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Austerity lies and myths – what the government doesn’t want you to know

Joining the panel of leading economists for discussion and debate on the true state of the economy and the lies underpinning the Government’s austerity programme are Left Futures contributors Ann Pettifor and Michael Burke, James Medway of the New Economics Foundation and journalist (and former Left Futures contributor) Owen Jones, chaired by National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower. Video by Fourman Films.

2 Comments

  1. Robert says:

    Yes but in 1945 we had a labour party, what we have today is a long long way from being labour, all you get are labour telling us labour is the party of the hard working.

    I agree with everything said but of course who is going to put all that into practise labour no in a million years I was listening to Ba;;’s today it like listening to John Major using a different voice .

    I think the public will give Cameron one more term.

  2. Barry Ewart says:

    Good speakers. As a working class socialist a few years ago I heard a talk by Dr Ha Joon Chang and he suggested we should all read the financial pages of the newspapers to become economically aware citizens and I have done this ever since and I highly recommend this to other socialists to empower yourself. I once saved up for years and bought a leather suite for over £1,000 pounds and felt guilty. And that’s a problem with some of the left, we seem afraid of hundreds of thousands, millions, trillions aargh! But it is the surplus labour of the working billions and we shouldn’t be shy about getting it back. Take £1b each off the top 200 companies(£200b) to be paid in 7 days if not£2b! Collect uncollected taxes from the rich (£30b), EC 5% Financial Transaction Tax ( £1.75 tr in EC) tax land etc. But we also need to be imaginative – democratic public ownership of rail and mail with staff electing the boards and communities having a say and they could break even but publicly owned utilities could pay a community dividend which could be taken as money or offset against bills to address fuel poverty- people would feel they were theirs and they would be nailed down against right wing carpet baggers!. Also democratic public ownership some banks, airlines (with less seats, more comfort for passengers and creches in the sky) democratic public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry – all with staf electing boards and communities having a say. I would also like to see free public transport which would help the transport poor, mean less stress on drivers ( we could also have couriers on board for passenger safety and to help passengers) would attract people out of cars to help the environment and would be more efficient plus could mean safer roads, fresher air quality, quieter roads plus give more people the confidence to cycle and why do we subsidise employers paying our own fares to work? Could even have hanging baskets on board!
    And work with sister parties to try to make such policies including a living wage etc. adopted universally. Could also get progressive Govts to fund a Global publicly owned Trust to build solar panel farms in the Worlds deserts to harness the free energy of the sun to get rid of our dependency on fossil fuels. I was once talking to a nurse in a practice facing potential closure and it was like a scene from an Ibsen play, she said she had leant just to think of herself and I said, “Is this what they have done to us?” before offering solidarity as a trade unionist and offering hope that the Coalition may be out in May. So the Neo-Libs haven’t broken the Left and it’s time for us to start thinking and imagining again how the World could be. Try it brothers and sisters, its quite empowering if not liberating, “Austerity – we laugh in the face of austerity!” IT’S GOOD TO DREAM!
    Yours in solidarity!

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