Funding the Future

We all know what the ‘bads’ in our economy are -  tobacco, alcohol, sugar, carbon, plastics, and more. Some of them we tax heavily because we know they are ‘bad’. But sugar, plastics and even carbon are still getting an easy ride. It’s time we tackled them properly.

Politicians might talk endlessly about black holes in government funding but in reality, there can never be any such thing. All that actually exists are choices about how the government might fund its spending - some of which options those same politicians are refusing to consider, at a cost to us all.

Neoliberalism has killed conviction based politics. 

Labour will only have months to keep the electorate happy after the general election, and if they don't, the backlash could be severe and long-lasting. 
 

Every politician should understand double entry. If they did, they might work out the consequences of their actions and the ridiculousness of many of the claims that they make about government spending. 

Why is it that the English-based parties are ignoring the issue of independence for three of the four countries that make up the UK during this election campaign as if that is a matter of inconsequence when, in truth, the whole nature of this supposed country is open to question? Could they be cooperating in a conspiracy of silence?

Today is the last day when people can be nominated as candidates in the general election. Rumour has it some right wing Tory MPs will quit the party this afternoon and become Reform candidates, leaving the Tories no time to replace them. Could a perverse coup of this sort be on the cards today? 

Criticising Labour has nothing to do with wanting it or any other party in power. It has everything to do with wanting Labour to deliver for the people of this country when it really does not look like it will at present.

If government can influence the distribution of wealth in an economy - and we know that is a possibility because tax can redistribute both income and wealth, and does - then what? What should government be doing when it exercises that power? 
Should it, as Keir Starmer has now said, be intensely relaxed about people getting wealthy?
Or is it its job to say we are on the side of those who are poorest in society, and it is their wealth that we want to increase?

Suppose we had an education system that told people ‘you can do that’ rather than saying ‘these are the rules that you must follow’? What might happen if we allowed all the resulting creativity to flow?