Live Labour broadcast on the future of the NHS

[BlindBoyGrunt]

I suspect that what that means is, yes, we will, when we’ve sorted the economy enough to afford it. Ie growth helps all of us, and services have to be costed we all know the game, the Tories and red tops will play the “tax increase card” and the “unbudgetted spending” card if there isnt some element of holding back on this.

What I do know is that there is more chance of services being funded better under Labour and there are no viable alternatives that will spend more.

There's a word for not doing anything until we sort out the economy. Austerity - the thing that hasn't worked for the last thirteen years.
This country can create enough money right now to fix the NHS and more.

 

[BoroMart]

There's a word for not doing anything until we sort out the economy. Austerity - the thing that hasn't worked for the last thirteen years.
This country can create enough money right now to fix the NHS and more.

Nobody is claiming that labour will do nothing, only that they can't fix everything in one term.

The Tories have FUBARed so much, no service is working optimally or even adequately. Schools, police, NHS, roads, council funding, the economy are all ruined. On top of that national debt has increased staggeringly since the tories came to power. So I'm happy for you to explain how we invest and repair the damage done by tories, immediately, without an astronomical and unsustainable increase in our debt levels, and without increasing revenue into the exchequer through increasing the economic output. Or are you claiming we should pursue quantitive easing, leading to hyper inflation. When labour come in, we will have had 14 years of Tories running every public service into the ground. Do you seriously think that can be turned around in 5 years with negligible impact to the economy?

There's the challenge, I await your realistic strategic approach...

 

[Laughing]

Regardless of approach what starmer said was give concrete targets for the nhs which he was adamant Labour would achieve. They were the targets in the last Labour government.

Quicker ambulances will save thousands of lives every year, alone.

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

Nobody is claiming that labour will do nothing, only that they can't fix everything in one term.

The Tories have FUBARed so much, no service is working optimally or even adequately. Schools, police, NHS, roads, council funding, the economy are all ruined. On top of that national debt has increased staggeringly since the tories came to power. So I'm happy for you to explain how we invest and repair the damage done by tories, immediately, without an astronomical and unsustainable increase in our debt levels, and without increasing revenue into the exchequer through increasing the economic output. Or are you claiming we should pursue quantitive easing, leading to hyper inflation. When labour come in, we will have had 14 years of Tories running every public service into the ground. Do you seriously think that can be turned around in 5 years with negligible impact to the economy?

There's the challenge, I await your realistic strategic approach...

The worst debt that this country has ever been in during modern times was right after WWII and on the back of that we built millions of council houses and we created the welfare system and the NHS. It is nigh on impossible for a country such as ours to increase our debts to unsustainable levels because for one, the country creates its own money and borrows from itself, and secondly, unlike a bank loan or a mortgage that you might take out, it never has to be paid back. In fact the country has been in continuous debt since the 1600s and in 1815 the debt amounted to 300% of GDP.

It is also a fallacy that the government spends taxpayers money, it doesn't It spends money first and then collects tax to control inflation.

 

[BoroMart]

The worst debt that this country has ever been in during modern times was right after WWII and on the back of that we built millions of council houses and we created the welfare system and the NHS. It is nigh on impossible for a country such as ours to increase our debts to unsustainable levels because for one, the country creates its own money and borrows from itself, and secondly, unlike a bank loan or a mortgage that you might take out, it never has to be paid back. In fact the country has been in continuous debt since the 1600s and in 1815 the debt amounted to 300% of GDP.

Debt in 1945 and debt today are not really comparable. Economy was run very differently then, service industry didn't exist and anyway, within 20 years the country was financially sick as a dog.

As for being able to print our own money, as I said, that doesn't come without consequence, the money that we would need to print would lead to hyper inflation. The value of the pound would tank, and that would kill us importing all our food.

You are alluding that printing money and loaning it to the government because we never have to pay it back is some kind of silver bullet solution, but that is naive.

It is also a fallacy that the government spends taxpayers money, it doesn't It spends money first and then collects tax to control inflation.

Agreed, but money needs to be on the back of value creation linked to tangible assets, otherwise its just a means of devaluing the currency.

We seem to agree that all our services have been underfunded and are currently FUBARed and that massive investment is required to turn them around. I asked for your solution to this, and the answer you gave appears to be print trillions of pounds loan it to the government and fix everything all at once and this can be done without any negative consequences.

So my challenge now is for you to explain why no UK government has ever gone down this route before. Because, lets face it, the tories could have done this, and solved all our problems years ago. So why didn't they....

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

As for being able to print our own money, as I said, that doesn't come without consequence, the money that we would need to print would lead to hyper inflation. The value of the pound would tank, and that would kill us importing all our food.

The government don't actually create very much money, only about 3% of the total created. New money is created all day and every day by commercial banks. Every time someone receives a bank loan or mortgage the money is created out of thin air. We can spend what we like and will not hit hyperinflation as long as there is unemployment. However building houses, employing more doctors and nurses and paying them better, and creating more medical courses in our universities are all growth and all put more money in circulation.

 

[BoroMart]

The government don't actually create very much money, only about 3% of the total created. New money is created all day and every day by commercial banks. Every time someone receives a bank loan or mortgage the money is created out of thin air. We can spend what we like and will not hit hyperinflation as long as there is unemployment. However building houses, employing more doctors and nurses and paying them better, and creating more medical courses in our universities are all growth and all put more money in circulation.

So explain why this Tory government haven't done it and why labour won't do it, because investing in all those services would be a huge vote winner.....

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

So explain why this Tory government haven't done it and why labour won't do it, because investing in all those services would be a huge vote winner.....

Lol the Tories have printed more money than any other UK Government. EVER

As BBG says the problem is they view QE as a means to protect wealth and capital when the economic system fails which it keeps doing lately.

The better solution is to use borrowed money AND then invest

Here is a twitter thread by Richard Murphy, a political economist and professor at Sheffield University which explains exactly what exiled is saying, that QE can actually be used to transform the economy and create growth. It also touches on why it should not be a cause of austerity or cause unsustainable debt.

 

[BoroMart]

Lol the Tories have printed more money than any other UK Government. EVER

Agreed, but that isn’t what BBG is saying. He’s claiming it’s a silver bullet to fix all problems. It isn’t, using to invest in infra projects is great. It creates valuable assets. Using it to finance government services Is bad, as much of it will end up in the hands of employees, this creating an imbalance of cash to goods and creating inflation.

Austerity has been completely discredited and it doesn't work.

I don’t see anyone arguing for austerity, this is a BBG allusion that simply wasn’t implied.

that QE can actually be used to transform the economy and create growth. It also touches on why it should not be a cause of austerity or cause unsustainable debt.

See my previous comments it can, but it isn’t a silver bullet to fix all problems. As soon as it starts to put wealth in peoples hands without creating valuable assets then it creates inflation. There are thousands of economists that will tell you that.

What we need is some QA, some borrowing and some patience to fix the broken system.