All Rachel Reeves has to do now is wait for the crash
Funding the Future
All Rachel Reeves has to do now is wait for the crash
In October 2008, as that year
 In 2005 and 2007 Gordon Brown sung the praises of the City of London when making his Mansion House speeches. We all know what happened next. Rachel Reeves used remarkably similar language last week when addressing the same audiences, offering them the same lax regulation that Brown did. What we can be sure of is that in this case history will repeat itself.
Ultra-processed foods are causing losses of 10% of UK GDP, so harmful are they
Funding the Future
Ultra-processed foods are causing losses of 10% of UK GDP, so harmful are they
I suspect that there are those who have been wondering why I have made so many comments about the costs of ultra-processed food recently. I have no...
 Ultra-processed foods are designed to be addictive, and like all addictive substances they are profoundly harmful. Now we know that they impose the biggest single cost on the UK economy - eating up the NHS, consuming public funds and destroying lives on an unprecedented scale. So, what will Wes Streeting do about them?
Why are you divorced from your savings? Most people have no clue how their pension and other savings are managed, or who by, and what the consequences for the economy, the planet or themselves of that management of their savings might be. Why is it that £6 trillion of pension fund money in the UK is totally unaccountable and what would happen if we brought it back under saver control?
Rachel Reeves really is a very big threat to the well-being of this country
Funding the Future
Rachel Reeves really is a very big threat to the well-being of this country
As Rachel Reeves made clear in her Mansion House speech last night, she wants to relax banking regulations. Big bonuses will be coming back, paid m...
 Rachel Reeves was recklessly irresponsible in her Mansion House speech last night, not only by increasing the risk of a financial crash, but also by ignoring the duty of local authority pension funds to their members - which they are more than ably fulfilling at present, and which she threatens. We could do without her indifference to real people and their needs.
Wes Streeting appears utterly indifferent to the harm he will cause
Funding the Future
Wes Streeting appears utterly indifferent to the harm he will cause
As the Guardian has reported in a newsletter this morning: Wes Streeting has decided it’s time to bring [a] competitive edge to the NHS. Yesterd...
 Wes Streeting is going to introduce NHS hospital league tables and in the process do all he can to reinforce health inequality. Nye Bevan would be ashamed of him.
Wes Streeting appears utterly indifferent to the harm he will cause
Funding the Future
Wes Streeting appears utterly indifferent to the harm he will cause
As the Guardian has reported in a newsletter this morning: Wes Streeting has decided it’s time to bring [a] competitive edge to the NHS. Yesterd...
 Wes Streeting is going to introduce NHS hospital league tables and in the process do all he can to reinforce health inequality. Nye Bevan would be ashamed of him.
Rachel Reeves’ poverty of ambition
Funding the Future
Rachel Reeves’ poverty of ambition
Rachael Reeves turned up at Larry Elliott
 Reeves wants to take the savings of the UK’s local council employees out of the hands of the local authority that employs them and pass them to mega funds in the City of London, whom she would like to use 5% of the funds to invest locally. Apart from undermining local authorities and distancing local people from their money, what could go wrong? The list is long….
Starmer announces nothing new on climate change
Funding the Future
Starmer announces nothing new on climate change
Keir Starmer flew to Azerbaijan to announce nothing new on climate change at COP 29 yesterday. Reports suggested: The UK will pledge to cut e...
 Starmer went to Azerbaijan yesterday to say precisely nothing new or useful about the UK’s policy on climate change. So very Labour.
Time to leave Twitter?
Funding the Future
Time to leave Twitter?
As the FT notes this morning: Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump is set to boost X’s flagging business, with some marketers poised for a ret...
 With Musk now joining the Trump administration is it time to leave Twitter?
When it had a choice, the world preferred zombie capitalism
Funding the Future
When it had a choice, the world preferred zombie capitalism
Larry Elliott, who has been economics editor of the Guardian for twenty-eight years, retires this week. Today saw his last column posted in that ro...
 As Larry Elliott, who is the Guardian’s economics editor says today in his final post after 28 years in the job, the world could have chosen the Green New Deal, of which we were co-authors in 2008, but it preferred zombie capitalism. We have paid a high price for that.