What if care work were recognised as a driver of sustainable growth?

 The intriguing headline to a briefing from the European Parliament Research Service. It would certainly make a difference to UK's GDP ranking if applied.

[Written by Meenakshi Fernandes and Cecilia Navarra].

Care work provided in homes and institutions is a public good that is under-valued by society. Care workers are more likely to have low earnings and precarious working conditions. About 9 in 10 care workers are women.

Most unpaid care work within households is carried out by women. The ‘unpaid care penalty’ for women in the EU, which is equivalent to the earnings they lost because of this unbalanced distribution of care responsibilities, is estimated to reach €242 billion per year.

EU action in the care sector has the potential for high returns for society. Fostering the ‘equal earner – equal carer model’ could generate benefits of between €24 billion and €48 billion a year. EU action to promote affordable, high-quality care could produce an additional €90 billion to €160 billion in benefits each year.

The Plaza preserved

 No longer a cinema, but a multi-purpose facility run by the YMCA, the Port Talbot Plaza has at least had its striking art deco shell restored. I can hardly wait to view the restoration in person, but until then the media releases by Neath Port Talbot council will have to suffice. The scheme was started by the previous Labour administration, but full marks to the coalition for seeing it through to fruition, when it would have been so easy in this era of tribal politics to scrap it.

The state of the façade in 2018

A minority of a minority elects our next PM

 As has frequently been pointed out by Peter Black, an unrepresentative section of the British population has been able to vote on who becomes Her Majesty's first minister. How small that section is was revealed at today's media conference mounted by the Conservative party. Against speculation that party membership could be as high as 200,000, Sir Graham Brady announced that there were just over 172,000 members eligible to vote. Of them, Ms Truss obtained the confidence of just over 80,000. The defeated candidate, Rishi Sunak, convinced over 60,000 that he would be a more responsible leader, There were 654 spoiled ballots; one can only speculate what message they conveyed. 

Sunak has already stated that he would not serve in a Truss cabinet. It was Sunak who garnered the majority of MPs' votes in the short-listing process. Given the split in the membership vote, it may be difficult for Truss to win over Sunak supporters. A period of creative conflict in the Commons, stretching the Conservative tradition of party loyalty, may well ensue.

Of course, Truss could well pull a uey as she has done so often previously. Having made promises solely to convince the predominantly reactionary Conservative constituency, as PM she may say that the books were unexpectedly bad and that she may have to postpone some of her tax cuts. She will probably go ahead with the cancellation of the rise in national insurance, which helps her wider natural constituency, but there is otherwise no incentive for her to help the working poor. I hope I am wrong, but she will probably go ahead with one of her consistent ideas: removing carbon taxes, rather than targeting them more precisely.

Coming just after a TV report from Somalia on the famine brought on by unprecedented years of drought, it was dispiriting that there was no mention of global warming by our soon-to-be prime minister. Indeed, it was remarkable that someone who still holds the portfolio of foreign minister should make virtually no reference to affairs outside Britain. It really does look as if it will be the Johnson continuation ministry, just as John Major continued the Thatcher project.

Rail progressives' conference cancelled - because of rail strike

 Clearly there are no Railfuture (Rf) members among the higher echelons of the rail unions - and there should be. Railfuture has announced:

"A rail strike involving train drivers and signallers has been called for the day of the conference (15 September). Because some of the organisers, speakers and those who had booked were relying upon the train, Railfuture has reluctantly decided to postpone the event until March or April 2023, when hopefully industrial action will have ended.[...]

"How ironic that Rf’s Annual Conference in Leeds on 15 September on the Turning Point for the Railway has had to be postponed until March or April next year due to industrial action, as any turn will be for the worse. The unions think they have the Government over a barrel, but the barrel is in danger of going over Niagara Falls, with any gains in the short-term funded by cancelling long-term projects."

A rare sight

 

Mick Bates remembered

 The factual biography is here, but it doesn't really say what the man was about. I am grateful to Gavin Cox, for letting me copy a more vivid picture first posted on Facebook

Let's face it, Mick Bates was a crap politician. He had no time for tradition nor process. Mick was the ultimate in unconvention. To Mick, party politics got in the way of progress. There was nothing he hated more than spending 3 days in Cardiff committees or the debate chamber. This was valuable time lost to the real people who had real issues. He'd dismay at politicians toeing the party line. He despised tribal politics and spoke out for the need for more consensus and grown up thinking.

Yet he also held a very genuine concern should Montgomeryshire fall into opposition hands. Should this happen, all the progress, everything we've worked for over the years will be lost, he would say. 'These Tories don't care for people, they care for nothing but money and power for themselves". How prophetic he was. Still, he shouldered the blame when the Severn Valley flooded, or when there was a drought. He was happy to be blamed for snow or when autumn gusts uprooted trees. And did he laugh!

This crap politician led the campaign that saw free school milk reintroduced to Welsh school kids, giving the Welsh dairy industry a much-needed boost and doing his bit to halt growth and learning deficiencies in the youngest and poorest of kids. This crap politician set the agenda for sustainable and renewable energy growth across Wales. This crap politician was at pains to speak out, alongside the National Farmers Union and Farmers Union of Wales, how Welsh agriculture needed the EU markets but that the EU needed reform, not abandoning. He longed for that Thursday 3hr drive northwards on the A470 to be home with Buddug, Ruth and Daniel and have the chance to sort out Mr Edwards' Tir Gofal payments, or see Mrs Brown who needs a disabled parking space outside her home, or to simply spend time in hills of the countryside of Llanfair Caereinion but he always had to be at The Smithfield market on a Monday morning. That's where Mick was most at home.

Mick was not so much a boss than a partner and a leader. I was once his wingman, his straight man. I helped put organisation to the disorganisation; to build a plan to match Mick's vision; to get him to slow down to at least 100mph so everyone else could catch up and attempt understanding. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't challenging. I remember turning up one particular morning of media briefings, live TV studio hopping and radio broadcasts wearing my new sharply pressed tailored suit eager to impress on a big public facing exercise. Mick gave me a look of disgust, "Blimmin' heck Gav, don't turn into a grey person. Be normal! If anyone tells you what to wear never ever listen to them. Don't ever let anyone tell you what to do!".

We got on because we were both non-conformists, we'd question stuff rather than accept at face value and we'd spot a bullshitter a mile off (and we met a few!) and we'd out bullshit them and then we would laugh some more. I'd like to think he saw a little bit of himself in me.

The stories I have to tell are legendary. One began in a lift of either a Brighton or Bournemouth conference hotel as we were on our way to dinner. Mick held the lift and gave me one of his pointy fingers to the chest talks with a half cocked smile, that made one sense it might be serious or it may just be a laugh. "Whatever you do Gav make sure I don't get pissed because when I get pissed I get properly pissed." Ok Mick.. thinking how do I stop this 6ft wide rugby prop from drinking and live to tell the tale? The night ended with Mick stood on a table in the conference bar, his tie tied tight around his forehead, reciting poetry of a derogatory but hilarious nature about the then president of the Liberal Democrats as I sat with my head in my hands not knowing what to do or where to look. The term 'force of nature' has been used previously to describe visionary folk who have achieved change with breathless energy. On this occasion I feel it suits the giant of a man that was Mick Bates. A Leicestershire boy who became a wily mid Wales farmer and community leader and remained Bob Dylan's #1 fan and I am so happy that I got to visit him on his farm and have a good chat and catch up while I was back in the UK. And this is one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. God bless you Mick.

We have power to spare, but cannot export it

 Wales has plenty of potential renewable energy capacity, both off-shore and on-shore wind, and even solar electricity generation. However, as NFU Cymru complain, connecting it to the National Grid is not possible at present.

Garry Williams, a sheep and beef farmer on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, said: "We've got 3.9kw of solar panels on site at the moment. We're looking at the possibility of expanding the renewable energy production as a form of diversification.

"But we've got a major problem, and the problem is there isn't the capacity in the National Grid to take the electric produced down the line."

According to NFU Cymru's president, Aled Jones, the lack of capacity on the electricity network is a major barrier for farmers wanting to produce clean energy.

He said: "A lot of members who've been trying to get into diversification projects and renewable energy have found themselves unable to get grid connection because the availability in the grid was insufficient.

Elon Musk states the obvious

 Stavanger clearly provided the most friendly audience anywhere in the world. Norway's economy has been buoyed by oil and gas, but is also moving towards renewables. There are probably more Tesla cars on the streets of Oslo than in any other capital city.

Before plugging his company's future projects,

Musk said the world must continue to extract oil and gas in order to sustain civilisation, while also developing sustainable sources of energy.

"Realistically I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilisation will crumble," Musk told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

Asked if Norway should continue to drill for oil and gas, Musk said: "I think some additional exploration is warranted at this time."

"One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy," he said. "That will take some decades to complete."

He said offshore wind power generation in the North Sea, combined with stationary battery packs, could become a key source of energy. "It could provide a strong, sustainable energy source in winter," he said.