Excellent analysis. A calm and thorough debunking of the Thatcherism and Friedmanite neo-liberal economic fantasies that have ruined this country. We desperately need a new story, or we just keep sinking. Clive has offered a way we can do that. (And none of it has anything to do with immigrants.)
I feel as if Westminster is incapable of a conversation. Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP. She talked about how she couldn’t hear anything and they were often drunk. This is AFTER Partygate. I don’t think most MPs behave professionally I feel as if they’re so locked into this toxic political system and are so cynical that they think change is a pipe dream and that the most people should hope for is cuts and tinkering around the edges while mps worry about their careers.
Remember Tories profiting via the VIP fast lane during COVID, locking down too late causing THOUSANDs of excess DEATHS? You’d think an epidemic would focus minds on saving lives but no.
Labour cutting disability benefits, engaging in anti immigrant rhetoric aping a racist party doing a deal with Palantir.
Then there’s Farage and his lack of vetting and crypto funding. His obvious corruption, his racist past was basically ignored. The things his mob are saying. It’s insane. Saying how “women and girls need a biological reality check” as if we’re all breeders. Well we’re not.
Then there’s lobbying by Israel actively involved in genocide and this government, both major parties even the LibDems take money from lobbyists for Israel while I watch the atrocity in Gaza playing out on our screens which we can’t protest. While an actual Jew Zack Polanski gets hounded. And let’s not forget that anti semitic cartoon of him in The Times. It’s appalling beyond belief. All I can do is fund real journalism Byline being one.
Clive Lewis makes a splendid effort here: but he fails to make (or ducks) a crucial point: to get to Nordic ratios of investment in public service & social protection requires a vast increase in taxation across the board. Conversely, you can’t introduce such levels of taxation without providing huge social benefits.
As a Norwegian billionaire once said to me when I asked why he acquiesced in such taxes rates: “I pay huge taxes, but top quality education, health services, and social care are free, and public infrastructure is exceptional. “
In other words, Thatcher & co sold out Britain--at derisory prices too, for state-owned utilities sold off.
And we'll all be paying the price in (rising) debt interest for ever more: with managed decline as the policy of our current PM and Chancellor. And--so far as we know--with managed decline as the most ambitious vision too of most of the current Labour leadership candidates, but with hints of other "Manchesterisation" ideas from Andy Burnham.
But the biggest challenge is how to get from managed decline to investing again in state-owned utilities, without--temporarily at least--massive tax rises.
And, if so, taxes on whom?--and on what?--and done how?--and why so? This incendiary conversation has not even begun in so-called "progressive" political circles, beyond token calls for a wealth tax.
It needs a team of economists, tax specialists and behavioural scientists working on it, for urgently needed proposals: to put to a Citizens Assembly.
I remember Aditya Chakraborty (an economist) writing in The Guardian about his fascinating experience with a Citizens Assembly.
Participants--randomly chosen by "sortition" and properly advised--were far better able to grasp and discuss economic issues, especially as it applied to themselves, than most economists imagine possible.
Excellent analysis. A calm and thorough debunking of the Thatcherism and Friedmanite neo-liberal economic fantasies that have ruined this country. We desperately need a new story, or we just keep sinking. Clive has offered a way we can do that. (And none of it has anything to do with immigrants.)
I feel as if Westminster is incapable of a conversation. Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP. She talked about how she couldn’t hear anything and they were often drunk. This is AFTER Partygate. I don’t think most MPs behave professionally I feel as if they’re so locked into this toxic political system and are so cynical that they think change is a pipe dream and that the most people should hope for is cuts and tinkering around the edges while mps worry about their careers.
Remember Tories profiting via the VIP fast lane during COVID, locking down too late causing THOUSANDs of excess DEATHS? You’d think an epidemic would focus minds on saving lives but no.
Labour cutting disability benefits, engaging in anti immigrant rhetoric aping a racist party doing a deal with Palantir.
Then there’s Farage and his lack of vetting and crypto funding. His obvious corruption, his racist past was basically ignored. The things his mob are saying. It’s insane. Saying how “women and girls need a biological reality check” as if we’re all breeders. Well we’re not.
Then there’s lobbying by Israel actively involved in genocide and this government, both major parties even the LibDems take money from lobbyists for Israel while I watch the atrocity in Gaza playing out on our screens which we can’t protest. While an actual Jew Zack Polanski gets hounded. And let’s not forget that anti semitic cartoon of him in The Times. It’s appalling beyond belief. All I can do is fund real journalism Byline being one.
All very true.
Although if Richard Murphy is right, we could reduce the cost of borrowing by ceasing to pay interest to the banks on money we gave them during covid.
That would of course reduce bank profits and therefore tax income - but overall it would make the debt problem more manageable.
Great rant. But where does it get us?
Is anything getting us any further forward at the moment?
Clive Lewis makes a splendid effort here: but he fails to make (or ducks) a crucial point: to get to Nordic ratios of investment in public service & social protection requires a vast increase in taxation across the board. Conversely, you can’t introduce such levels of taxation without providing huge social benefits.
As a Norwegian billionaire once said to me when I asked why he acquiesced in such taxes rates: “I pay huge taxes, but top quality education, health services, and social care are free, and public infrastructure is exceptional. “
To go this route will / would take decades.
In other words, Thatcher & co sold out Britain--at derisory prices too, for state-owned utilities sold off.
And we'll all be paying the price in (rising) debt interest for ever more: with managed decline as the policy of our current PM and Chancellor. And--so far as we know--with managed decline as the most ambitious vision too of most of the current Labour leadership candidates, but with hints of other "Manchesterisation" ideas from Andy Burnham.
But the biggest challenge is how to get from managed decline to investing again in state-owned utilities, without--temporarily at least--massive tax rises.
And, if so, taxes on whom?--and on what?--and done how?--and why so? This incendiary conversation has not even begun in so-called "progressive" political circles, beyond token calls for a wealth tax.
It needs a team of economists, tax specialists and behavioural scientists working on it, for urgently needed proposals: to put to a Citizens Assembly.
I remember Aditya Chakraborty (an economist) writing in The Guardian about his fascinating experience with a Citizens Assembly.
Participants--randomly chosen by "sortition" and properly advised--were far better able to grasp and discuss economic issues, especially as it applied to themselves, than most economists imagine possible.