Funding the Future

2025 is not looking good in 2025. Trump will be in the White House. Europe is in disarray. Starmer is already a lame duck. What chance have we got of anything going well?

2024 was a year when political certainties disappeared – and not just because of Trump. Politics as we’ve known it for a long time went into meltdown.

2024 was an existing year for me – not least because I decided to retire from everything but thinking and social media related work. That laid the groundwork for 2025.

The growth in mental ill-health is staggering. But might it be that those who are suffering are being entirely rational? In a world that is set up to fail them, aren’t they right to be stressed, anxious, depressed and afraid?

George Bernard Shaw one suggested all progress was dependent upon the existence of unreasonable – or awkward – people. St Stephen – the first Christian martyr – was definitely one of them. We need more of them to make the world a better place.

Christmas day is, in the Christian tradition, a day to mark the birth of Jesus – who was a radical economic reformer who died for social justice. Why have we forgotten that?

Neoliberalism is dead. The wreckage it has created is all around us. So, this Christmas I want a new political vision. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, is it?

A free press is an essential part of a functioning democracy. If legal threats close that down, what is left?

Labour found £6 billion in the last week to buy 166,000 houses for the Ministry of Defence. The spend wasn’t budgeted, so how did it fund the money, all of a sudden?

Flat taxes are great if you want to increase inequality, crush government services, or leave large numbers of people destitute. Is that why the Tories are so keen on them?