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Have you noticed your pint going up in price recently? Firstly there was the VAT rise in January, which saw an extra 6p added to the price of a pint and then at the end of March, the 7.2% increase in alcohol duty added on another 4p. I know beer [...]

Last Monday morning I went along to construction company Barclay Brothers on Nags Head Road to present awards to two apprentices, Scott Lewis and Charlie Connell. Both the apprentices are studying at Hertford Regional College while working alongside six other Enfield apprentices at Barclay Bros. The Construction Awards Alliance [...]

Conclusions of  24/25 March 2011 EU summit included the following:     2. Within the new framework of the European semester, the European Council endorsed the priorities for fiscal consolidation and structural reform. priority to restoring sound budgets and fiscal sustainability, reducing unemployment through labour market reforms and making new efforts to enhance growth. All Member States [...]

Yesterday, I doubt it will have escaped your notice, was the Budget. Despite Labour's wishes and the country's needs, it was a no growth Budget. The Chancellor claimed he delivered a Budget for growth while at the same time downgrading the growth forecast. And even though families are enduring deeply [...]

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, will be running the latest seminar in the series of her 'Next Generation' business seminars. Begun last year in collaboration with City College and Howes Percival LLP, these meetings bring together Norwich students, entrepreneurs and established local firms to discuss the skills and business [...]

As is usually the case, this is a very political Budget.   It will change the economic future of this country hardly at all.   The purpose of this Budget is camouflage to distract attention from the Great Axe that is about to fall within the next two weeks and to give [...]

Tomorrow is Budget day. With the economic recovery stalled and unemployment levels at a 17 year high, the country is already approaching rock bottom and the fears are that announcements in the Budget are going to make things even worse, not better. What we need is a Budget [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the...

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the UK. UK unemployment rose by 27,000 in the three months to the end of January to 2.53 million, the highest since 1994. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the jobless rate was now [...]

Today the most recent unemployment figures were published. Unemployment has risen again and has now hit a 17 year high. The unemployment rate is currently at 8% - that's a staggering 2.53 million people without jobs. For young people the picture is far worse. The unemployment rate for those aged [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson has responded to today’s rise in unemployment by calling on the Government to...

Delyn MP David Hanson has responded to today’s rise in unemployment by calling on the Government to change course and reinstate employment support to get people off benefits and help grow our economy. David Hanson said: “Today’s job figures are extremely disappointing and show that the Government is getting it [...]

Today the latest unemployment figures were published. Once again, unemployment has risen. In Edmonton there are well over 4,000 people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance. This equates to over 17 claimants for every job vacancy.Of the total unemployed in Edmonton, over 1,000 of them are 16-24 year-olds. Young people who don't have [...]

I couldn't help but intervene in yesterday's heated, impromptu House of Commons session on banking with the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.Shortly after the Chancellor had announced his wishy-washy bank deal, including a half-hearted attempt at restraining the bonus culture which will still see the best part of £6 [...]

This week it's National Apprenticeships Week 2011 - an initiative, which began in 2008, that I am usually pleased to give publicity to because it highlights the additional work-based training opportunities that are on offer to our local young people. That was when there was a Labour Government though [...]

When the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was given control over setting interest rates back in 1997, most pundits cheered. I wonder if it still seems quite such a wise move?In the decade that followed, the MPC set interest rates far too low, for far too long. [...]

Sadly, I think debt is going to feature more heavily in our local community this year as unemployment worsens, the VAT increase pushes the cost of living up, and important benefits and resources are cut. I have some interesting figures which I will write about when I get a minute, [...]

                   A government trying to manage an economy is rather like a child trying to play that game of placing a number of small ball bearings into a series of slots on an  enclosed board. The game proceeds by nudging or shaking the board in different directiosn to try to tempt [...]

Yesterday, the Tory/LibDem Government put the nail in the coffin of the Education Maintenance Allowance. The vital £10-£30-a-week allowance, allowing 16-18 year-olds from low income families to pay for the associated costs of continuing with their education, had already been written off by the Coalition, but Labour had called for [...]

The combination of the 49,000 rise in unemployment to over 2.5 million, plus the biggest monthly rise in inflation on record to 3.7%, is explosive.   Two factors make this even more disturbing.   One is that this unprecedented hike in inflation, 0.4% in a single month, comes before the impact of [...]

Not a Happy New Year for Osborne – a steady trickle of bad economic news is beginning to test even quicker than expected whether his strategy can survive, even before the big ticket cuts kick in.   Even before VAT at 20% goes live at midnight tonight, costing an extra £389 a [...]

           I was no fan of the Irish bail out. I thought it would be bad for Ireland as well as for the rest of the EU. So far the markets have come to the same judgement.          Last week Irish debt suffered a hefty downgrade to baa1 – a long [...]