and only produce confusion.

To that end, the instincts of Hammond and the government will surely be for this messy year of Finance Bills to be tied off with a clean, efficient budget that gets everyone on the same page. To resist change. Status quo may well be the order of the day.

And yet, action is needed. Globalisation continues to reek havoc on communities, as outside of the rich bubbles were technology and advantage and money clusters, investment is dire.

As Mariana Mazzucato stresses, the big private players do not take risks and will not redress this balance themselves. The state needs to invest and create markets, to be the pioneer that the private sector simply isn't.

The 2017 budget has to tackle the lack of opportunities, the need for innovative new industry with the training to staff them, and the cost of living that suppresses and excludes so many. Government can only achieve these things if the public sector steps out in front and takes the lead.

Liberal Democrat Leadership: A chance to breathe progressive energy into a party sorely in need of a fresh start

Last month Tim Farron chose to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats. This article won't focus on that, other than where it affects the way forward. However, his resignation does present the party with an opportunity.

The party has been on a rollercoaster, from their first experience of government in decades to a catastrophic loss of public trust that resulted in an electoral collapse that lost the party all but eight seats in the Commons.

Under Farron, who had no part in the Coalition, it appeared that things were turning around. Recoveries in council elections, and the remarkable by-election upset in Richmond Park, suggested that the pro-European party would do well at a general election.

The results were, by most measures, disappointing. Yes there were gains, with some of the party's bigger names returning - even as others departed. But the party went hard on one issue and it didn't land. And there were also unhelpful distractions.

With yet another election unlikely to be far away, the party is at an impasse. There was no election surge and the party has no resonating message. It now has no leader either.

Contenders

The next leader has to grasp these challenge quickly and get on top of them. There can be no room for looking inwards. When nominations close in a week's time, the contenders putting themselves forward must give the party moving forward.

At the outset, it seemed like there would be an a list of experienced contenders to debate just how to do that. The favourites included the experienced former ministers Norman Lamb, Ed Davey and Vince Cable.

But the strong favourite was Jo Swinson. Not only would she have have been the party's first female leader - an important statement in itself - the party would have had in Swinson a liberal feminist at the helm outspoken and capable.

The biggest difficulty barrier ahead of her candidacy, it had seemed, was her time as a minister in the Coalition. Yet her early Parliamentary career was so tangled up with Cabinet collective responsibility, that her voting could only really be seen as representative of the Coalition as a whole.

That gives Swinson, in her return to the Commons, something near to a fresh start. A chance to establish her own agenda and to define herself, and her party, anew.

However, despite being labelled the favourite (by a wide margin), Swinson chose not to stand. She was promptly elected Deputy Leader, however, so her voice will not be missed at the head of the party.

Her choice not to stand would become a trend. Soon after, Ed Davey and Norman Lamb both announced they would not stand either. With no challenger yet coming forward, Vince Cable is at present the only candidate to become the next leader.

Renewal

Over the years, the liberal parties in Britain have found themselves caught between two movements. The free marketers have been pulled rightward by the Conservatives and the social liberals have been pulled leftward by Labour.

And yet, the Liberal Democrats seemed to be making inroads as an alternative progressive party to Labour until the 2010 general election. In longstanding liberal tradition, the party announced it would respect pluralism and go into coalition with the party with most seats and most votes.

That decision, that led to Cameron and Clegg announcing the Coalition in the Rose Garden, ultimately proved wildly unpopular. It hangs over the party two years on. As the presumptive next leader, Vince Cable needs to address weaknesses like these.

To his credit, Cable has already taken steps to head off those concerns that more collaboration with the Tories awaits in the future. Cable described working with the Tories was like mating with a praying mantis - not something you're likely to survive twice.

It helps that the party has been clear that it won't be making any deals and in the election campaign, even Nick Clegg spoke of the need to work constructively with Labour in the aftermath to oppose the Tories - a clear sign that there is no going back.

The break from the past could bring with a fresh start on policy too. At the centre of the their 2017 campaign was the call for a second referendum. But it didn't really get traction. It was a policy that seemed to have missed a change in the public mood.

There is a growing sense that people have accepted that Brexit is going to happen and are focussing now on the future - a mood that makes the Lib Dems position seem nostalgic, or even conservative.

There is, perhaps, a need to draw a line under staying in - following what might be considered two defeats - and to realign thinking toward the future. Not to stop being pro-Europe or even pro-Remain, but to think about what these mean going forward rather than trying to undo the past. Three points to consider would be:

• to scrutinise and campaign for the least damaging Brexit,
• to support the right for individuals to retain their EU citizenship,
• and, to start talking about pathways back to European cooperation in the future.

The key is to start taking the initiative and look forwards, not backwards. To get back to basics, like questions of individual's rights. That idea doesn't just extend to policy on Europe.

Perception

At the heart of being forward-looking in developing policy and taking stances is public perception. For smaller parties it is a difficult, and sometimes perilous, tightrope to walk. But at it's heart, there are practical limitations these parties face and they must tailor their message to that reality.

When he resigned, Tim Farron drew a link between his decision and questions that arose in the election campaign suggesting a conflict between faith and politics. Farron portrayed the conflict as only the perception of an intolerant illiberal secularism.

Now, it certainly isn't incompatible for someone to be personally conservative and yet politically liberal, open and tolerant of others, and respecting their right to live their own lives.

But it is a hard stance to hold as the leader, as the figurehead, of a liberal movement. When asked to assuage doubts about his stance on LGBT and abortion rights, Farron failed to offer reassurance - focusing instead on himself.

Politics is a game played in soundbites and shorthands. The grand rhetoric and inspiring thought absolutely matters, so very much, but it isn't the gateway - the access point. Image and perceptions matter.

For the smaller third parties - for whom taking symbolic stands are one the few opportunities they get to show the public who they are - the leadership has to be a beacon of the values of that party, without equivocation.

The Coalition interfered with the Liberal Democrats' ability to make themselves distinct. The comedown from the personality politics that grew up around Nick Clegg has tarnished their image, along with the links to the Tories.

The party's long held commitments to plurality, to compromise, to democratic cooperation and serving the national interest above the party interests are all worthy. But little of it ever makes it to the public eye and is rarely interpreted as intended.

The party also seems to have struggled to establish what it is for, pitching a stance of 'equidistance' under Clegg that didn't really change under Farron. While there is nothing wrong with Centrism, it shouldn't be confused with just splitting the difference.

As a small party, the Lib Dems can't afford those confusions. It needs a clear message. For a good example, consider the party's 1997 manifesto. It called for active government that would strengthen liberty, promote prosperity and widen opportunity. There is what liberalism is supposed to stand for, summarised in three words: Liberty - Prosperity - Opportunity. Hopeful words that focus on the future, not just management of the mediocre present.

Foundation

The 2017 general election established a Liberal Democrat baseline and perhaps new foundations. Even with just a dozen MPs, the party still have the ability to put forward a capable frontbench team, with recognisable names associated with positive progressive campaigns.

From Vince Cable, with a long history as a treasury spokesperson and minister, and an economics expert; to Ed Davey, who was minister for energy and the environment; to Norman Lamb, who was a minister in the Department of Health, is an outspoken advocate of parity of esteem for mental health and now also chair of the Science and Technology select committee; there are strong credentials. In addition, both the returning Jo Swinson and the brand new Layla Moran are MPs who look like future party leaders.

There Lib Dems survived their mistakes and have decent foundations to build upon. But there are decisions to be made if the party wants to make it back from the brink - for the second time in it's history. But do so, the party needs to be much more self-aware and it needs to be clear.

There is still a place for liberalism under a broader progressive banner, but it has to commit. Even standing as centrist, with its cherished value of inclusivity, can be progressive. But the centre is not to be found halfway between Labour and the Tories.

Vince Cable, increasingly likely to be the next leader, has made positive steps in that direction. He has affirmed the "no deals" stance, with particular venom towards the Tories, supported the Compass campaign for a Progressive Alliance over the past few years and received cross-party backing in his own seat of Twickenham.

The last liberal recovery was founded in localism, campaigning and standing as a progressive party. The 2017 manifesto showed that the core of those ideas remains unchanged. What the party have lost their identity. It must be the new leader's priority to get it back.

Opposition is Back: Progressives must consider each opportunity with care - do they want to defeat the Government or make policy into a reality?

In our preview for the election, we stated the modest goal for progressives of winning enough seats to mount an effective opposition. Last week confirmed that goal had been achieved.

The Government managed to pass it's Queen's Speech, though barely and with no room for dissension. But it was also forced to back down, or face defeat, on a key backbench amendment.

Theresa May's ministry also U-turned several times over it's enforcement of the public sector pay cap, eventually voting against lifting it. But that question is rumbling on.

Meanwhile, Stella Creasy's amendment to secure free at the point of use access to abortion for women from Northern Ireland using services in England, scored a definitive success.

In exchange for Creasy withdrawing the amendment, allowing the Government to avoid being voted down, the Government announced that it would support and implement the policy change.

Opposition is back and Parliament, and it's backbench MPs, now have real power to influence and even change Government policy. The question is: how to use that influence?

At the 2017 election, Jeremy Corbyn led Labour to a result far better than anyone dared to hope. He and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have used their surge in public support to put their agenda front and centre.

But opposition cannot be all about Corbyn. Contrast the way the Government narrowly avoided defeat on Corbyn's public sector pay amendment, and the success of Stella Creasy's efforts from the backbenches and with across the floor support.

Corbyn has undoubtedly set the political weather with the public sector pay issue - and the government's positions is crumbling around them as these words are typed - but a more emphatic policy win might have been possible.

On the day, the Conservatives wavered. There where hints and announcements that the Government had changed it's stance on the pay cap - a clear sign of sensing defeat and laying the ground to avoid damaging dissension in their own ranks.

But they later squashed claims of a turn about. The U-turn was cancelled. The Government had, perhaps, overestimated internal opposition, or had found a way to private soothe concerns.

One obstacle to Conservative dissenters voting for the amendment may have been it's content. It condemned cuts to emergency services, committed to more recruitment and pay rises, in addition to ending the pay cap.

This dynamic is going to be a feature of this Parliament. In it's wording, the Corbyn amendment was a direct condemnation of Government policy, that if passed would have severely weakened it's position.

On the other hand, the Creasy amendment focused very closely on policy and the ethical dimensions. It was an amendment designed to pass, rather than to defeat the government.

As this Parliament goes forward, those along the Opposition benches will have to think carefully on how they fight each battle. There are chances ahead for big progressive wins on policy.

Consider the Umunna amendment. It sought to place a lot of restrictions on the Government over Brexit - against both the broader Labour position and perhaps even the public mood.

Judging the mood will also need careful attention. On Brexit, there seems to be a sense of acceptance, not necessarily happy, and people are now just looking to salvage what they can - for instance, a way to retain EU citizenship as individuals.

Chuka Umunna misjudged the stances of MPs, or their sense of the feeling out in the country, and simply divided Labour at a moment when momentum was in their favour. This kind of misjudgement needs to be minimised. Progressives have they will stand and vote together. Careful decision need to be made over how to use that newfound power.

The Tories are now on a narrow ledge and they're wobbling. As Labour's internal contradictions were exposed when they lost power, so too now is the Tories mask slipping. The different factions - moderates, reactionaries and opportunists - are casting around for someone to blame.

The opposition must press where there are cracks. The public sector pay cap continues to cause tremors, but it won't be the only issue. Human Rights has also been a divisive issue for the Conservatives and it's defence a point of unity on the progressive benches.

The Government has a slim numerical advantage, propped up by a deal that moderate Conservative backbenchers are very uncomfortable with. There is a chance to do some good. If the opposition want to make policy, all they need to do is make it as easy as possible for those backbenchers to rebel.

That makes the choice ahead strategic: do you find allies were they're available to achieve policy gains for the common good now, or play to weaken and topple the Government in the long run? Opposition is back and it is empowered.

Manchester Pride is a symbol of the campaign for individual liberty that is only sustainable with greater economic equality

Manchester Pride has grown to be a bright and gleeful reminder of the advances made in the struggle for the freedom of identity. The Pride parade has become a city-wide carnival celebration of the acceptance of difference (BBC, 2015).

Yet the liberty that the parade lauds is a fragile thing. It can only survive so long as the society around it is willing to support the capacity of its citizens to exercise that freedom. In the long run, that means support for more than free association. It means supporting the economic equalities and opportunities that makes the so-called 'luxury' of choice a realistic possibility.

The present political era has been described as a 'liberal age' (Payne, 2015). With the general paucity of success for liberal political parties, that might seem to be a bit of a grand statement. Yet it reflects the astounding success of social liberalism in society.

The liberties of the individual have been widely accepted - as Manchester Pride shows. When Ireland embraced equal marriage, in an emphatic plebiscite that was signed into law on Saturday (The Irish Times, 2015), it left only Italy as a hold out for the old ways in Western Europe (Kirchgaessner, 2015).

Yet, as touched upon in Nick Clegg's resignation speech, the advance of these freedoms is fragile in the face of 'fear and grievance' (Lindsay, 2015). These strong emotions follow an historical pattern, with tough times, caused by an economic crisis, leading to fraught social disputes and hearts turning inwards towards tribalism - just when a broader social solidarity is called for.

In the age of austerity, these problems are exacerbated by the inequalities that the austerian system promotes. Concentrations of wealth (Piketty, 2013; Naidu, 2014), the strains of globalised competition and the slashing of social security only reinforce these fears and tribalism (Rivera, 2014; Washington, 2013).

Few organisations epitomise this modern struggle and contradiction so fully as the European Union. It champions social liberalism, supporting the liberation of the individual from the ideological chains of the state, even as it is itself used by nationally conservative parties as a vehicle for the fiscally conservative policies of austerity.

On the one hand, in Italy there is pressure from European institutions for the country to meet the basic rights of its citizens over issues of identity and gender - against pretty stern resistance in places like Venice (The Guardian, 2015). Yet on the other hand, Greece has been struggling under heavy fiscal pressure applied by the European 'Troika' (Fazi, 2015) - largely against the democratic voice of Greek citizens (Monbiot, 2015).

The trouble for this liberal age is that it's happening side-by-side with an age of conservative economics - and all of the success won by social liberalism is under threat from it. Without strong social security safety nets, with people burdened by servitude as a way of life, they have little time to find, let alone make the most of, opportunities - and that takes away their capacity to make choices for themselves.

The Manchester Pride parade, with its lights, music and colour cheered on by the citizenry, is the symbol of a modern, progressive society - and a social solidarity stretching beyond simple tribalism. The spirit of solidarity symbolised by the Pride festival - even with it's imperfections (Amelia, 2015) - is needed now in the struggle against a conservative economic supremacy that, by taking away the social security, threatens the freedoms of all citizens.