Richard Murphy Profile picture
Sep 13, 2020 20 tweets 4 min read Read on X
We have to face the possibility that our government is planning economic destruction for its own political ends – which are the demise of the state as we know it taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/09/1… Does the government actually want mass unemployment and is setting out to achieve it?
Before our government chose to become a pariah state, and before it was clear it planned to fail on Covid testing I expected UK unemployment to exceed five million next year. But now it may be very much worse. And I beginning to fear that is exactly what the government wants.
We find it very hard to comprehend a government that chooses to create unemployment. But remember Thatcher did just that. She created unemployment to destroy unions and manufacturing so she could create a different type of society. Is Cummings now planning something similar?
Could it be that this government wants staggering levels of unemployment as its excuse to take on all the instruments of power that it hates: Parliament, judges, civil society and democracy itself? Do they really think that catastrophe will let them reshape the UK forever?
If you wanted to create massive unemployment could you do better than end free trade, crush our export focussed industries, deny our service sector access to the EU and stoke inflation all at the same that Covid 19 brings the SME sector to its knees? I doubt it.
So why would you want that mass unemployment? Could it be to create the despair that might provide the support for your extremist crack down on all the liberties that once underpinned life in the UK? Can you think of any better way of generating that support?
But I foresee a problem with this plan. I have little doubt that Cummings thinks he can keep control during the chaos he is seeking to create. So did those who created the French Revolution, and within months many of them had lost their heads,and I don’t want that for anyone.
The problem for Cummings is he may believe forecasts suggesting we’re heading for 3 million unemployed, and he imagines 4 or so million achieving his aim. But I already expected 5 million unemployed and expect many more now, plus mass corporate insolvency and a banking crisis.
Cummings wants chaos and despair to get what he wants. But No Deal plus Covid create the potential for total economic meltdown and simultaneous substantial inflation in the UK now which MMT cannot solve. We will be a failed state politically and economically in that case.
For Cumming’s plan for the transition to the state he wants to work he has to maintain the appearance of a functioning state whilst subverting the purpose of every agency within it. This is how fascist takeover happens. But this continued functioning may not happen.
Massive unemployment - 6 million plus - means a catastrophic failure in demand and economic meltdown whilst the state pumps in millions in benefits payments which even so people may not be able to spend because goods will not be available to buy. Serious inflation could result.
At the same time No Deal Brexit will be trashing the value of the pound. This may be a previously unforeseeable double whammy that could break the UK economy. Britain will still pays its debts. But more importantly it may not be able to feed people.
There are three ways around this. One is abandoning No Deal. The second is making Covid testing work. The third would have to be a massive state backed work programme - beyond anything likely to be deliverable in the time required. Job Guarantees can work, but I doubt this fast.
I cannot see Cummings opting for any of the options that can save us from economic meltdown. He wants no deal. He wants herd immunity. And he wants unemployment. So we face catastrophe.
I suspect Cummings thinks he can maintain economic order by balancing the pound, unemployment, spending and QE. And without No Deal maybe we could. With it and a (likely) significant second spike his chances are remote. QE in this scenario tips us into chaos.
The result of the chaos is hard to imagine. But we’ve never seen a self imposed economic breakdown of the type our government is now choosing before so it’s really beyond the boundaries of extrapolation. What and who will survive it and how is hard to imagine. That’s its scale.
What are the odds of this chaos happening if we go for No Deal and have a Covid spike? I’d suggest they are very high indeed. I’d rate the chance of managing the economy in 2021 as very low in that situation. I expect the UK to be a completely broken nation as a result of it.
This can, of course, be avoided. Continued state support for business and employment is possible now. No Deal can be abandoned. Covid could be managed. We could become a willing partner of other states. We need not face turmoil. It will be a choice.
But, might this nightmare scenario that I think Cummings wants, without appreciating how bad it might be, play out? I think it might. And because I can now see that scenario developing I think it needs to be on the agenda for discussion. We have to know the risks we face.
If you thought things were bad, I suggest you think they could be much worse. That’s the only way to embrace the possibilities that deliberately provoked economic meltdown might create and to plan for managing them.

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More from @RichardJMurphy

Sep 12
Keir Starmer will say the NHS must "reform or die" today. What he is really saying is that to balance Rachel Reeves' books, you might die because he's not willing to raise the funds to deliver the NHS this country needs. How does it feel to be a human sacrifice to austerity?
That, I think, summarises what Starmer will really be saying today.

He's refusing to provide the new money the NHS requires even though he knows, and will say, the Tories underfunded it.
Then he will claim he has no choice about that - which is completely untrue.

As a result, he is deliberately supporting the Tory plan, which was to collapse the NHS.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 2
Would the UK economy really have collapsed as Labour is saying if it had not cut the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners within days of coming into office, whilst announcing more more ‘pain’ to come? Of course it wouldn’t have done. A thread…..
Lucy Powell MP, Leader of the House of Commons, made the absurd claim that cutting winter fuel allowance saved the economy from collapse when taking on television on Sunday morning.
I suspect that she would have said the same of keeping the two child benefit cap in place. Together these policies saved maybe £4 billion. They reduced the well-being of more than 10 million low income people, many living in poverty.
Read 32 tweets
Aug 27
There is literally no need at all for Labour to deliver a painful budget in October. There is a massive capacity to increase taxes on wealth. If Labour wanted to borrow they could. And there are people who want good work.
So, the ‘pain’ is all about Starmer & Reeves’ choice to deliver hardcore neoliberal dogma and not meet people’s needs.
Starmer is worse than the Tories. They at least admitted to their pleasure at imposing austerity. He pretends he has no choice but do it when that’s completely untrue. He’s choosing to undertax wealth, under deliver services, and over deliver misery.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 21
Rachel Reeves told Laura Kuenssberg this morning that the pensions industry had failed the people of this country. Some obvious questions follow as a result. A short thread...
Why, if the pension industry has failed so badly, does she want to force people to pay more it in pension contributions, as seems to be her plan?
Why, if the pension industry has invested so badly for this country, does she think it will start doing better now if she gives it more money?
Read 9 tweets
May 23
The most useful thing I think I can do this morning is suggest questions to ask politicians in this election. A thread.
The following list builds on work referenced on my blog, and most especially the Taxing Wealth Report that I published recently. taxingwealth.uk
The list of questions is not necessarily in any order of priority. Themes are repeated quite deliberately because that is necessary when all politicians are evasive.
Read 19 tweets
Mar 1
Rishi Sunak is standing outside Downing Street saying that the newly chosen MP for Rochdale, elected yesterday, is the reason why he must crush our democratic freedoms. In the process he appeals to theocracy whilst totally undermining the democracy he claims to support.
The reality is that if there are extremists in the country it is those members of his party who want to create divisions in this country for their own small minded gains.
Worse, he appeals to our history as imperialist colonisers and deniers of freedom to billions to justify his position. If he wished to cause offence, that commentary is clearly intended to deliver it and is utterly blind to the prejudice created by economic and social division in our society,
Read 8 tweets

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