Funding the Future

I’ve been accused of repeating myself on this YouTube channel. And that’s true. I have. But it’s only by honing our stories about what a decent, sustainable world looks like that we can persuade people that it’s possible to have one.

Keir Starmer has appointed Sue Gray as envoy to the nations and regions after her resignation as his chief of staff. What does that mean? And what is he thinking?

The idea that government surpluses are good because they create piles of cash waiting to be spent in the event of a national emergency is absurd. All money paid in tax is cancelled on receipt by the government. So, all government surpluses actually do is reduce the amount of cash in the private sector economy.

Most people assume that we tax to fund government spending, but we don’t in economies like that we have in the UK. Instead, we have an economy where the government spends by creating new money and tax then takes it out of circulation, and that creates a need for very different economic management from that we’re being offered.

Left versus right seems like deeply antiquated politics from another era to me. The fight between labour and capital makes no sense when we have to live in a mixed economy. Much more important now is the question “do you care?” because that’s the question that now decides how resources are allocated in our society. Which side are you on?

UK company law exists to protect society and honest traders from fraudsters, but since no one has the job of properly enforcing that law it might as well not exist. This failure represents a massive failure on the part of successive governments that needs to be addressed now.

Everyone but the national government of a country can run out of money. They can’t, because they make the stuff. So, in that case why are our politicians obsessed with running out of money when they should instead be obsessed by services that are not good enough and unemployment?

When being interviewed on the radio I was told by the broadcaster that £90,000 was only ‘middle class income’ and not enough for MPs. She was, very clearly, out of touch with reality.

Wes Streeting’s plans for the NHS all have one purpose, and that is to increase the role of the private sector and big pharmaceutical companies within it, at cost to us, the patients. He should not be trusted.

For literally hundreds of years the Tories have been one of the two parties that have at all times dominated UK politics. The other might have changed from time to time, but the Tories have been a constant. That, though, can no longer be assumed to the case. Now they might be heading for extinction. Does that matter?