This is a Podbean of my session with Jeremy Vine:
And now, the YouTube version:
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All a bit pointless all round
Jeremy Vine – ‘spending money we have not got’.
Bollix, Bollix, Bollix. He’s just adding you to give the appearance of ‘balance’. He is always disagreeing with you.
£1000 a year better off!! My wages have reduced 25% since 2010. My pension policy tells me this constantly.
16 years of loss. Awful and very damaging.
I wanted to tackle that. I asked. I never gut the chance.
JV did not appear to listen – I agree that you were not given the chance – far too short a time like ‘mini bites’ – I listened earlier today and have listened again now – but well done for trying
Thanks
This is always a frustrating experience
I have to say I had other more useful conversations when at the BBC.
That was a frustrating listen!
JV already with the pre-packaged line of ‘spending what we don’t have.’
It was a valiant effort Richard and I could almost sense that you had to rush out your wise points so JV could move on to the next zero-sum question.
I did
I grabbed the time I could get
Do you get a chance to speak to Jeremy off air, and ask him what he means by “spending money we haven’t got”?
Does he understand that premium bonds and bonds owned by the government though the APF are counted as government debt? If you accept that public debt is about £2.8 trillion (it isn’t, not least the APF still has around £300 billion, or more than 10%) then approaching £135 billion – about 5% – is invested in premium bonds. The amount of premium bonds in issue went up and so increased government borrowing by almost £6 billion last year.
What does he think happens to money that is allocated to (for example) social security and state pensions? Or earnings of NHS workers? That it disappears into a hole or evaporates? Not spent for example on food and other essentials that support the local economy and comes back to the government though sales taxes and cooperation tax on profits, and income tax and national insurance paid by employers and employees?
Jeremy is firmly of the view that his children will have to pay for this debt, and hates that idea, however wrong it is.
He appears to understand nothing about macroeconomics at all.
Perhaps remind Jeremy of the BBC’s impartiality guidance in January 2023 stating that BBC journalists comparing government finances to a household budget is “dangerous territory” that “can easily mislead”.
Far too many journalists at the BBC, like Jeremy, ignore that truth in favour of their own shallow biases with one shining exception – Andy Verity.
Sadly very few journalists, politicians and political/economic commentators seem to understand how the economy and finance really work so they accept the neoliberal household budget/fiscal rules nonsense without question. When reporting on government’s economic policies, BBC and other TV and radio presenters will interview government ministers and shadow minister (rarely interview a spokesperson from the Greens) and then turn to an ‘independent expert’ from the IFS or the Resolution Foundation, who also have a neoliberal understanding of public finance. It is refreshing the Jeremy Vine give you a chance to voice an alternative view, even if he belive or even understand what you’re saying…
Thanks