Funding the Future

People fought for the right to democratic equal representation in this country from the 17th century onwards, and I still think it is the basis of a sound, well governed society. But we have to eliminate the flaws to make sure that's what we get.

Kemi Badenoch has made clear that she thinks that university-educated people who might challenge what she wants to do to this country are high on her list of the enemies of society. I, on the other hand, work at a university, seeking to produce the people who might hold her to account. Does that make me Kemi Badenoch’s problem?

Trump’s election brings his incoherent and destructive economic policies, that have significant potential impacts for the UK, to the fore. We need to worry, because we’re going to pay for the price for the USA’s mistake. 

Sir James Dyson has accused Labour of being spiteful because it has taken way the inheritance tax reliefs worth a small fortune that he had hoped to enjoy by buying large acreages of farmland in the East of England. He’s completely wrong about that. But Labour is spiteful, nonetheless. He just identified the wrong target for their spite.

The Bank of England knows that all money is created by lending. It has published papers that confirm that fact. They must as a result also know that government spending has to take place before any tax can be paid. But they never say that. They take part in a conspiracy of silence on that issue to deny the public the truth. Why is that?

We already have a massive problem with data overload in our society, with most people having little training in how to use the information they are given. AI creates new risks. It also requires that we understand that human decision making remains key to the process of generating human well-being.

Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are claimed to be wonder drugs that will solve the problems of modern living, like obesity, diabetes and dementia. But there are better ways to do that, like going for a walk and stopping eating ultra-processed food. So are they really just mechanisms to perpetuate the profits of Big Pharma, at cost to us all?

The IMF says it is worried about the world having a low growth, high debt future when in reality we need low growth to manage climate change and high levels of government money creation to fund the services that will be the basis of future prosperity. They’ve got their whole logic wrong.

Nothing about Rachel Reeves’ budget stacks - and the backlash to some of it is going to be fierce, exist from the rich who got away almost untouched by her changes. If she could get things wrong it seemed she set out to do so. 

If Labour knew what it was for today’s Budget could be the momentous event Rachel Reeves claims it is going to be. But she has no story to tell, and Keir Starmer stole half her lines in a speech earlier this week. All she’s got left is half a plot with a lot of bad news in it.