I am shamelessly using material where I can find it right now - without apology, and this post is based on a comment by RobertJ, actually submitted a couple of days ago, but which I did not have the energy to read at the time.
I have edited very lightly, largely to add format to the piece.
There are three reasons why I like Robert's post:
- It respects people's right to be angry
- It grants angry people agency
- It demands that we listen
Some questions for our conversations with colleagues, neighbours, communities, and families.
- How has Britain been failing, and how has that affected you and your neighbours?
- What explanations has gov't given for those problems, and do you accept their excuses?
- What would you like the government to do?
- What excuses do they give you for not doing it?
- If you were Chancellor, and the Bank of England had to give you the money you needed to deal with the problems you have identified, what would YOU spend it on?
- Can you think of times when the gov't HAS come up with the cash, even when they said they couldn't afford it?
- How did they DO that?
- Where do you think the money we use to pay our taxes to the government comes from in the first place?
- Where does the gov't say it comes from?
- Do you believe them?
Different groups respond to different “good questions” – we must really listen to THEIR answers, and to THEIR questions – the ones we hope OUR questions will provoke – because Reform UK Ltd. have successfully exploited the fact that people have got used to NOT being listened to, but being constantly lectured to.
These questions are NOT so we can provide OUR answers, but so we can hear THEIR answers and be genuinely interested in what they say to us. We are after hearts and minds, finally getting it about “Money” so they can see a politics of care and economy of hope, might work, not so we can win arguments.
Two final questions for our friends, then:
- What would they expect a “politics of care” to look like?
- What would they expect a Chancellor or PM to do if they believed in an “economy of hope”?
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Surprisingly, our Local Constituency Labour Party is holding a meeting where ordinary members are invited to submit suggestions for the Burnham Government. (Perhaps Labour even listening??!)
This is what I hope to say:
With every decision we should ask:
Will this policy reduce or increase inequality ?
When we do the analysis, any decision that worsens inequality should be vetoed.
Before coming to power, Labour made promises to the Financial Markets (fiscal rules, no tax increases) and promises to voters to improve their lives. Unfortunately these promises were incompatible.
The choice has been to keep its promises to the Financial Markets. To do this, Labour has done a number of things that worsen inequality (2-child limit, Winter Fuel, cutting benefits, fiddling with National Insurance, freezing thresholds). Now we are living with the consequences.
However, the Financial Markets are happy, the Stock Market is still around an all-time high, and has given a 35% return over the same period.
PS Wishing Richard better health. We need him.
Thank you
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/25/make-pension-tax-relief-only-available-to-savers-invest-in-uk-andy-haldane
Maybe he’s read your taxing wealth report? Not sure his idea goes far enough yet, but at least some thinking is being given?
It’s a move in the right direction.
The probelm is the focus is growth, not meeting need.
Message to Burnham:
Read very carefully the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin 2014Q1 pages 4 to 25. It will open your eyes to how money is created.
The Bank of England is authorised by the UK Government to create new money and the UK commercial banks ( monitored by the Bank of England) also create the money that in turn allows the UK population to spend it.
Then the UK government collects taxes to draw the majority out of circulation.
Taxes are not raised to fund spending.
As a sovereign nation with a fiat currency the UK can never run out of money. The UK can afford it.
You want to make a mark as PM? Then why not be really radical and properly improve the lot of the 90% of the UK population rather than the top 10% as all UK governments have done for the last 45 years.
That’s the way to defeat Reform.
Just carrying on as normal means that you will be destroyed at the next election. Why? Because the 90% ” won’t get screwed again”.
Agreed
I do hope you are taking care – I wish you well asap – meanwhile not sure if my comment should be on this topic (in re “it grants angry people agency”) or your previous post re Nye Bevan would be furious I refer to things being/getting tough.
Whichever, I am still enjoying the Aldeburgh Festival and read the following on the programme in an article by Philippe Sands entitled ‘On Music and Law’ – he states that, for him, when things seem tough he listens to ‘Anthem’, a song by the Canadian poet Leonard Cohen – “There is a crack in everything/ that’s how the light gets in”. I wish you and all of your family the very best and am certain that the light will get in – stay positive.
You sent me off on a Leonard Cohen detour with that.
I have a collecton of his lyrics/ poems
Thank you
I have just read that you had a pain free day – I hope that delving into Leonard Cohen helped – hope for more pain free days
Not today, unfortunately
I know it is what he does – and it is done with intent, I’m quite sure, now Zack has made it a key part of his messaging
But stuck in my craw to hear Andy Burnham talking about bringing Hope.
What about the good old equality impact assessment applied to all policies?
There also has to be an ability to identify issues that need tacking as the talk of a London Chattering Classes elite isnt always that far from the truth
I contribute in the hope it gives you something to latch onto to counter any pain or discomfort you might be in at the moment………….
Last night on Channel 4 News was a small item on voter attitudes to Trump. Whilst his popularity was down in coastal areas, Rust Belt/Flyover state popularity still held up and there was division everywhere. Listening to proponents of Trump I was struck by something that I/we here had noticed previously.
We can talk about for example about Thomas Hobbes, Fascism and other darker elements of human behaviour but there is no doubt in my mind what the mechanics of Trumps and Farage’s popularity are and it is simply that the people affected do not trust politicians anymore. I’ve said before that this is about a failure of politics. These people see Trump and Farage as simply honest – even if they know they are going to get screwed by them. Because honesty is absent politics, and so therefore, is trust.
The catatonic politics of Neo-liberalism – TINA, perma-austerity, rentierism, public squalor-private opulence, the denial of the power to use sovereign money in democratically elected governments by the people to meet their concerns, identity politics – all these have been rumbled by publics it seems to me everywhere. For that, we have to give people credit – and increasingly so, whilst coping with their choice of how they think it should be dealt with – which is NOT their fault because the Nero-liberal political system does not actually offer them a real choice does it because the choices are essentially provided by the plutocracy (corruption).
Bottom line: The public’s verdict on Neo-liberalism is actually in: it’s finished. This is what we are seeing right now and that remains the opportunity.
Much to agree with
We know the snake oil doesn’t work, but until it is seen to actually do harm to people, then it will still be bought from slick salespeople.
Unless a close relative or friend, or perhaps a neighbour was infected with covid and became ill or died as a result, people are liable to doubt the deadliness of the virus.
And several other examples.
People may need to feel the damage that fascism can do to our society before they are prepared to accept that it is, and always has been, a malign force. Maybe they need to stare into the abyss before stepping back from it. Let’s hope they do not hover above this abyss for too long.
I think it our job to avoid that risk.