{"id":93349,"date":"2026-06-26T08:06:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=93349"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:06:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:06:33","slug":"questions-we-need-to-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/06\/26\/questions-we-need-to-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions we need to ask"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I am shamelessly using material where I can find it right now - without apology, and this post is based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/06\/24\/to-improve-well-being-we-must-abandon-failed-economic-ideas\/#comment-1083760\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on a comment by RobertJ,<\/a> actually submitted a couple of days ago, but which I did not have the energy to read at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I have edited very lightly, largely to add format to the piece.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>There are three reasons why I like Robert's post:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>It respects people's right to be angry<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>It grants angry people agency<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>It demands that we listen<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Some questions for our conversations with colleagues, neighbours, communities, and families.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How has Britain been failing, and how has that affected you and your neighbours?<\/li>\n<li>What explanations has gov\u2019t given for those problems, and do you accept their excuses?<\/li>\n<li>What would you like the government to do?<\/li>\n<li>What excuses do they give you for not doing it?<\/li>\n<li>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?<\/li>\n<li>Can you think of times when the gov\u2019t HAS come up with the cash, even when they said they couldn\u2019t afford it?<\/li>\n<li>How did they DO that?<\/li>\n<li>Where do you think the money we use to pay our taxes to the government comes from in the first place?<\/li>\n<li>Where does the gov\u2019t say it comes from?<\/li>\n<li>Do you believe them?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Different groups respond to different \u201cgood questions\u201d \u2013 we must really listen to THEIR answers, and to THEIR questions \u2013 the ones we hope OUR questions will provoke \u2013 because Reform UK Ltd. have successfully exploited the fact that people have got used to NOT being listened to, but being constantly lectured to.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cMoney\u201d so they can see a politics of care and economy of hope, might work, not so we can win arguments.<\/p>\n<p>Two final questions for our friends, then:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What would they expect a \u201cpolitics of care\u201d to look like?<\/li>\n<li>What would they expect a Chancellor or PM to do if they believed in an \u201ceconomy of hope\u201d?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am shamelessly using material where I can find it right now &#8211; without apology, and this post is based on a comment by RobertJ,<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/06\/26\/questions-we-need-to-ask\/\"><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":[204,35,16,203,147,224,106,235,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-inequality","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-for-people","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93349","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=93349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93353,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93349\/revisions\/93353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}