Campaigning in Cardiff to Keep the Post Public

As part of my tour of Wales I’ve been in Cardiff today campaigning again with CWU members and local MP Kevin Brennan to Keep the Post Public.

There’s a lot of concern among CWU members, pensioners and other shoppers we met today about what the Tory-Lib Dem coalition is planning to do with the Royal Mail – and many people signed up to our campaign.

I believe we must keep the Post Office universal and in the public sector – as Labour promised in our manifesto. It’s also a trusted source of financial products and services so we should transform the Post Office into a ‘People’s Bank’. There are big challenges ahead, but Royal Mail and the CWU have made massive strides to agree tough modernisation plans.

‘We should build our way to economic recovery’, says Ed Balls on construction order figures

Responding to ONS figures today showing a sharp fall in construction orders, Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls said:

“These figures show why the new government is so short-sighted to cancel over 700 new school buildings and put thousands of jobs in the construction sector at risk.

“Now is the time to build our way to economic recovery by boosting jobs and growth, not cancelling contracts at the expense of tens of thousands of private sector jobs.

Ed Balls calls for new ‘right to work’ with jobs plan to boost economy

Ed Balls will today put jobs at the centre of his Labour leadership campaign as he sets out a radical plan to ensure everyone of working age has the right to a job and the responsibility and requirement to take it.

Ed is calling for a new guarantee to ensure that anyone unemployed for more than 18 months is given a job or work placement – an extension of Labour’s successful Future Jobs Fund and Young Persons Guarantee.