Rachel Reeves really is clueless
Funding the Future
Rachel Reeves really is clueless
Rachel Reeves
 Rachel Reeves' budget speech was a vacuous re-presentation of what she had said during the general election campaign, mixed with arrogant smugness, meaningless rhetoric and a total absence of narrative or ideas. I wish there was something good to note in all this, but before she celebrates being the first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer, shouldn't she prove she is up to the job?
Will Reeves reform HM Revenue & Customs?
Funding the Future
Will Reeves reform HM Revenue & Customs?
Yahoo News appears to be just about the only media with this news story this morning: Tax dodgers will be targeted by Rachel Reeves, who will say ...
 HM Revenue & Customs is a massively underperforming organisation. It fails to collect at least £40 billion of tax owing a year. Spending just £1 billion extra a year on it could massively increase the tax yield in the UK, but it seems that Rachel Reeves is only interested in small changes over many years to come. Why is she, like so many of her predecessors, uninterested in closing the tax gap?
Who and what should Labour tax?
Funding the Future
Who and what should Labour tax?
Labour gave no positive clues on where they might raise revenue during the election campaign. So, what might they do in the October budget? And wha...
 Who and what should Labour tax? Those things that cause harm, those things that create inequality, those things that we should be changing to make sure we have a society in the future. I think that's a basis for taxation that is ethically justifiable, irrespective of the questions about revenue that might or might not arise.
The likelihood that this is a very happy Labour government is very low indeed
Funding the Future
The likelihood that this is a very happy Labour government is very low indeed
The Labour Party conference has begun. It must be agony for those newly promoted to high ministerial posts. Recently granted status as Privy Counci...
 Some new Cabinet ministers might enjoy the humiliation that serving Starmer and Reeves demands that they accept, but I suspect they are a decided minority. How long will it be before open rebellion becomes apparent?
Why can’t Labour do critical thinking?
Funding the Future
Why can’t Labour do critical thinking?
With a Cabinet made up of supposedly highly qualified graduates, all of whom would claim to have a social conscience, you would expect Labour to be...
 With a Cabinet made up of supposedly highly qualified graduates, all of whom would claim to have a social conscience, you would expect Labour to be able to think critically about the solutions required to the problems created by fourteen years of Tory rule. Right now, however, it seems that there is not one critical thinker among the lot of them. No wonder they’re already in such a mess.
When economic misinformation hides economic negligence
Funding the Future
When economic misinformation hides economic negligence
A couple of Tweets from yesterday as I do not have time to elaborate these stories today. The first is glaringly obvious. As a matter of fact, i...
 The UK‘s system of national accounting permits the presentation of entirely incorrect data by the Office for National Statistics that is passed off as correct largely because there is no proper accounting discipline, let alone double entry book-keeping, implicit within it. The resulting misinformation can be readily abused by the government.
The Bank of England is continuing to engineer a recession – and Rachel Reeves is letting it do so
Funding the Future
The Bank of England is continuing to engineer a recession – and Rachel Reeves is letting it do so
As predicted, the Bank of England did not reduce interest rates yesterday. They are joining with Labour in trying to create a recession in the UK, ...
 Labour is talking the country into a downturn and the Bank of England is delivering policy to make that happen. What are they trying to do?
Starmer exposed
Funding the Future
Starmer exposed
Why does it matter that Keir Starmer has received maybe £100,000 of personal financial gifts and support during his time as prime minister? And wh...
 Starmer's exposed his inner self, and it's not appealing.
Why is modern monetary theory so important?
Funding the Future
Why is modern monetary theory so important?
Some people argue that modern monetary theory is irrelevant or that it changes nothing. They’re wrong. MMT fundamentally reframes the power relat...
 Some people argue that modern monetary theory is irrelevant or that it changes nothing. They're wrong. MMT fundamentally reframes the power relationships within our economy, moving power away from banking and the City and towards democratic government control whilst prioritising people and full employment instead. No wonder so many people don't like it: MMT challenges all the privileges they enjoy at cost to the rest of us.
The way we are is unsustainable
Funding the Future
The way we are is unsustainable
The FT is full of questions about what Rachel Reeves is doing. As it notes: Cutting public investment in the UK would damage the “foundations of...
 The FT is full of warnings for Rachel Reeves this morning, suggesting that her direction of travel is unsustainable unless recession is her goal. Will she heed the warnings?