Appointing @johndavidblake is extremely good news - as is the new focus announced by @michelledonelan today on degree apprenticeships and proceed rates, echoing recent @CPSThinkTank research (1/?)
We argued that we need to make sure pupils get on to good jobs from university rather than just getting in - the 'proceed rates' on some courses are indefensible. (See chart.)
Also clear that ethnic minority and working-class students are more likely to end up on worse courses (dark blue bar is % at Russell Group or similar) - and that returns from degree apprenticeships/best technical education can be v v high
More generally though @johndavidblake is just a very good appointment to a very important job. Congratulations to him and @michelledonelan.
(And yes the 2.6% on the chart should be 26%, we're getting it fixed.)
A couple of interesting/encouraging stats from @ONS today. Firstly, youth employment has held up strongly during the pandemic - a huge relief given what a concern it was. A rise in economic inactivity to keep an eye on but generally positive...
Second, despite large no of vacancies only 14% of firms are reporting staff shortages - maybe because a lot of job swapping going on? However shortages are more acute in food/hospitality and care sectors
In less good news, confirmation of how the economy was hit in Q1 by second lockdown - in fact it's surprising the hit wasn't greater...
Today would have been my wife's birthday, which made it all more surprising/utterly unexpected for this to happen last night during what I thought would be a speech to @CPSThinkTank about free trade (and, as it turned out, Peppa Pig as an exemplar thereof) (1/?)
Any praise should go to @MedResFdn and the vitally necessary, world-class research they support - which you can donate to here. But I also want to talk about @PointsofLight, which I had no idea about justgiving.com/fundraising/an…
This daily award was started by George HW Bush, and brought to the UK by @David_Cameron. As @BorisJohnson says, every day the PM awards this prize (and sends a letter) to someone who has done good work in their community. They're now up to 1,795.
There’s still time to join us at the Guildhall for #mtc21 but if you can’t make it you can watch on YouTube across the day, starting with @annietrev’s opening keynote on Britain’s new trade strategy. I’ll be tweeting the highlights…
.@annietrev pays tribute to Thatcher’s optimism, dynamism and clarity of purpose in liberalising trade - and says we need to set out how we will do the same
Citing her previous job in energy, argues that green innovation can deliver £170bn in exports by 2030
This may be the least popular argument you can make on Twitter, but as I argue in my @thesundaytimes column, we need to wean ourselves off the culture of catastrophe (1/?) thetimes.co.uk/article/ill-pr…
.@_HannahRitchie recently wrote an excellent piece pointing out that 50%+ of young people agree that 'the world is doomed' due to climate change - a conviction shared by approx 0% of serious scientists.
On sleaze/corruption, I've been pelted here for suggesting the Tories aren't irredeemably corrupt. But on second jobs, the numbers involved are far smaller than expenses - even if you assume that absolutely none of these jobs are legitimate, which is clearly nonsense.
Generally though we do seem like a bunch of softies. 'Occupation' further down, 'material well-being' not in the top five. We're also among those really keen on nature...
First panel: Lord Mandelson, Crawford Falconer, Susan Schwab, @ShankerASingham, Creon Butler. Such a concentration of trade expertise the stage may implode.