This article appeared on the Open Democracy site on 16 June 2020 On the weekend of 30 May Elon Musk – a billionaire with a net worth of $38billion – launched a rocket into space. This private venture was in contrast to President Kennedy’s ‘moonshot’ ambition of 1961-69 – one of the greatest mobilizations of …
These rough notes were prepared by me for an informal address to a gathering of British and German trade union leaders, hosted by the TUC and by the German Social Democrat think-tank, the Friederich Ebert Stiftung. The address took place just as Britain’s General Election of 2019 was launched. There have been three big issues …
The following is a very long, but I hope worthwhile read…published by the Trans National Institute’s stunningly well produced Report State of Power, 2019: Finance – in January, 2019, and edited by Nick Buxton. Until we fully grasp the importance of public debt to the finance sector, immensely wealthy, globalised corporations will continue to parasitically …
The Latent Unused Power of Citizens & The Production of Public Collateral Read More »
The Economist had a piece on Britain’s tax base in its 25th January edition. It begins with a reference to Denis Healey’s speech to the 1973 Labour conference, in which he promised that tax increases would be met with “howls of anguish” from everyone, not just the rich. As it happens, I have been reviewing the …
I wrote a piece for the Saturday (26 January 2018) Guardian. Its been described by many as “counter-intuitive” – because in it I draw on the research of others (notably that of Ian Mulheirn – director of consulting at Oxford Economics) to argue that building more houses will not dampen house prices. I posed this …
Why Building More Houses Will Not Solve the housing Crisis Read More »
In this piece, written for International Politics and Society, I argue that the global investigation into the “Paradise Papers’ has created an opportune moment for wider debate about how the increasingly corrupt and out-of-control global financial system can be tamed. It is time, I argued, that tax-paying citizens recognised their power to create change, and to manage …
I thought long and hard before refusing to sign the letter calling for a Plan B. Not because I do not think it is urgently required. But because the letter called for “clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, as well as by raising taxes on those best able to pay.” It goes without saying, …
Why I did not sign the Observer letter for ‘Plan B’ Read More »
