On Sky News, Keir Starmer tried to defend the fact he lied his way to the Labour Party leadership with yet another lie. He claimed that the “money is not available” to invest:
Starmer pitching NHS patients vs students & saying he can either cut NHS waiting lists or scrap tuition fees, but not both
You could raise Income Tax on the top 5% like you promised & do both. You could reverse Tory cuts to Corp Tax like you promised & do both. But you’re not pic.twitter.com/KvhjbDI75N
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 24, 2024
Starmer: misrepresenting our potential
The policies Starmer has U-turned on include nationalising a number of public services and scrapping tuition fees. But Starmer could deliver such policies and address NHS waiting times.
In the UK, various public services were nationalised until Conservative Margaret Thatcher privatised them. And we didn’t formerly have university tuition fees, until Labour’s Tony Blair introduced them in 1998.
In such cases, we’ve gone backwards. And there’s no reason Starmer couldn’t reverse such changes.
The UK government operates a fiat currency that is not linked to a gold standard.
Rather, it has value because we all agree that it does. So government spending largely depends on the physical reality of society: resources, manpower, and expertise.
When it comes to military spending, Starmer presents government spending as resource-based. This shows his priorities.
As it turns out, people are already using resources and manpower to run services like electricity and water. But we are paying huge dividends to shareholders in the process, rather than owning the services ourselves.
Rebalancing capitalism
Taxes on wealth and passive income could help rebalance society.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that scrapping tuition fees would transfer cost from students to our collective funds at £9.5bn per year.
But even a small wealth tax of 1-2% on assets over £10m would rebalance the economy to a less unequal place by up to £22bn per year.
Such a tax is popular: 77% of Conservative voters support it along with 86% of Labour voters.
Starmer could also address capitalist excess in UK society through equalising capital gains with income tax rates. This would rebalance the UK by £15.2bn per year.
And it’s unclear why people living off investments should pay less than those working.
There’s no reason Starmer cannot invest in first class public services, education, and cut NHS waiting times. It doesn’t make sense to say there’s not enough money, given the UK operates a fiat currency.
Featured image via Saul Staniforth -X
