Richard Murphy's proposals for running the economy

Only between 6 and 9% of our land is built on, depending on which figures you use. That leaves quite a lot. I don't think builders will need to compete.

I think any youngster if capable of getting the grades needed should go to university . My grandson had a first in economics, his flat mate ,went to university and study a coarse to do with sport, no idea what, he is employed in a gym and loves the work , he didn't need the grades my grandson needed but he got the grades to get to a university and study

When we talk about 50% of people with degrees, we shouldn't forget that qualifications such as HNDs were converted to having degree status. The idea was to raise the status of higher vocational qualifications.

Somebody on here said these ideas are great but HOW can it be done. At the end of WW2 this country was almost bankrupt and yet it created the NHS and carried out a massive building programme to create decent homes for people who had formerly been living in what were sometimes fairly squalid conditions. Surely investment for the future - for a healthy, well educated and happy population - is a good investment?

I'm not quite sure why Richard Murphy's ideas are so much different from McDonnell's. Can anyone explain?

It's bit late for a long explanation, but (in a nutshell) Murphy thinks that McDonnell doesn't go far enough in being radical. He was critical of Labour for accepting Osborne's policy of a balanced budget. Murphy advocates Keynesian economics with a twist, which means state intervention with investment to stimulate the economy. It seems that this is what McDonnell now advocates too, but Murphy still thinks he's only tinkering at the edges. It could be that McDonnell is aware of what would be politically acceptable. Hopefully, Labour is aware of the need to educate the public that then national budget cannot be viewed in the same as a household budget.

To be fair, the UK had a massive amount of American money after WW2, which the British used to establish the NHS and welfare state as we know (knew?) it. The UK received more money than Germany, which used its share to rebuild its industrial base.

With hindsight, it might have been better to invest in industry and infrastructure. Ours created jobs, but was inefficient and was very soon overtaken. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, so while I'm at it, I'll say that we should have used North Sea oil and gas income better and not sold off our utilities to other countries. None of us will be around in a hundred years, but I'd give anything to come back and see what the history books write about early 21st century Britain. I seriously hope we won't be a 'has been'.

Most of labour's ideas of how to stimulate the economy, state investment banks etc remind me very uncomfortably of Harold Wilson, Tony Benn and labour policies of the 1960s. They were a disaster and we ended up having to seek help from the IMF and do what they told us to do.

Do not get me wrong, I am not objecting to the ideas put forward, just the means of implementing them.

Wilson was a centrist, who had backed Gaitskell (right-wing Labour) in preference to the left-wing Bevan. He inherited an economy in poor shape and was forced to devalue the pound. The number of social changes Wilson successfully introduced are often not recognised. It's true that he increased pensions and disablement benefits and changed the tax system to benefit low income workers, but the way he raised funds was very different from what McDonnell is proposing. Benn and Wilson hated each other.

I am sure Wilson did wonderful things, but he inherited a poor economic situation and made it worse. Every Labour administration since has always ended up messing up the economy. I have never voted for them (or the conservatives), mainly because of their economic incompetence.

Do you think that any administration is capable of economic competence, MOnica?

If Labour had called an election before the 2008 crisis, the economy would not have been in a mess. That crisis was caused by American banks, not the Labour Party. The economy is now in considerably worse shape than it was even in 2010. I'd be interested to know who you think would be more competent, MOnica.

I don't remember Edward Heath working wonders!

Quite funny that a lot of people who argue with each other say they never vote for Labour or Tory.
It's not just us who argue, then. It's others supposedly on the same side.

Just shows how well the media have done their jobs in portaying the Labour party as being incompetent with finances.

Nobody will ever believe you, daphne, that the crash was not caused by Brown.

I could never understand why the Labour Party didn't come out fighting, when anybody accused them of causing the 2008 crisis. They seriously didn't.

I used to watch TV programmes where Labour MPs were almost apologising and wanted to throw something at the screen. If I'd have been an MP, I would have told them to sling their hook.

You only have to listen to the Clinton/Trump debate and read various stuff to understand that it was a world wide phenomena, started largely by the sub prime market in America.
It really is time that argument was put to bed.

The Tories have never been any good at managing the economy you can go back to the beginning of the last century and every Tory government has caused may hem, of one sort or another. No one has the monopoly on uselessness the difference is who they support whilst causing chaos. The Tories support the wealthy Labour the rest.

Indeed they have caused mayhem, but they had media friends in the right places.

If I were leader of the Labour Party (which is never likely to happen), I'd send every new Labour MP on a basic macro-economics course, because I honestly don't think they understand. The public certainly doesn't, but it's up to politicians to 're-educate' them. Ooops! There's that dirty word again!

Do you think any anti-Labour propaganda will ever be put to bed? I don't. They keep coming up with their myths, which people swallow hook, line and sinker, because it supports their preconceptions. It's up to people such as Richard Murphy to challenge them, without seeming like a revolutionary, which would scare people.

The problem is that largely the main stream media who are owned by the wealthy know which side to support so the drip drop of negativity pays good dividends as far as they are concerned.

Of course it does.

When I was in the sixth form (many moons ago), we all had to do General Studies. One of the most valuable modules of the course was analysing how different newspapers handled the same stories. With the explosion of sources via the internet, I think this should be compulsory for all young people, if we're going to have responsible citizens. Of course, there are plenty of people who don't want the 'plebs' to be responsible citizens.

This is why we have post-truth politics. It's why people vote for Trump and why people vote the way their husband tells them. They've been brain-washed for so long that analysing facts challenges their pre-conceptions and is painful.

General studies hadn't been invented when I was at school!

Post-truth politics - was politics truthful at one time then?

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/05/14/post-truth-politics/

Good grief, Jalima! You must be a dinosaur. General Studies used to be a respected A level and had been going for a few years before I took the exam. It used to be a prerequisite for Oxbridge entry.