"Bright Blue and its contributors have been tireless in bringing forward new ideas and fresh thinking to the conservative cause."
The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP
Centre Write
Friday, 11 March 2016 10:56
Frances O'Grady: The future of trade unions
Frances O’Grady on the place of trade unions in the modern world. In my job, I am privileged to meet workers from all over the country. One of the workers whose story has stayed with me is Daisy, who worked in a cinema in south London. Daisy and her colleagues just weren’t paid enough to live on – but by banding together as a union, they were able to get a 23% pay rise. Daisy isn’t the media’s stereotype of…
Thursday, 03 March 2016 11:58
Wingham Rowan: The Great Fragmentation - challenges for the on-demand economy
Wingham Rowan asks if it is time for a full-spectrum employment policy We seem to be witnessing the start of a ‘Great Fragmentation’ in developed economies. Supply and demand across all sorts of sectors is breaking down into smaller units. Householders renting their sofas on occasional nights pushed AirBnB to the world’s fifth biggest hotelier six years after launch. Taskrabbit workers drop everything when booked for a half hour’s courier work that would previously have gone to a company rostering…
Wednesday, 02 March 2016 10:48
David Kirkby: How Help to Buy is boosting housing supply
For decades, Britain has not built enough houses. Today, housing completions lie well short of the number required to stabilise the market, despite a strong economy. This lack of supply is widely diagnosed, but solutions are trickier. Interestingly, recent research has indicated that an existing government policy, Help to Buy, is having a strong positive effect upon supply. Help to Buy makes up to 20% of the cost of a newly built home available to first time buyers as an…
Thursday, 25 February 2016 11:42
David Kirkby: Who are the self-employed on low income?
In 1942, the architect of the welfare state, Sir William Beveridge, characterised the self-employed as “small shopkeepers, crofters, fishermen, hawkers, outworkers”. Suffice to say that times change and with the number of people self-employed burgeoning – up to 4.62 million and 15% of the UK’s workforce – understanding the characteristics of this group vital. Earlier this week, Bright Blue published its report Standing alone? which focuses on self-employed individuals who are in low income households - households with income below…
Monday, 22 February 2016 14:39
Matt Browne: Tories can campaign for Remain on principle, as well as pragmatism
As the referendum debate rages on, Conservatives can make an argument to remain in the EU based not on fear for the consequences of Brexit, but on a passionate attachment to the principles at the heart of the Union - conservative principles. The tie-up between British conservatism and the dream of a European community of nations was widely recognised for much of the twentieth century. Speaking in 1975 Margaret Thatcher looked back to Disraeli's aspirations for trans-European diplomacy to argue…
Thursday, 18 February 2016 17:00
Professor Margaret Levi: Letter from America - A future like the past
Professor Margaret Levi on a familiar story of job creation “All along the shore, come in.” This was the call to the men sleeping rough on the beach and keen for work on the docks. The films On the Waterfront and Cinderella Man capture the indignity of this employment process. This was the 1920s and 1930s, and those who later formed the longshore unions began as casual labour, treated with indifference, disrespect, and greed by their temporary employers. It is…
Wednesday, 17 February 2016 17:05
Benedict Dellot: Who would want to be self-employed?
Benedict Dellot on how government can help those who go it alone Take the wages. People who strike out on their own earn a third less than someone in a typical job. They are also half as likely to contribute to a private pension, and considerably less likely to engage in regular training. This is not to mention the myriad personal pressures: isolation, a lack of affirmation and an abiding sense of precariousness. Why, then, do the ranks of the…
Wednesday, 17 February 2016 16:39
Sajid Javid: Giving vocational education the respect it deserves
The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP says that vocational education is the key to social mobility I grew up on Stapleton Road in Bristol, which a tabloid once dubbed “Britain’s most dangerous street” and “a moral cesspit”. Sure, it wasn’t exactly salubrious, but the people I knew around there weren’t bad, or lazy, or stupid. More often than not, they just lacked the opportunities that many take for granted. And when my school careers advisor said I should set my…
Wednesday, 17 February 2016 16:26
Bim Afolami: The role of finance in the economy of the future
Bim Afolami on the changing nature of finance in the digital economy What did the financial crisis demonstrate about modern, big and globalised finance? Although we appreciate that the answer as to who ‘caused’ the financial crisis is complex, the crisis has shown that much recent financial innovation has failed to create (or even enhance) enough economic value in the real economy. In the future, the key question is: how should finance help serve the new economy and correspondingly re-legitimise…
Wednesday, 17 February 2016 12:06
Rakib Ehsan: Tories should tackle discrimination to win over British Indians
The 2015 General Election saw the Conservatives receive one million ethnic minority votes for the first time in its electoral history – largely at the expense of Labour. A post-election survey by British Future showed that the Tories supposedly now enjoy an electoral advantage within Britain’s Hindu and Sikh communities by a margin of 8% over Labour (49% / 41% in both cases). This sharply contrasts with the 2010 election figures, where according to a 2014 report produced by think-tank…
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