Keir Starmer: even if he’s found this poll, I don’t think he’ll be able to rig it.
Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has an interesting question.
He wants to know if left-leaning politicians and powerful figures should begin a new party to pressure Starmer’s Labour in the way UKIP pressured and changed the Tories.
At the time of writing, the answer is very much “yes”. But what do you think?
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Economist Richard Murphy has given his verdict on the result of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s new economic direction for the UK – and it is damning.
But he has also done something far more important; he has suggested ways forward for the UK. Principal among those is making sure the Conservative Party is never allowed into power on its own again, so it can never again ruin the finances of millions of people for the benefit of a few spoilt rich kids.
It’s the first positive series of suggestions This Writer has seen.
See what you think – and be sure to send those thoughts in via the comments section:
Six days after Kwarteng gave the worst budget in living memory, where are we? A summary thread…
The UK’s final salary pension funds nearly failed yesterday. It has cost £65 billion to bail them out, much of that going to people who are better off, overall.
Official interest rates are set to rise to 6% if market expectation is followed, meaning mortgage rates of 7.5%. I suspect half of all those with mortgages will not be able to pay anything like that. Rents are going to skyrocket as well. A housing crisis is likely.
Rising interest costs on top of massively increased energy costs and a collapse in consumer demand are going to hit hundreds of thousands of businesses very hard. Maybe that many will fail, and with that unemployment is going to increase, a lot.
Pensioners and those on benefits are not going to get the inflation-linked rises that were expected next April, even though their financial positions are profoundly perilous.
Second, because we cannot afford a general election as yet, having already had months without a government this year, a cross-party coalition will need to stabilise the country. I sincerely hope this can be achieved.
It will have to commit to higher public spending – knowing that much of this will pay for itself by delivering tax paid, improved productivity and positive multiplier effects as state employees spend their wages.
There will be a need for higher taxes on the well-off. Wealth will need to be taxed considerably more. This is not for revenue: it is time to reorder British society so that it is no longer structured to serve an elite, but everyone.
The Bank of England will have to be instructed to reduce interest rates as fast as is possible to save the domestic economy from ruin: again, if inflation is the consequence, so be it. We cannot afford the devastation of mortgage failures.
The financial markets will need a quiet revolution: the use of savings for speculation has to end if state subsidy for pensions and other savings is to be enjoyed.
And we need to rethink what is valuable. The idea that markets are good and the state is bad is nonsense. We have to create an economy where there is a genuine partnership.
Truss and Kwarteng have proved that yesterday was a very long time ago. We’re not going back there. We should not want to. But it will need big vision and courage to go forward. I hope some politician has it.
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Paying NHS staff more money will improve the UK’s economy massively.
That’s the educated opinion of Tax Research UK’s Richard Murphy, and who are we to argue with him?
In his latest video clip, Mr Murphy explains that the Tory government’s decision to offer only a derisory one per cent pay increase – less than the rate of inflation – is actually harmful to its own hope of economic recovery.
The Tories have based their offer on a false belief that the NHS does not contribute to the economy. This is easily disproved because a person who is fit and healthy is clearly more able to create profit than somebody who is ill or injured.
The benefit to the economy provided by the NHS has actually been measured and it seems that for every £1 invested in the health service, the economy benefits by between £2 and £4.
That’s a hell of a markup!
Think about it. Most supermarkets operate on the basis of profits between – what – five and 15 per cent, if I recall correctly. This is a profit of up to four HUNDRED per cent.
In a nation that badly needs to re-establish its economy after Covid-19 – not to mention Brexit – that’s not to be sniffed at, but sniffing at it is exactly what Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and the other Tories are doing.
At the moment there are 80,000 staff vacancies in the health service because the wages aren’t enough to compensate for the long hours, stress and heartbreak involved.
This, along with the ongoing effects of Covid-19, means that patients aren’t getting the treatment – even the routine work – they need and there is a knock-on effect for the economy because they are being prevented from getting back into it and producing the content of work they should be able to provide at the standard they are expected to.
“It’s as much as we can give,” said Boris Johnson. But this is sheer short-sightedness. A five per cent pay rise, as suggested by Mr Murphy, would pay for itself as the benefits spread through the economy.
This Writer is left wondering whether Johnson is deliberately sabotaging the health service in order to make privatisation more acceptable; if it can’t recruit staff, then perhaps it should be handed over to private firms.
The trouble with that is, private firms won’t pay any better because they’ll be busily grubbing for profits for their shareholders.
And they won’t provide the service the NHS offers because most people simply won’t be able to afford their prices.
So the economy will suffer a much greater downturn as increasing numbers of people fall into illnesses from which they simply won’t be able to get up.
It is economic idiocy.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Mr Murphy:
One part of the clip that I don’t understand is where he says the NHS is perceived to be free. It isn’t and never has been.
Originally, the cost of the service was said to be paid by National Insurance. Nowadays I think that is not true – or certainly not as true as in the past. Much of the cost is now said to come from general taxation (although we know that tax doesn’t actually work like that; the money taken back by the government is more correctly said to be recycled into use to pay for the NHS).
Either way, the NHS is at least partially supported with payments from the general public. It isn’t free and never has been.
Isn’t it funny how that disappears from the minds of politicians whenever it becomes convenient?
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His next job: because Sunak has just served up a Budget ‘for the fairies’ that is likely to fall flat on its face in a few short months.
It seems the phrase du jour is ‘for the fairies’.
Some daft Tory MP said nurses’ calls for pay increases were “for the fairies” – see my earlier story on that.
Now I see Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has used the same phrase to describe Rishi Sunak’s budget.
He also said the Johnson government is “firing blanks” at every level.
And that Sunak is likely to be back at the Dispatch Box in a very short time with emergency measures to cope with the disastrous failure of all his Budget predictions.
He says these things with confidence because of one simple fact: Covid-19 has not agreed to follow Boris Johnson’s “roadmap” (it’s actually a timetable but you can’t expect a numbskull like your prime minister to understand the English language) out of lockdown.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Mr Murphy:
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Rishi Sunak: he’s about to claim we need cuts to pay for the Covid-19 pandemic but that will just stop money from flowing through the economy, making it impossible. And in any case, it is unnecessary as he has already paid for it!
As the Tories continue to pretend we have to pay the cost of Covid-19 twice, it’s clear we’re going to hear a lot of double-talk in today’s (March 3) Budget speech.
Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has released a video of the kind of media interview he’d like to hear, with a politician who doesn’t mind telling the facts as they are, rather than as Rishi Sunak would like to pretend.
Here it is:
It won’t happen because too many people are supporting the lie – for reasons already mentioned on This Site and elsewhere.
But it needs to be said – and you need to hear it before Sunak pumps his nonsense into all our heads.
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Money: Margaret Thatcher’s favourite thinktank, the Centre for Policy Studies, says England needs a “Northern Bang” – like the so-called “Big Bang” in the financial markets that ultimately led to the financial crisis of 2008-10. It’s begging for disaster, as Tax Research UK’s Richard Murphy explains.
Tories can’t help themselves, these days. Whatever they do turns into a “complete bureaucratic nightmare” and this plan is no different.
It’s certainly nothing new.
Let’s all be grateful to Richard Murphy for his analysis.
In his introduction, he states: “Margaret Thatcher’s favourite think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, has published a new report suggesting what they call a Northern Bang – aimed at the Tory Red Wall seats.
“Let’s ignore the fact that they want to favour these seats over those in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Instead let’s note that this is all the usual right-wing nonsense, including relaxing planning rules, providing state subsidies to big, foreign-owned businesses whilst ignoring those already based here, and reformed tax reliefs, for which there is absolutely no evidence of success in encouraging new investment.
“This is a Northern Whimper delivered by a think tank right out of ideas, but which still knows that its real purpose is to shovel wealth upwards from taxpayers to those who own and run large companies.
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This is not a bombshell – it’s (very) simple economics.
As Richard Murphy explains in his video (below), money has no value in and of itself. It used to – when the United States applied the Gold Standard (meaning the Dollar was worth its value in gold) – but when the States had trouble funding the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon put a stop to that.
The Pound was also tied to the Gold Standard, because it had a fixed exchange rate with the Dollar, but that all changed in 1971. The value of our currencies became fluid, attached only to the promise by the Governor of the Bank of England – a government employee – to pay the bearer, on demand, the sum printed on the front of our banknotes and coins.
That promise, in turn, is only worth anything at all because the government refuses to take our taxes in any form other than the Pound. That’s why we do all our trade in the UK using the pound; because if we didn’t, we would have to put our cash through an exchange system – possibly with an adverse exchange rate – before paying our taxes.
And tax is important because it stops our money losing its value. Governments create money (as Mr Murphy explains in the clip). They must also destroy it – otherwise the system fills with too much of it, meaning we have to pay more for the goods it buys, and we get inflation.
It occurs to me that this means certain people are screwing up the system for the rest of us.
I’ll tell you who they are after you see the clip. Skip straight on if you’ve watched it already.
What about people who hoard up their money in tax havens and refuse to pay it back?
I’m referring, of course, to the super-rich.
They seem to think that the cash they have accrued is theirs; it isn’t. It belongs to the government, no matter whose bank account holds it.
And it was created for a purpose. And the government sets tax rates in order to recover it after that purpose is achieved.
So it follows that anybody avoiding tax is deliberately sabotaging the government’s plans.
What can a government do about it?
Well, as we’ve seen with the Tories, the most common choice is to do nothing and let the greedy fatcats keep their ill-gotten gains.
This, in turn, must have an inflationary effect as not as much cash comes back to the government as intended.
And how would a government deal with that?
It would tax the rest of us – those who have no choice but to pay – more.
So it seems to This Writer that you pay taxes for the super-rich who avoid paying theirs.
Do you think that’s fair?
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Richard Murphy’s YouTube channel really is a goldmine if you want to explain to people how money works and why it is important.
In the video below, he discusses tax – why it is a good thing (yes, really!), how it balances faults in our economic system, and how it gives us a voice in government.
Did you know, for example, that without tax our money would be worthless? Its value is validated by the fact that the government will only accept payment in pounds sterling, and that’s the only reason the pound has any value at all. Money is an artificial construct, you see. Its only worth is given to it by the importance we allow it.
Did you know that the government (it doesn’t matter which party is in office because they all do the same thing) must tax us in order to maintain the value of our money? If it didn’t take out of the system at least some of what it pays in, we would face rampant inflation. This means that governments create money, of course.
Did you know that, when they pay money into the system, governments support particular projects – either by directly funding them or by providing tax “breaks” to allow businesses or organisations extra cash they need to be financially viable?
And did you know that people who pay tax are more likely to vote – because it means they have a say in what is done with their money?
All these things are explored – albeit briefly – in the video below. It’s a great little primer on why the money in your pocket or bank account is important. And it’s less than four minutes long:
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Money: there’s as much of it in the world as we want. Don’t let politicians lie to you that there isn’t, just to feed their own agendas.
One of the facts that has come out of the Covid-19 crisis is the fact that money is not scarce.
The Conservative government has been telling us for years that we needed to endure the austerity policies of Cameron, May and now Johnson because there wasn’t enough cash after the big banker-driven economic crisis of 2008-10, but we can see now that this is not true.
As soon as the pandemic hit, Johnson magicked up £300 billion from nowhere. The reason is simple:
Money is artificial. Governments can create it whenever they like.
Of course, Rishi Sunak is going to try to put the genie back in the bottle by saying we have to pay that money back in extra taxes and other clawback measures, but this isn’t true. We don’t have to. He’s just saying that to perpetuate the myth.
The economist Richard Murphy has been running a series of videos on YouTube discussing this subject – taking something that many people find dry and dull and turning it into bite-sized info-chunks that are easy to digest and take away with you, and he has tackled this issue here:
So there you are. Money is artificial; we can make as much of it as we like and use it to achieve what we like. The resource that is scarce is Planet Earth.
And we all need to re-order our thinking to accommodate that potentially deadly fact.
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Boris Johnson: Last time, his comments on London Pride were undermined because he called gay men “tank-top wearing bum boys”. Previously, he was berated for calling the French “turds”. Now this.
This reminds me of a meme I just saw on Facebook, regarding the claims Conservatives have made before becoming prime minister.
So David Cameron said: “Vote for me to prevent a Labour government causing chaos!” And then he caused chaos.
Theresa May said: “Vote for me to prevent a Labour government causing chaos!” And then he caused chaos.
And now Boris Johnson is saying: “Vote for me to prevent a Labour government causing chaos!” But he isn’t waiting to win the election.
He’s causing chaos already.
Mr Johnson intends an early European tour if, as is likely, he wins the ballot for the Conservative leadership. Paris, Berlin and Dublin are on the list. He may encounter some bumps along the way.
His long record of mendacity and an infantile habit of comparing the EU to Nazi Germany have not created a reservoir of trust among other European leaders. They are unimpressed by his “do-or-die” threat of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Johnson’s crude English exceptionalism is even less endearing.
At the Foreign Office he was heard to muse as to whether Chancellor Angela Merkel had served in East Germany’s Stasi secret police. French president Emmanuel Macron was a “jumped-up Napoleon”. As for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, “Why isn’t he called Murphy like all the rest of them”.
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