Right-wing think tank Institute of Economic Affairs warns its readers that voting reform will make it harder for “radical free-market economic reforms”, such as slashing social benefits, to happen.

Such reforms, they argue, will only ever be supported by a minority of people, and under a preferential voting system it would have been harder for someone like Thatcher to get elected:

AV is not a good way to elect Members of Parliament who will support radical free-market economic reforms. Why is this? In the United Kingdom today almost 50% of the population rely on the government for a sizeable portion of their income, and even more receive some money in the form of tax credits or old-age support.

In the most recent General Election, the British Conservatives (not exactly running on the most radical free-market platform) polled 36% of the vote. Just over a third of British voters were willing to give their “primary vote” for a party willing to cut the deficit quickly and enact the beginnings of free-market school reform.

Any party that wishes to become government under AV will be elected on the second, third or fourth preferences of those parties who finish lower down the ballot paper. If a large proportion of the population receive money from the system, then it is difficult to imagine them placing their second preferences for a party that will withdraw social benefits, ahead of one that pledges to retain them. To put it another way, a lot of those on the left would give their preference to a social democrat candidate, but few on the right would give theirs to a free marketeer.

Market liberals need to remember that Thatcher won 42% of the vote in 1983 – and it is highly unlikely she would have gained a lot of second preferences. Changing the voting system may be good for other reasons, but it makes a government that will be willing to enact radical free-market reform less likely.

Ed Balls writes for Labour List:

We need to show why our ideas will help meet the challenges of the next decade rather than the last one, and will help us win back the voters we lost. And housing, an issue too often neglected, goes to the heart of these challenges.

For a start, housing exemplifies the economic alternative we need right now, and exposes the myth that cuts can somehow produce jobs and growth. For every pound spent on house building an estimated £1.40 in gross output is generated across the economy. Every two homes built create an estimated three full time jobs plus up to four times that number in the supply chain.

…

The public finances are around £12 billion healthier than forecast at the time of the Budget. The coalition wants to use that extra money to pay down the deficit faster. I think that at a time when the economy is still so fragile and other countries are already tipping back into recession, we should instead use that money to boost construction jobs and build new homes.

By using half of that £12 billion, a £6 billion investment this year and next, we could build 100,000 extra affordable homes which it’s been estimated would create up to 750,000 new jobs, directly in the construction industry and indirectly in the supply chain including thousands of apprenticeships for young people.

Ambitious and very welcome. Read the whole article here.

At least one in 10 people will be unemployed in half of UK regions by 2015, an economic think tank has forecast.

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the unemployment rate will exceed 10% in Wales and the North of England.

The CEBR blamed expected huge cuts to public sector jobs.

London and the South of England are expected to escape the worst of the job losses, however.

The report warns unemployment could reach as high as 11% in Wales and the North East of England – both regions where many people are dependent on the public sector for work.

However the researchers predict south east and south west England will see jobless rates peak at 7% and 8% respectively.

…more at the BBC