McCluskey clarifies Olympics 'strike' call but warns of fight against cuts

"Britain today is two countries. It is the nation which will welcome the world to a magnificent Olympic Games. And it is also a country with a greedy corporate elite and a government assaulting everything it took generations of working people to build. A country of lengthening dole queues, with more than a million young people jobless – another 'forgotten generation'"

Len McCluskey, General Secretary, Unite

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/07/mccluskey-clarifies-olympics-strike-call

Two such very bad men...

Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair and me | Media | The Guardian:

Monday 17 March 1997

The chief whip, Donald Dewar, took me aside. "Have you heard about tomorrow's Sun?"

"No."

"Murdoch is coming out for us. I know you've got strong views on the subject, some of which I share, but I'd be grateful if you could refrain from commenting."

I agreed – until 2 May.

Tuesday 18 March 1997

Sure enough today's Sun is covered in "We back Blair". Inside there are two pages of justification. Every word reeks of cynicism. If we had the guts, we should keep quiet until 1 May and strike with deadly force in the first week. We won't though. We haven't neutralised Murdoch. He's neutralised us.

Extracts in Guardian from the latest volume of his diaries, former MP Chris Mullin recalls how New Labour failed to curb the power of News International's 'Sun King'

BBC Money Box spills the beans: rich will get richer and the rest will get stuffed

BBC News - Will the 2010s be a 'lost decade'?: Money Box presenter Ruth Alexander uncovers an interesting fact about the post-crash economy - we're not actually all in this together...

Annual wage growth will be slow in the first half of the coming decade and will then pick up to 3% in the latter years, according to John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

"That would take the median wage in 2020 to around £34,000," he believes. "People would be a bit better off in real terms, although not as well off as they were in the 2000s."

But he adds the caveat that "during this period to 2020, we're also [likely to see] an increase in the tax burden".

And, as he points out, averages can hide some hard truths. People in the top ten per cent of earners will see their wages grow more than those on lower incomes.

"At the lower end of the pay distribution, it's possible that people not only won't be any better off in real terms by 2020, but could actually be worse off."

...and the actual broadcast is on iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b013f6qg for the next few days...