Gary Neville, @GNev2, suggested we need a peaceful revolution yesterday. It’s not the usual call for an ex Manchester United player who is now a football commentator. But was he right to do so? A short thread….
I am not by inclination revolutionary. But we need to change our head of state.

And we need to be rid of the House of Lords.

We need electoral reform - because first past the post is nothing like democracy now.
We need to respect the right of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to choose their own futures.

And we need to revive local decision making, and democracy.

Education needs to be back under state control, and not that of private academies.
The NHS has to be locked into the state.

And so does economic policy: the undemocratic farce of claiming that we have an independent Bank of England because politicians can’t be trusted with the economy has to end.
The House of Commons must be able to hold the government to account, which it can’t now.

It must be able to say ministers lie when they do.

Ministers who lie must suffer penalties for doing so.

Politicians who cause unnecessary deaths must be liable for them.
The ‘Treasury view’ which means that whenever someone proposes something for the good of society we apparently can’t afford it has to be shattered.

The police must not be used for the oppression of opinion.
We must have statutory rights that courts must uphold. The right to be who we are is essential.

These rights must include the right to free speech and assembly, albeit with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.
The legal system must be respected and the rule of law upheld.

Media ownership must be transformed.

People must have the right to a trade union, and employers must have the legal obligation to recognise that union.
The right to private property must be upheld. The demand that it be accountable when held in companies or trusts must be enforced.

It should be a constitutional requirement that we have overall progressive taxation and the required taxes to deliver it.
The right to support from the state should be enshrined in law.

The state should have a legal obligation to ensure that those who need help get it.
There should be legal restrictions on the delay in the supply of government services, from healthcare, to housing, to justice.

There should be a legal obligation to fund key services like our tax authority, education and social care.

The environment must be protected.
We need a written constitution.

It must reflect the country we are, not the country we were.

We need a peaceful revolution in other words.

The system of government we have is not fit for purpose.

Almost everything needs to change.

Gary Neville was right to make his call.

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More from @RichardJMurphy

25 Jul
According to press reports this morning 'Britain faces ‘decades of financial risk’ as £370bn pandemic bill mounts'. The headlines seem very familiar: they looks like debt paranoia. But is that true? A short thread....
The headlines are pretty universal. The Observer is guilty of the one that I quote. theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…
What the reports are referring to are two publications from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee this morning. Both relate to the way that the government has managed spending during the Covid crisis. committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/…
Read 18 tweets
23 Jul
The government gave some staff in the NHS a pay rise yesterday, and then said that the cost must come out of existing NHS budgets. It refused a pay rise to the police. It’s as if they’re saying there is a shortage of money. There isn’t. A thread’s needed to explain that…..
Once upon a time, before most people in the UK were alive, the value of money was linked to gold, either directly or indirectly via the fixed exchange rate we had with the US dollar. But that ended in 1971. In that year the dollar ceased to be linked to gold.
Since 1971 the result has been that all the money we have in the UK is what is called fiat money. That has nothing to do with an Italian car company. What it actually means is that all our money is just a promise to pay.
Read 54 tweets
20 Jul
The idea that national insurance should pay for the increased cost of social care for the elderly is hideous. It reveals that the government does not know how tax works, how the economy functions, or how tax impacts inequality. A thread……
The Times has reported that the government is planning to increase the national insurance paid by both employers and employees to pay for the UK’s social care crisis. As tax decisions go, this one would be terrible.
It’s true that we have a social care crisis in the UK. Just as we need more healthcare, education, police, justice services, environmental protection and much more, so do we also need more social care.
Read 31 tweets
11 Jul
The list of things that are failing in the UK is growing:
- The NHS
- Education
- The justice system
- Social care
- Defence
- The police
The government’s planned response is to cut spending and make things worse. How and why do they think that will work for us?
The government says that taxes will have to go up to pay for better public services. There is no evidence that this is true. Last year more than £300 billion of government spending was paid for by newly created money, provided by the Bank of England. Why not carry on with that?
Those who object to the government creating money to pay for public services say that’s because it creates inflation. It hasn’t for goods, services and wages. It has for shares and house prices. So why not tax wealth more in that case, and have the services we need as well?
Read 11 tweets
7 Jun
The time for pretence is over: the reality is that the UK is facing another Covid outbreak at least as serious as that earlier this year. This has massive economic consequences. So, a thread on what we need to think about this time.
First, the Treasury has to realise we lockdown to protect the economy. We don’t do it to harm it. We lockdown, provide support and accept the costs because the alternatives are worse.
What’s worse is not just in lives lost, or blighted by long Covid and racked by concern, although they are all bad enough. The alternative is bigger economic cost resulting from health care created chaos.
Read 61 tweets
5 Jun
Let me get the good news on the G7 tax plan on the record. It is historic, it's a step in the right direction and it definitely is going to upset a lot of tax havens and some companies. So let's mark that up as a plus for tax justice. But then....a short thread
The 15% minimum tax rate is far too low: it should have been at least 21% and maybe more. The OECD average tax rate is around 25% and so this is a big concession to the low tax countries, including the UK and its tax havens
Next, there are many accounting problems in what has been announced. Who is defining profit margins? Is it one year or over time for example? And why 10%? That brings some pharmaceuticals in but leaves Amazon out. Is that what was intended?
Read 9 tweets

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