The Guardian wrote this about my interview on the Today programme this morning:<\/p>\n
Two years ago, when Jeremy Corbyn was first running for the Labour leader, the tax campaigner Richard Murphy <\/strong>was identified as the brains behind \u201cCorbynomics\u201d. <\/a>Murphy actively campaigned for Corbyn* and was credited with coming up with proposals for \u201cpeople\u2019s QE (quantitative easing), an ambitious plan to use QE to fund infrastructure investment.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n This morning Murphy was on the Today programme. But he is no longer a Corbyn economics guru, and he was on the programme expressing reservations about John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor\u2019s, announcement of his plan to raise tax for those earning more than \u00a380,000. <\/a>Murphy was not critical of the plan per se, but he argued that McDonnell was not being sufficiently ambitious, and that McDonnell was too worried about the need to balance the books on the current account. Murphy said:<\/em><\/p>\n We are talking about a handful of billions of pounds. It could be \u00a35bn. It may be less. I\u2019ve seen those estimates. I doubt if it\u2019s very much more than that. In other words, taxing income tax on those earning more than \u00a380,000 a year, by an extra 5% say, will not make a big difference to the overall balance of the government\u2019s books.<\/em><\/p>\n It does make a difference, a powerful difference, to the signals on inequality, and I think that\u2019s important. But it doesn\u2019t solve [McDonnell\u2019s] underlying economic problems and it doesn\u2019t help his commitment to actually beat austerity, pay people what they deserve and so on. In other words, this policy constrains everything else he can do ...<\/em><\/p>\n McDonnell should have been talking about he was going to do to deal with the real issues that are facing the economy, the lack of investment, low pay, the lack of really good employment prospects for young people. All the comes from investment. He should have been talking about how he was going to fund that, and at the same time making clear that he was not going to be charging the same people who are going to get opportunity from that to pay for it. But he hasn\u2019t said that. So it\u2019s a political mistake to do it in this order.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Murphy set out his argument in more detail in a post on his blog yesterday. <\/a>In it he argued that McDonnell was \u201cjust not leftwing enough to do the right thing for Labour\u201d. Here\u2019s an extract.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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