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Defaulting on the Welfare State


It is vital that MPs consider the serious implications of our current public debt commitments and public debt projections. On current projections, the UK will default on its welfare state commitments, including those related to pensions. We must move our debt projections to a sustainable path. The reports that this briefing looks at highlight the need to take a long-term view of our public finances.

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Comprehensive Spending Review 2020


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Today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his Comprehensive Spending Review. The review set out the Government departments’ resource budgets for the years 2021/22 to 2023/24. Here are some of the Chancellor’s main points: New funding that takes the budget for coronavirus vaccines over £6 billion, part of over £18 billion to fund preventative coronavirus measures An additional £254 million investment to help reduce rough sleeping and homelessness The new £2.9 billion restart scheme to help more than one million […]

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Autumn Budget 2017: How the Budget helps Wycombe People


The Chancellor presented his Budget to Parliament yesterday. Many of the Budget measures will positively benefit Wycombe, including The abolition of stamp duty land tax on homes under £300,000 for first-time buyers, New financial support for house building over the next five years, Increases in the National Living and National Minimum Wage, Freezing of fuel duty for the eighth year in a row, and Further opportunities for our local NHS to receive additional capital investment. This weblink provides a useful summary of what […]

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Central banks: the problem or the solution? The Jackson Hole Summit this weekend


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In my maiden speech in the Commons, I explained how central banks and easy money produce the economic dislocations which result in the business cycle. As the economics posts on this site attest, I have consistently defended the view that our economic difficulties are rooted in the chronically inflationary system of fiat money with which society has been saddled since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971. I’m glad employment, GDP growth and other indicators are positive but […]

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The ECB’s bond-buying programme – “a grave menace to our civilisation”?


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The European Central Bank has announced a programme of bond-buying of €60 billion a month, to be carried out at least until end-Sept 2016. Monetary policy around the world remains in the midst of a remarkable experiment: money creation is expected sustainably to solve real economic problems. It is possible that there is something dangerously wrong with mainstream economic thought. Hayek’s conclusion to The Pure Theory of Capital is a spectacular rant against those economists who consider only the short-run, surface […]

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Speech on Money Creation and Society


A lady in Wycombe recently asked me the following questions: Why is my house valued higher than its worth? Why do crashes keep happening every 8 years? Who owns the money supply and how does it relate to gold? Why haven’t I had cost of living pay rise for 7 years yet the CEO has just bought a pacific island? Why do quarterly targets keep going up at work and what is the end game of this model? Why has […]

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Understanding the Money Creation and Society Debate


Together with colleagues spanning four parties – Michael Meacher (Lab), Caroline Lucas (Green), Douglas Carswell (UKIP) and David Davis (Con) – I have secured a debate on Money Creation and Society for Thursday 20 November. Here’s a quick guide to understanding the debate. First, we have a system of paper or “fiat” money: it exists due to legal mandate as opposed to being a physical commodity like gold. Reserves, notes and coins are created by the state but claims on money […]

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Book review: The Golden Revolution – How to prepare for the coming global gold standard, Butler


Conservative economic policy is easily recognised when stated as balanced budgets, low taxes and sound money. Today, these are a distant prospect. For all the work the Government have done, this year’s net financing requirement is £144.9 billion, larger than the health budget (£140bn) or education (£98bn). As my weekend brief explains, “The Government have delivered a typical tax cut of £705 for over 25 million people and taken over 3 million people out of [income] tax altogether”, however, please contact […]

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Keynes, Carney and the corruption of capitalism


We’ve come a long way since the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane pointed out that they had “intentionally blown the biggest government bond bubble in history” and that it constituted the biggest risk to financial stability. Yesterday, in his Sky News interview, the Bank’s Governor Mark Carney said that the housing market was the biggest risk to financial stability. Selected headlines from the recent press continue the story: U.K. House Prices Rise to Record High in April – “U.K. house prices hit […]

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The Four Horsemen, Russell Brand and the biggest problem with democracy


I found time this morning to watch the film Four Horsemen. It’s about what’s fundamentally wrong with the world and it features some major thinkers from Britain and the world. I feel fairly sure many of them did not know that the central point of the film is to explain why money should be separated from the state. As I set out in my maiden speech, Today, money is a product of the state. The Bank of England controls the […]

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