Funding the Future

Andy Burnham wants to give local authorities in England much greater financial power, but he is ignoring a crisis that makes this dangerous: the audit system meant to hold councils accountable has almost entirely collapsed. Since the Tories privatised local authority auditing in 2014 and abolished the Audit Commission in 2015, the market has failed to deliver, leaving nearly 1,000 audit opinions outstanding by 2023 and only around 1% of English council accounts filed on time in 2022/23.

This video explains how that collapse allowed financial disasters to build unchecked, including Woking's accumulation of roughly £2 billion in risky debt from property speculation and crises in Birmingham, Thurrock and Croydon. It argues that devolving more money and power to councils without first rebuilding independent audit, potentially by expanding the National Audit Office's remit, is a recipe for disaster, not decentralisation.

Climate change could make homes across Britain uninsurable, and the government has no plan for what happens next.

Floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires and rising sea levels are increasing insurance claims, and as premiums rise, some risks will become too great for private insurers to accept at all. Flood-prone areas in England, including the Severn Valley area and parts of South Yorkshire, are already seeing costs rise and cover become harder to find, and the existing government Flood Re scheme is limited in scope and time-limited.

This matters because a house that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged, and a house that cannot be mortgaged cannot be sold at its expected price. That traps homeowners in negative equity and could leave entire neighbourhoods effectively unsalable, creating a climate change property blight in the UK.

This video explains why private insurers cannot solve a macroeconomic risk like this, why government must become the insurer of last resort, and why prevarication on flood protection, honest risk disclosure and floodplain building bans will turn an environmental crisis into a financial one.

Andy Burnham says nobody should have to sell their home to pay for social care. At first hearing, that sounds compassionate. But is it really fair?

In this video, I argue that his proposal asks the wrong question. The issue is not simply whether people should sell their homes. The real issue is who should contribute towards the cost of social care, and whether our tax system already gives far too much protection to housing wealth.

If homeowners are exempt from contributing, the cost does not disappear. It falls instead on the state, resulting in additional taxes to recoup the money created. Many of these taxes will be paid by younger people who are already paying high rates of National Insurance, VAT, income tax, and student loan repayments while struggling to buy homes of their own.

I argue that this risks widening both wealth inequality and generational inequality. Rather than protecting inherited housing wealth, we should be asking how those with the greatest assets can make a fair contribution towards funding a social care system that benefits everyone.

I also discuss alternative approaches, including reform of inheritance tax, changes to capital gains tax on housing, and an investment income surcharge that could raise enough revenue to achieve all our social care goals without increasing inequality.

Should the tax system protect inherited housing wealth, or should it be redesigned to create a fairer society? That’s the debate this video explores.

It is easy to feel powerless when politics is failing, inequality is growing, and the climate crisis is accelerating. But ordinary people can change the world. I know because I have seen it happen.

When John Christensen and I helped create the Tax Justice Network, we began with a plan. We identified what was wrong, worked out credible solutions and persuaded others to support them. Years later, policies we had promoted were being adopted internationally. Country-by-country reporting, an idea I created, became part of the rules governing multinational companies around the world.

That did not happen quickly, and it was never the work of one person. It required expertise, cooperation, persistence and the willingness to take risks. But it proves that change is possible.

In this video, I explain how recognising that the world is wrong can become the first stage of doing something about it. Anger is not necessarily a weakness. Properly directed, it can motivate us to find solutions.

Your contribution does not have to be global. You might organise locally, contact your MP, write for a community publication, join a campaign or simply bring together people who share your concerns.

The important thing is to choose an issue, make a credible plan and begin. You are not powerless. You can play a part in creating change.

A song with lyrics by Simon Slade, guitar by him and some use of AI for other purposes,

What really happens inside a tax haven?

John Christensen knows because he was there. As Jersey's Head of the Government Economic Service, he witnessed first-hand how political power, financial interests and official secrecy combined to protect wrongdoing. Eventually he decided to expose what he had discovered, beginning a journey that helped shape the global tax justice movement.

In this podcast we discuss whistleblowing, corruption, the culture of secrecy, and why offshore finance has always been about far more than tax. We explain why the City of London remains central to the offshore system, how international institutions enabled it, and why many of the underlying political attitudes remain remarkably unchanged today.

We also discuss the political economy behind offshore finance. Why do secrecy jurisdictions exist? How much responsibility lies with places like Jersey, and how much with the City of London? What role have governments, banks, auditors and international institutions played in sustaining the offshore system? And have things really changed over the last thirty years?

We also reflect on the creation of the Tax Justice Network, the reforms that have been achieved, including automatic information exchange and country-by-country reporting, and the challenges that remain. We also look ahead to our next conversation on The Finance Curse documentary and why Britain's economic model still depends too heavily on financial engineering rather than productive investment.

If you care about tax justice, democracy, financial secrecy and how power really operates, this conversation provides a rare insider's account.

Every year the warnings on climate change become more urgent.

Every year temperatures break new records.

Every year politicians promise action.

And every year, far too little changes.

Why?

In this video, I argue that the failure to tackle climate change is not because we lacked scientific evidence or practical solutions. Scientists warned us decades ago, and they were right. We also had credible alternatives. I explain why the Green New Deal, which I helped develop before the financial crisis of 2008, offered a practical programme linking climate action, investment, jobs and stronger public services, and why politics chose to ignore it.

The deeper problem, I suggest, is that modern politics has lost the ability to imagine a different future. Too much of economics assumes today’s system is inevitable. Politicians defend existing institutions instead of asking whether they still work. Meanwhile, powerful vested interests continue to profit from fossil fuels and resist meaningful change.

Climate change has exposed something much bigger than an environmental crisis. It has revealed a crisis of political imagination.

If we continue trying to repair yesterday’s economy instead of building tomorrow’s, the consequences will become increasingly severe. We can no longer afford the inaction that is our politicians' preferred policy choice. Either they must change, or we will have to be rid of them. 

Trump’s war is exposing the truth in one of the central insights of modern monetary theory (MMT).

The United States is not running out of dollars as a result of Trump's war. It is, it has now been revealed, instead running out of weapons, production capacity and military resources.

That distinction matters because it challenges one of the biggest myths in economics.

Conventional economics tells us governments are limited by money. MMT says something very different. A government that issues its own currency can always create the money it needs. The real constraint is whether the economy has the people, skills, factories, materials and technology required to deliver what that money is meant to buy.

Trump’s request for another $65 billion from Congress to fund his war illustrates the point perfectly. More money cannot instantly produce missiles, factories or skilled workers. Real resources always come first.

The same lesson applies far beyond war.

The NHS does not simply need bigger budgets. It needs doctors, nurses and equipment. Housebuilding needs land, labour and materials. Climate policy needs engineers, factories and infrastructure.

That is why governments should stop asking, “Where will the money come from?” and start asking, “Do the resources exist to deliver what we need?”

In this video, I explain why Trump’s war has unintentionally demonstrated one of MMT’s most important insights, and why that changes how we should think about inflation, public spending, economic policy and the role of government.

The Bank of England says that raising interest rates is necessary to control inflation. What it rarely admits is that its policy is also intended to reduce demand, weaken the economy and, as importantly, increase unemployment.

That is not an accidental side effect. It is how monetary policy is supposed to work.

In this video, I explain what monetary policy is, how the Bank of England uses interest rates, and why its decisions are never politically neutral. Higher interest rates impose greater costs on mortgage holders, tenants, borrowers and businesses. At the same time, banks, wealthy savers and owners of financial assets can gain.

I also explain why interest rates are an extraordinarily blunt tool for controlling inflation. Much recent UK inflation was caused by external shocks, including disrupted energy, food and manufacturing supplies. A policy that deliberately increases unemployment in the UK could never address those issues.

Worse still, higher interest rates can themselves increase prices by raising business costs, rents and finance charges.

The result is a monetary policy that redistributes income upwards, damages investment and conflicts with the government’s stated aim of creating jobs.

Monetary and fiscal policy must be coordinated. The Treasury should determine economic policy, including on interest rates, while the Bank of England should operate and regulate the banking system.

Monetary policy should serve the public interest. At present, it does not.