Cheryl Brumley, Danielle Moran and Joel Suss round up the week in political blogging

Workfare controversy

The Coffee House writes that this week’s A4E scandal highlights the worst of the ‘big society’, and Labour List thinks Tesco’s “work-trial” is actually far less scandalous than the daily exploitation of supermarket workers. Guido Fawkes thinks the only exploited party are the taxpayers who subsidize too many dole-earning, job-averse Britons.

The economy

The Tory Diary calls for ‘shock and awe’ tax cuts from the Chancellor in next month’s budget and Left Foot Forward finds reason to blame business, not the Eurozone crisis, for this week’s low GNP figures. The Staggers back predictions for an economic ‘zig-zag’ in 2012 and Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK argues that austerity is not the way forward – investment for growth and jobs is needed.

Political Scrapbook exposes the tax subsidy won for a company (JCB) on the same day it donated £150k to the Conservatives, while Left Foot Forward argues that rewards for failure seem to be the order of the day, as Robert Peston reports that the CEO of RBS has predicted two more years of pain in the bailed out bank.

The parties

Labour List is angered by sound-bite politics and urges the opposition to bury their endless press releases and knee-jerk rhetoric and instead offer real alternatives.

End of the coalition

Politicalbetting.com contemplates whether the coalition is teetering over divisions on House of Lords’ Reform and The Coffee House predicts that the Tories are preparing for a 2014 split.

Health reforms

The Staggers think that Nick Clegg holds the balance of power on health reforms and the FT’s Westminster Blog writes that Cameron is still floundering when debating the NHS reforms. The Green Benches reports that the number of urgent operations being cancelled under the coalition is rising and The Coffee House shows that the public does not trust Andrew Lansley and David Cameron as much as health professionals.

Migration

Net migration figures are proving to be a headache for Cameron, writes The Staggers.

And finally…

Bagehot at the Economist looks at Jersey’s model of elected police commissioners.

Left Foot Forward pays tribute to Marie Colvin, a Sunday Times reporter who died in government fire in Syria this week.

Liberal Democrat Voice asks if the price of music should be dictated by morality. Should Sony have raised the prices of Whitney Houston’s music following her death?