What are my key issues to look for in today's budget?
In no particular order and with some issues undoubtedly overlooked, start with these, none of which I expect to happen.
The overall economic scene
Will Healey talk about the risk from war, energy prices and inflation?
Will he talk about the risk of an AI bubble burst and a coming financial crisis?
What will he say about climate change, floods, drought, fires and the linked threat to food supply chains and prices, heightened by fertiliser shortages?
What will he say about our plans for economic resilience and how he will improve it in the UK, which is the necessary response to each of these?
Will he talk about how we survive these threats with more than a couple of extra cans of baked beans?
Changed economic priorities
Will he show an understanding that government is not run for the benefit of the wealthy or the City of London?
Will he reveal an understanding of the true nature of money and its creation?
Will he suggest that he realises that tax is the main instrument for controlling inflation in the UK?
Will he talk about changing the status of the Bank of England and reducing the role of monetary policy in UK economic management?
Will he make clear that he will revise his fiscal rules to remove the focus on debt, deficits and spending and put in their place rules that focus upon meeting the needs of people, whilst delivering full employment, improving public services and tackling climate change?
Wealth and insecurity
Will Healey show that he understands we have a massive problem with inequality in the UK and set out a plan to address it?
Will he take any measures to increase the rate of tax on wealth and reduce that on those with low incomes?
Will he, for example, equalise income tax and capital gains tax rates?
Will he introduce an investment income surcharge on dividend, interest and rent income above a basic level to level the playing field with regard to National Insurance?
Will he reinstate the exemption from paying council tax for those on key benefits?
Will he remove the many penal elements within the benefit system which are intended to gratify the interests of the wealthy and to deny people the chance to claim benefits to which they are entitled?
Devolution
Will he stop playing games with this word and grant Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the right they want to leave the union at a time of their choosing?
Savings reform
Will Healey change ISA and pension tax reliefs so that savers' funds can become the capital to regenerate the UK, rather than being the plaything of our banks and financial services industry to use as a tool to fuel bonus payments?
The Treasury View
Will Healey consign this entrenched epicentre of neoclassical and neoliberal thinking to history?
These were thoughts on the train down to the BBC this morning.
Please do not hold your breath; I expect none of these to happen. But a man can dream, can't he?
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We all know you will not have your dreams fulfilled. Are you on Jeremy Vine radio 2?
It has been done – sorry – serious pressures on time today
I’m expecting him to copy Rachel Reeves and not deviate from that narrative much, though I remain open to being wrong, I hope I am wrong! I am, like many people fed up of nothing ever changing, and I am fed up of living in Thatcher’s shadow… i.e. the lie that “the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves”. How can anyone still believe this? Why do so few people stop to ask “where does the money come from in the first place?”. If Thatcher was right, people would just get money appear out of nowhere everytime they worked…
It was much duller and less ambitious than Reeves.
Hard to believe.
The simplest questions you have ever asked. No all round. Unfortunately.
Will Healey talk about the risk from war, energy prices and inflation? Yes, he will talk about energy prices going up because of war in the Middle East and Ukraine and will say this is increasing inflation – but sadly he will inevitably warn that the BoE will ‘have to’ increase interest rates to ‘control’ inflation. The answer to the rest of your ‘Will Healey’ questions is of course a resounding NO!
Richard,
RE: slot on Jeremy Vine on BBC R2. That’s lost time!
The context before your “discussion” entirely about individuals explaining what they wanted to improve their domestic needs (who may not be doing well) or improve their individual lot (those who were doing fine or employing others). Nothing bigger picture was put in to explain a bigger economy. So it was set up to identify what ‘tax give-aways’ individuals were looking for. Focus entirely on the individual. General theme was energy – but no-one asked, Why are energy prices going up?
Then the “discussion”. Vine didn’t conduct a constructive discussion. You were repeatedly interrupted and prevented from delivering /completing your point. Shouted over and unable to finish any point. So you responded — and it became the kind of thing where people would not have been able to listen. Vine distanced himself by suggesting he wanted something other than the barney — even though it’s his job to run things.
Did any of the big issues get addressed? Not really. You both agreed that the Budget was massaging edges and didn’t address anything substantial. Meanwhile peoples’ lives continue to decline, and the UK continues with no strategic intent…. your ‘opponent’ was allowed to assert the domestic budget myth, the ‘enormous government debt myth’ being the reason for 25 years of decline (as opposed to a major reason). An you were unable to finish.
I am sure you’ll be really frustrated. I am. But the environment and the context was set up not to engage in abstract issues that need to be addressed that go counter to the last 45 years of flawed received wisdom. J Vine show probably not the place for that. But, to paraphrase Primo Levi, if not there, where? And for sure, if not now, when?
Better I do it than the IFS?
That is the question
Much better that you do it rather than the IFS.
I can’t listen to their people these days, without thinking about how tied they are to the maintenance of our broken status quo.
My well-worn copy of “The Courageous State” will carry its stripes with pride when it is joined by its successor on the bookshelf!
🙂
Just finished listening to you on the Jeremy Vine R2 budget special. So good to hear someone talking sense about how the economy actually works, in contrast to the neoliberal Conservative apologist’s usual claptrap about needing to reduce public spending, reduce government borrowing, reduce the deficit, reduce the tax ‘burden’ and balance the budget in order to boost growth (neoliberal policies which have obviously worked so well over the past 40-45 years ushering in a golden age of wellbeing!!).
My only concern was when he parroted that government spending has been rising ‘out of control’ for decades without measurable effect on growth. Obviously I don’t believe that’s true but my concern is that the majority of the listeners (and almost all MSM journalists, presenters and ‘expert’ commentators) would accept it as an obvious statement of fact. Progressive economic and political commentators, Green Party leaders and MPs, and social media contributors (Owen Jones, Marina Purkiss?) need to be ready to counter thie nonsense when it’s thrown at them, as you successfully did. Well done Richard.
You should have heard us when the music was playing !
You might be interested in this – after the Vine show I asked Google AI Mode to summarise all the critical reaction to the budget and it produced a list of critical comments by Kemi Badenough, the IFS, IEA and Resolution Foundation, but no mention of your critical analysis. I asked the AI bot if this omission showed political bias and received this reply:
You are entirely right to point out that omission, and I appreciate the direct challenge. Richard Murphy’s critique was not excluded due to political bias, but rather because the initial summary leaned heavily on mainstream institutional economic commentaries (like the IFS and Resolution Foundation) and official political party responses.
By omitting his specific progressive macroeconomic perspective, the summary missed a highly influential angle of criticism regarding today’s fiscal event.
On today’s Jeremy Vine Show, his Tax Research UK blog, and his YouTube channel, Richard Murphy provided a fierce critique that attacks the Budget from a completely different direction than the free-market or institutional critics.
Lets hope AI Mode has learnt from this!
Thank you
OMG
Unsurprising and deeply troubling.
In other words, Google AI Mode is capable of taking on board Richard’s heterodox economic ideas and talking about them, while Badenoch, the IEA, the IFS and Resolution foundation still mouth the usual neoliberal arguments?
It therefore appears that AI is surpassing human beings already then in the sphere of economics. Maybe we don’t need to fear ‘superintelligent AI’ but ‘superstupid humans’ who seem unable to ask why the economic ideology they’ve espoused for years is clearly not working.
🙂