A council of economic advisors?

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Owen Jones has written and honest and thoughtful piece on what he thinks Labour might need to do in the case that Jeremy Corbyn is elected as its leader. One of his suggestions is:

  • Economic credibility is key. So a Corbyn-led Labour party should set up some sort of ‘Council of Economic Advisors' composed of the various economic brains who back an alternative to austerity, and use it to flesh out a viable alternative based on clearing the deficit in a way that doesn't punish working people, disabled people, and so on. A big coup would be the use the Labour Party's considerable economic resources to hire the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman as an advisor.

As someone who is not in Labour but who has become rather closely associated with what is called Corbynomics because it embraces some of my ideas can I warmly welcome this, based on personal experience?

First, no one person is the repository of all good ideas.

Second, those ideas need not all be in one party.

Third, they may not all be in the country.

Fourth, things do need scrutiny in depth and this idea clearly embraces that.

Fifth, the panel has to allow those advising to clearly support the broad ideas but not necessarily the party itself or some talent would be exlcuded

Owen's idea makes a lot of sense to me, as an outsider who has looked in.


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