Funding the Future

Vast numbers of people are paid the minimum wage, but it makes no allowance for out-of-hours working or weekend and night working. It really should, and Labour could deliver that change to improve the well-being of all who work in this way at very little cost to it.

Politics in the UK is blighted by the influence of big political donors, all of whom are seeking to influence how our politicians behave to advantage themselves. That influence is malign. We need clean politics and Labour could deliver that by ending large donations, for good.

Labour could end the curse that the UK's tax havens represent to this country's tax revenues - and to those of other countries. It demanded action on tax havens when in opposition. Now it is time for it to deliver to open up the secrecy that lets these places operate, once and for all. 

There is still massive opacity available to businesses in the UK, many of which provide little or no information as to who they are, especially on the web. Labour could change that by demanding full disclosure wherever a business trades, meaning we should all be better protected from fraud. 

Labour has already introduced a 20mph speed limit in Welsh towns. It’s already working to reduce the severity of accidents, saving money and lives, and helping the environment. Labour could extend this to the whole of England at almost no cost to the government.

Labour could demand that every mortgage provider in the UK should have a fixed rate mortgage for the rest of a loan’s life available to borrowers so that never again should people be caught out on the whim of the Bank of England. It would cost Labour nothing but it would give certainty to millions of people’s lives.

GDP – which measures our national income - does, as the late Robert Kennedy said, value everything except the things that really matter in life. So why is Rachel Reeves trying to maximize it when there are so many better things for her to do?

Libel laws massively limit free speech and proper investigative journalism in this country. That’sdangerous for our democracy. Labour needs to change these laws now, and it would cost them nothing.

AI is not only going to massively increase energy usage around the world, it is also going to use vast amounts of water to cool the data hubs that will drive it. When clean water is already scarce does that mean AI will threaten HI – or human intelligence – by denying HI the resources it needs to survive?

Total annual student loan repayments are way less than the interest supposedly charged on these loans at present. In that case why impose these charges? They make no sense. Labour should scrap them and give graduates a chance in life instead.