Labour analysis of Government figures shows:

· London and the South-East have accounted for almost half of all
net jobs created in the UK since 2010, despite accounting for only a quarter of
the population

·

The rest of the country has lagged behind with just one net job
in 200 created in the North East under the Conservatives.

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy, commenting, said:

“New figures show that seven years of failure under the
Conservatives is holding most of this country back. Boasts about job creation
will ring hollow when there are few jobs being created across most of the
country and even then too many are poorly paid and insecure.

“The reality of Conservative failure is that with investment
falling and real wages still lower than before the crash, but chief executive
pay up 24% to over £5m since 2010, it’s the wealthy elite who are winning out
in the Tories’ rigged economy. 

“Only Labour has the ambition needed to deliver investment
across the whole country and create decent, well-paid jobs so that people in
every part of our country can live richer lives.”

Labour
analysis, using House of Common’s Library endorsed modelling, shows that:

Average real earnings are set to
fall by £1,200 as a result of rising inflation and lower wage growth

At the
Budget last month we saw inflation forecast up this year and average earnings
forecasts lowered next year and for the next two years.

The
combination of higher prices and lower wages is that living standards are set
to be squeezed.

This time
last year, at the Budget 2016, the OBR was forecasting real average earnings
growth of 9 per cent between 2015 and 2020 (average earnings adjusted for CPI
inflation). However, at this year’s Budget, this was revised down to growth of
5 per cent between 2015 and 2020.

Converting
this to income values, Budget 2016 was forecasting that real average earnings
would be almost £2,500 higher in 2020 than in 2015. However, at Budget 2017
this was revised down to £1,300. This is a difference of £1,200.

Today’s
analysis comes on the back of IFS analysis last year which showed that the
“outlook for living standards has deteriorated rather sharply”, describing the
prospects for real earnings growth as “dreadful”.

The
Resolution Foundation has also said that the “outlook for living
standards in 21^st century Britain does not look promising” and that
“weak and regressive nature of income growth in the years ahead should concern
us all”. 

This analysis looks at the effect on living standards
resulting from changes to OBR forecasts at this year’s Budget.

Tax and benefit changes, as well as previous OBR
forecasts will impact on living standards; however, this analysis focuses just
on inflation and earnings outlook.

John
McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting, said:

“Today’s analysis shows the impact of seven years of
Tory economic failure.

“Living standards are being squeezed and working
people are being hit hard. This is despite the Tories promising at the last
General Election that they would raise living standards.

“The truth is that Theresa May has failed working
people and the Tories are taking the country backwards. Labour would make
different choices and stand up for ordinary
working families.

“Only Labour will take the action needed to end the Tories’
economic failure by introducing a Real Living Wage of £10 an hour by 2020 and
by investing in our
regions and our local communities.”

Governance and freedom on the internet go hand in hand rather than being incompatible elements, an expert reiterated ahead of the one-year anniversary of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech during a symposium on cyber security and informatization in Beijing on April 19, 2016.

At the symposium, President Xi, who also heads the Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group, called for comprehensive development of the internet and ensuring it could be harnessed for the benefit of the country and the people.

Xi made the call as cybersecurity security has become so vital that all countries agree better governance of cyberspace is essential for a prosperous shared future for all.

Most countries applauded President Xi’s proposal for building a community of shared future in cyberspace.

“The proposal features the greatest common divisor. It is inclusive enough so that no one stands out to oppose it,” said Prof. Shen Yi, director of the Research Center of Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University in Shanghai, adding that many countries hoped that “community of shared future” be more tangible and practical.

“In his speech, President Xi Jinping outlined the framework for cyber security and informatization development, which in essence is to shape a new order in cyberspace based on respecting the principle of cyberspace sovereign equality as the core,” he said. “China has been contributing to the promotion of this new order. Xi’s speech was one of the cases in point.”

He explained that the freedom in cyberspace, in a broader sense, refers to the aspect that all countries, big or small, have equal rights to enjoy resources in cyberspace to serve their own development, to implement independent policies on internet management and to participate in the formulation of a new order for global cyberspace.

Cyberspace should be governed in line with the concept of a three-level structure, stressed Shen. He noted that the three levels were physical facility, logic codes and digital personality, all requiring good management.

On the bottom level is the physical facility, including access devices, wires and physical storage space. “These facilities surely have property attributes and are naturally under the jurisdiction of a government,” said Shen. “You can’t tamper with the servers of others or copy data from them without authorization.”

Regarding the middle level of logic codes, the relevant national watchdog should monitor the flow of codes and detect malware. “Malware isn’t necessarily computer viruses. The damages they are capable of causing range from the theft of personal financial information to the breach of a country’s network security,” said Shen.

The “emailgate” controversy affecting Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections showed that even the United States, a superpower in cyberspace, was not exempted from cyberattack. “As for another conclusion, a responsible country should prohibit such activities [hacking another country’s network] in cyberspace,” said Shen.

Digital personality, the top level, refers to how individuals act on the internet. At the 2016 symposium, Xi required officials to welcome well-meant criticism raised on the internet, “be it gentle or harsh-sounding.”

However, disciplining people’s online behavior does not contradict President Xi’s demand for more tolerance and patience to internet users. Shen stressed that internet users’ behavior should also be subjected to supervision, the same as people’s offline behavior.

He was confident that Chinese leaders have the courage and political responsibility to innovate the approach to cyberspace governance.

“The best way to clarify online rumors is to line them up with the true facts and let people reach their own conclusions,” he said. “However, for professional rumormongers, those who spread unfounded, false rumors for profit, we should crack down because they are destroying society’s trust and their gains are at the cost of society’s injury.”