{"id":74000,"date":"2024-02-02T06:49:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T06:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=74000"},"modified":"2024-02-02T10:53:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T10:53:26","slug":"if-you-set-out-to-do-nothing-you-will-achieve-less-than-that-which-is-going-to-be-labours-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/02\/02\/if-you-set-out-to-do-nothing-you-will-achieve-less-than-that-which-is-going-to-be-labours-fate\/","title":{"rendered":"If you set out to do nothing you will achieve less than that, which is going to be Labour\u2019s fate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I did, as usual, have a column published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/politics\/24091403.labours-growth-policy-ignores-people-favour-finance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The National<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>In it I discussed the weaknesses in Labour\u2019s plans for the financial services sector. My summary was:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Having spent 40 years of my life as a chartered accountant, I can find nothing that Labour has to say that will actually solve the simple problem that the UK has, which is how to match up the more than \u00a38 trillion of financial worth which people in the UK as a whole have with the simple and straightforward need that exists for investment in hospitals, schools, social housing, transport, new energy systems, and other climate-related changes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Doing that is the one, and I suggest the only, goal that Labour should have for financial services in this country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">That is because if Labour could release those funds for that purpose (and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-QuEST-for-a-Green-New-Deal.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">I have suggested ways in which that is possible<\/a>), then Labour could be a force for good, as would be the financial services industry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The problem for Labour is that they cannot even specify the issues that they face in such straightforward ways.<\/p>\n<p>The reasons for that are easy enough to spot.<\/p>\n<p>They are not solution focussed. You can\u2019t be when your big obsessions are spending nothing and maintaining the status quo, which they assured business was their goal yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>They are instead in tinkering mode, where a veneer of action is what they will, at most, adopt so long as nothing they do might in any way suggest that they will spend.<\/p>\n<p>If you set out to do nothing you will achieve less than that, which is going to be Labour\u2019s fate, whilst failing us all on the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I did, as usual, have a column published by The National yesterday. In it I discussed the weaknesses in Labour\u2019s plans for the financial services<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/02\/02\/if-you-set-out-to-do-nothing-you-will-achieve-less-than-that-which-is-going-to-be-labours-fate\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74008,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74000\/revisions\/74008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}