The Account

Pope Leo XIV has issued his first major encyclical, and despite headlines claiming it is about AI, this video argues that its real subject is power. Who controls artificial intelligence? Who benefits from it? Who is excluded from decision-making? And can democracy survive when a handful of corporations control the digital systems that increasingly shape our lives? Those are the questions the Pope is really asking. In this video, I explore the political economy behind the Pope’s argument, linking it back to Pope Leo XIII’s response to the industrial revolution in Rerum Novarum in 1891. The comparison is striking: then it was in factories and industrial capitalism that power was concentrated; now it is in algorithms, data centres and platform monopolies. The technologies have changed, but the concentration of power has not. If anything, it has intensified. This, then, is not really a debate about technology at all. It is a debate about democracy, accountability, ownership, inequality, work, and whether governments still govern in the public interest. The Pope argues that human beings must never be reduced to data points or economic inputs. He warns that AI cannot make moral judgments, and that technological progress without democratic control risks deepening inequality and undermining freedom itself. At the same time, he is also asking whether elected governments still have meaningful authority when unelected corporations increasingly control the infrastructure through which information, communication and decision-making now flow. The encyclical raises profound questions. It challenges the idea that technology is neutral, and instead insists that all technologies reflect political choices about ownership, governance and power. So, why are governments so reluctant to regulate AI corporations when they know markets do not automatically defend freedom? And why may democratic intervention be urgently required if society is to retain any meaningful control over the future being created around us? Whether you are religious or not, these are among the most important political economy questions of our time.

Everyone talks about inflation, government debt, economic growth and productivity. Politicians obsess about deficits. Economists argue about interest rates. Businesses complain about uncertainty. But what if Britain’s biggest problem is none of these things? What if the real crisis is fear? In this video, I explore how fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of judgment, and fear of uncertainty have become embedded in British society. I argue that this culture of fear now shapes how governments govern, how businesses invest, how schools educate, how politicians communicate and how individuals live their lives. Drawing on the remarkable story told in Dear England and Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England football team, I suggest that success comes not from eliminating uncertainty but from learning how to live with it. Southgate’s insight was simple: people cannot perform at their best when they are frightened of failure. Once players stopped fearing mistakes, they started playing the football they were capable of producing. I also examine how neoliberal thinking has encouraged a culture obsessed with perfection, optimisation and control, and how that culture generates anxiety, conformity and political paralysis. When people are taught that every failure is a personal fault, risk-taking declines, creativity suffers, and innovation becomes much harder to achieve. This video also explores why the opposite of fear is not courage, as many people assume, but curiosity. Fear closes down possibilities. Curiosity opens them up. Fear demands certainty. Curiosity accepts uncertainty. Fear narrows horizons. Curiosity expands them. I argue that Britain’s education system, political culture and economic institutions increasingly rely on fear as a mechanism of control, creating a society that is less resilient, less creative and less capable than it could be.  The alternative is curiosity, playfulness, resilience and coherence. These are not abstract ideals. They are the foundations of successful teams, successful organisations and successful societies. If Britain is to thrive again, we need to stop being frightened of imperfection and start embracing uncertainty. We need less fear and more curiosity. We need less control and more coherence. And above all, we need to remember that freedom from fear may be one of the most important political goals of all.

Reform is rising because trust in politics has collapsed. Economic insecurity, failing public services, unaffordable housing, insecure work and a loss of belonging have created the conditions in which Reform can thrive. In this video, I argue that Reform is not the cause of Britain’s problems; it is a symptom of much deeper failures that have been building for decades. I explain why so many people have lost faith in Labour, the Conservatives, government institutions and the political establishment as a whole. I look at the role played by austerity, deindustrialisation, stagnant wages, housing shortages, declining public services and the growing sense that mainstream politics no longer understands the lives of ordinary people. The video also explores why immigration has become such a powerful political issue, and why it is often acting as a proxy for wider anxieties about insecurity, identity, opportunity and control. Simply dismissing or attacking Reform voters will not solve these problems. Understanding why people are angry is essential if an alternative is to be created. Most importantly, I set out what that alternative might look like. I argue for a politics of care based on security, dignity, health, housing, opportunity and democratic participation. Drawing on modern monetary theory and resulting policies of full employment, I explain why governments have far more capacity to act than neoliberal economics suggests, and why rebuilding hope is the only effective response to the politics of grievance. If Reform is to be challenged, the conditions that created it must be changed. This video explains how that might happen, and why the future of British politics may depend upon it.

What if the national debt is not a burden at all? What if it is simply the nation’s savings?  Any sensible analysis shows that this so-called debt is no such thing: it's just a massive savings bank operation. That sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. In fact, understanding this point changes almost everything about how we think about government finance, public spending, austerity and economic policy. In this video, I explain why every pound of government debt is also somebody else’s financial asset. I show why government bonds are not like household debt, why they function as savings accounts with the state, and why the financial system depends upon them. Pension funds, insurance companies, banks and many of the world’s largest investors all rely on UK government bonds as a safe place to hold wealth. I also explain why governments that issue their own currency are fundamentally different from households, why the UK government cannot run out of pounds, and why the idea that Britain must one day “pay off the national debt” makes little economic sense. The national debt exists because people and institutions want somewhere secure to save their money, and the government has a duty to accept those savings.  Along the way, I challenge some of the most common myths in economics. Are bond markets really in control of governments? Do bond vigilantes dictate public policy? Does rising government debt automatically create a crisis? Or have politicians, economists and commentators misunderstood the role that government bonds actually play in a modern economy? The answers matter because misunderstanding government debt has helped justify decades of unnecessary austerity, underinvestment, and fear about public spending. If we get the nature of government bonds wrong, we get much of economic policy wrong as well. If the national debt is actually national savings, then the debate about government finance needs to start in a very different place.

Oil prices are under threat. Food supplies are becoming more fragile. Critical raw materials are under strain. The risk of a major economic shock is growing by the day. Yet stock markets remain close to record highs. Why? In this video, I explore the strange disconnect between financial markets and economic reality. The FTSE 100 and S&P 500 continue to rise despite mounting geopolitical risks, growing pressure on energy supplies, concerns about fertiliser production, and warnings that supply chains could be seriously disrupted. I suggest there are three reasons why this is happening. First, pension funds and life assurance companies continue to pour money into stock markets because that is what they have been trained to do. Institutional habits create a constant flow of money into shares, regardless of whether those shares are realistically valued. There will be a heavy price to pay for this.  Second, markets are behaving irrationally. We have seen this before. The dotcom bubble and the financial crisis of 2008 both followed periods when investors convinced themselves that prices could only ever rise. Today, AI speculation appears to be creating a similar mood of market exuberance. Third, the ultra-wealthy live in a world detached from everyday experience. Rising food prices, energy bills and housing costs do not affect them in the same way that they affect most people. As long as asset prices keep rising, they have little reason to question what is happening. I also discuss the growing risks hidden within the shadow banking system, the lessons we should have learned from 2008, and why governments should already be preparing for the possibility of another financial crisis. Most importantly, I ask what should happen if another bailout becomes necessary. Should taxpayers once again rescue private institutions with nothing in return? Or should public support come with public ownership? The wealthy may still be celebrating, but every financial party eventually ends. The real question is who controls what happens when it does.  

Brexit failed. Britain is poorer as a result, trade is harder, investment is weaker, and many of the promises made during the referendum campaign never materialised. The evidence increasingly suggests that the UK economy is smaller than it would otherwise have been, while businesses, universities, scientists, artists and musicians all face barriers that did not previously exist. As a result, Labour is quietly moving back towards Europe. Keir Starmer talks about closer ties and a reset in relations, and many people now assume that rejoining the European Union is only a matter of time. But is that really the right answer? This video asks a question that very few politicians are willing to discuss honestly. What would rejoining the EU actually mean? Would it solve Britain’s problems, or would it create new ones? What would happen if the UK was expected to move towards membership of the euro? What would that mean for monetary sovereignty, fiscal policy, democracy and the ability of governments to respond to economic crises? I argue that Brexit failed, but I also argue that the EU is not without serious flaws. Its fiscal rules, democratic weaknesses, and commitment to neoliberal economic thinking create real problems for member states. That means Britain needs to think carefully before assuming that full EU membership is the only alternative to Brexit. There may be another way. Countries such as Norway and Switzerland have developed different relationships with Europe that provide access, cooperation and economic integration without requiring full political integration. Could a Norwegian-style arrangement through EFTA and the EEA provide a better route for Britain? This video explores the options and asks what kind of relationship with Europe would best serve Britain’s future. The answer is not as simple as either Brexit supporters or EU enthusiasts would like to suggest.

Most people think the next economic crisis will begin when shortages become obvious and prices start soaring. I disagree. The battle over the next economic crisis has already begun, and what worries me most is not the shortages themselves. It is the growing resistance to doing anything effective about them. After appearing on BBC Radio Five Live to discuss Rachel Reeves’ proposed food price cap, I came away convinced that many people still believe markets can solve every problem. Faced with shortages of food, fuel or energy, their answer remains the same: let competition work, let prices rise and let markets adjust. But what happens when people cannot afford those prices? Markets can ration food by price. They can ration fuel by price. They can ration energy by price. What they cannot do is guarantee that everyone gets access to essential goods when shortages emerge. That is the issue we need to confront. In this video, I explain why I think Britain faces the risk of a genuine supply crisis, why free-market dogma could make that crisis much worse, and why the opposition to intervention is already organising itself. Calls for rationing, market support, public provision or emergency government action are already being dismissed as socialist or statist. The real question is simple. When shortages arrive, should access to food, fuel and energy depend upon the ability to pay, or should the government act to ensure everyone gets what they need? I argue that food, fuel and energy must be treated as public goods in a crisis. The alternative is rising hardship, growing anger and potentially serious social unrest. The crisis may still be ahead of us. The fight over how we respond to it has already begun.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not just another geopolitical shock. It is the beginning of a physical supply crisis that could transform the British economy and everyday life. Oil, gas, fertiliser and food supplies are all under threat. This is not a banking crisis like 2008, and it is not a pandemic like 2020. This time, the problem is scarcity itself. In this video, I explain why inflation caused by shortages cannot be solved with interest rate rises, why the Bank of England is going to use the wrong tools in this crisis unless it's told not to, and why rationing, price controls, and direct government intervention in the economy may become unavoidable. I look at what this could mean for fuel prices, food supplies, mortgages, unemployment, social care, housing and the wider economy. I also explain why banks could once again require public rescue, why governments may need to support strategic industries directly, and why conventional neoliberal assumptions may no longer work in conditions like these. This is not an argument for panic. It is an argument for preparedness. Markets alone cannot manage a crisis created by shortages of essential goods. If governments fail to plan now, the social and economic consequences could be severe. That's why wartime lessons from the past matter again. Rationing and price controls worked in WWII, and they might be needed now, when fairness will be essential to maintaining public trust during a period of major disruption. The question is no longer whether the UK can afford to respond as I suggest is necessary. The question is whether it has the political courage to do so, because the real risk in this crisis is not that the government runs out of money. It is that it fails to use the powers it already has before events begin to spiral out of control.

Central banks claim they defeated inflation by raising interest rates. The evidence suggests otherwise. In this video, I look at seven major economies, including the UK, USA, Eurozone, Canada and Australia, and show why inflation was largely driven by supply shocks, not excess demand. I also explain why inflation was already falling before many interest rate rises had been completed, why higher rates may now themselves be feeding inflationary pressure, and why the social costs of these policies have fallen hardest on working people. The result is a serious challenge to the entire theory behind modern central banking. This video also asks whether so-called independent central banks are really independent at all, when they all reacted in almost exactly the same way to the inflation crisis of 2021 and 2022. The evidence suggests central banks reacted too late, used the wrong tools for the wrong problem, and may now be trapping economies in a cycle of structurally high interest rates and persistent inflation. So, has the whole model failed?

Andy Burnham says he wants to break with the failed neoliberal economics that have damaged Britain for decades. He talks about public ownership, reindustrialisation, regional investment and rebuilding public services. But does his programme actually deliver any of those things? In this video I look in detail at what Burnham is really proposing, and whether it amounts to genuine economic change or simply a softer version of the same failed system. I argue that Burnham’s model of “public ownership” often looks remarkably similar to the regulatory framework that already failed in the water industry. Thames Water, sewage dumping, dividend extraction and infrastructure collapse all happened under systems of public regulation combined with private ownership. At the same time, Burnham says he would still obey Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules. That means accepting the same Treasury constraints that have blocked serious public investment for decades. So can you really challenge neoliberalism while reassuring the bond markets, protecting fiscal rules and refusing to confront the power of finance? This video examines the contradictions at the heart of Burnham’s programme and asks whether Labour still has any real alternative to the economic model that created Britain’s current crisis.

Who really governs Britain? In this video, I explore the hidden political power of the City of London Corporation and the offshore finance network linked to it. Most people have heard of the City of London, but very few understand that it operates under a unique constitutional structure unlike anything else in the UK. Businesses vote in its elections. It has its own police force. It enjoys extraordinary political access. And it acts globally on behalf of finance capital. I argue that the City lies at the centre of the global tax haven system connecting London to Jersey, Guernsey, Cayman, Bermuda, Gibraltar, the British Virgin Islands, and more. Together, these places create a network designed to protect wealth from taxation, regulation, and democratic accountability. This matters because governments increasingly behave as though the financial sector has veto power over democratic choice. Policies are shaped around “market confidence” rather than public well-being. I also discuss the reforms required if democracy is to regain control over finance, including transparency, beneficial ownership registers, public reporting, sanctions on secrecy jurisdictions, and the abolition of corporate voting rights within the City itself. The question is simple: should finance govern democracy, or should democracy govern finance?

The Financial Times has published remarkable data on inheritance tax in the UK. Just five London parliamentary constituencies paid more inheritance tax than the whole of Scotland and Wales combined. Ten London seats paid more than the entire north of England over five years. But the FT then drew the wrong conclusion. This video explains why the real story is not that Britain depends on wealthy Londoners to fund the state. A currency-issuing government does not depend on the rich for money. Instead, the data reveals something much bigger and more important, which is the catastrophic consequences of the concentration of wealth in London and the long-term failure of UK regional economic policy. I explain what tax is actually for, why inheritance tax is meant to redistribute wealth, and why the UK economy has become so distorted that entire regions have been systematically left behind. This is a story about inequality, financial power, failed neoliberal economics and the political choices that created modern Britain. The real question is not whether the government can afford to, or should, tax wealth. It is about why wealth has been allowed to become so concentrated in the first place. If you want to understand inheritance tax, inequality, the role of the Financial Times in the wealth tax debate, and why Britain’s economy increasingly works only for a wealthy minority, this video explains the bigger picture.  

Three of the world's most powerful militaries are simultaneously stuck in conflicts they cannot win.   Russia has not defeated Ukraine after four years. America has not forced Iran to surrender after three months. Israel has not destroyed Hamas after two and a half years.   This is not a run of bad luck. It is a pattern, and it is telling us something devastating about the assumptions that now drive UK defence policy. The three failing wars — and what each one proves: Russia invaded Ukraine and expected victory in days and got years of war, catastrophic casualties, massive equipment losses, and an economy permanently distorted, with Ukraine still undefeated. The USA attacked Iran to supposedly eliminate its nuclear capability on 28 February 2026; three months later, Iran's government is intact, its military is intact, its population has not surrendered, and the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Israel invaded Gaza in October 2023. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, genocide and ethnic cleansing have happened, and yet Hamas is not destroyed, there is no functioning administration, and there is no peace, nor any sign of when it might be achieved. What the pattern tells us: Military superiority no longer translates into political victory. The post-war military-industrial complex that was built on the assumption that overwhelming force would produce military resolutions to conflict is failing in real time. Every one of these conflicts has increased instability, and not reducing it. The UK is now committed to spending 3% of GDP on defence, with no coherent explanation of what political outcomes that spending is supposed to achieve. What actually works and what the UK should be promoting is something quite different: Diplomacy, international law, and multilateral institutions have delivered durable peace where military force has not. The post-war European settlement, built on economic integration and institution building, not rearmament, is the model that worked Patient negotiation and the politics of care are not weaknesses; they are now the only approaches to conflict resolution with an evidence base. The UK is sleepwalking into a 3% GDP defence commitment at the precise moment three superpower militaries are demonstrating that military spending does not win wars. This video asks the question Westminster refuses to ask: what is it actually for?

Donald Trump may accidentally have told the truth this week. He openly admitted that he was not thinking about the financial well-being of ordinary Americans when deciding his policy on Iran. That matters because it reveals something fundamental about both Trump and the system that created him. In this video, I explore why Trump’s government increasingly looks like a government of billionaires for billionaires, detached from the economic reality facing ordinary people. Rising food prices, fuel costs, inflation, shortages and supply chain failures are becoming real pressures across the world, and yet those at the top appear indifferent to the consequences. I argue that this is not simply about Trump as an individual. It is about the endgame of neoliberalism itself. A political and economic system built to transfer wealth upwards is now failing economically, politically, socially and even militarily. The warning signs are everywhere: disrupted trade, shortages, financial instability, rising insecurity and growing public anger. The question now is what comes next. Can politics based on care, security and well-being replace a model built on extraction and inequality before the damage becomes irreversible?

UK government borrowing costs are rising fast, and the official explanation does not make sense. Britain is paying far more to borrow than France or Italy, despite having its own currency, a central bank, and no meaningful risk of default. So what is really going on? In this video, I argue that the City of London is using the bond market to discipline government and protect wealth. The institutions that own most UK government debt are banks, pension funds, insurance companies, and wealthy investors. Rising interest rates mean rising income for them. I explain who actually owns UK government debt, who receives the £111 billion a year in interest payments, and why most ordinary households see almost none of that money. I also look at the role of the Bank of England, quantitative easing, central bank reserve accounts, and why UK rates are so much higher than those in much of Europe. Most importantly, I explain why the government does not need to accept this situation. There are alternatives. A government that understood how money and central banking really work could take back control of interest rates and stop this ongoing transfer of wealth to the financial sector. If you want to understand how bond markets really work, and why UK economic policy seems designed to protect wealth before people, this video is for you.

Why does Britain keep ending up with weak Prime Ministers? In this video, I argue that the problem is no longer simply about personalities or political parties. The deeper issue is that the UK political system now rewards the wrong qualities and filters out many of the people who might actually be capable of governing well. I look at the five essential qualities any serious Prime Minister should possess: charisma, conviction, competence, coherence, and consistency. I also explain why recent leaders have so often failed these tests, and why modern politics increasingly rewards ambition without vision, media management without substance, and spin without understanding. The Labour Party may soon face another leadership contest, but I argue that the recruitment process itself is deeply contradictory. MPs and party members often want very different things, and the system may actively prevent genuinely capable candidates from emerging. I also explore the extraordinary challenges facing the next Prime Minister: economic crisis, instability in the Gulf, climate breakdown, constitutional tensions within the UK, the rise of neo-fascism, failing public services, and the urgent need for economic literacy at the top of government. This is not really a video about personalities. It is a diagnosis of a political system that increasingly struggles to produce leaders capable of governing in an age of permanent crisis.

Why do so many people feel alienated from politics in Britain today? Why has trust in political parties collapsed? And why do so many voters now feel politically homeless? In this video, which I think one of the most important we have made,  I argue that seven words explain the transformation of UK politics over the last 50 years. Once, politics was organised around nature, enterprise, work and society. Political parties represented identifiable interests, and most people could understand where they fitted into the political map. The Conservatives championed enterprise. Labour represented work. The Liberals focused on society and democratic reform. The Greens emerged around nature and environmental concerns. But neoliberalism changed all of that. Today, I suggest British politics is increasingly organised around the financialised returns represented by rent, interest and product charges. Property speculation, financial returns and intellectual property extraction now dominate political priorities. Enterprise and work have been hollowed out, and are now ignored. Financial capital has replaced productive activity at the centre of political debate. Our political parties have fundamentally changed as a result. This video explains how that transformation happened, why it matters, and why it helps explain the rise of political disenchantment, Reform UK, constitutional tensions and the collapse of trust in mainstream politics. If you want to understand why Britain feels politically broken, this video explains the process that got us here.

What happens when markets stop working? That is the question at the core of this video, and it matters because we are entering a period in which shortages of essential goods may become impossible to ignore. Oil supplies are already being disrupted. Gas, fertilisers, industrial chemicals and food supply chains are under pressure. And when essentials become scarce, markets ration by price, not by need. That means those with the least money lose first. In this video, I argue that neoliberal economics has no answer to a world of absolute shortages. Markets work in conditions of stability, adequate supply and clear price signals. But when fear, disruption and scarcity dominate, those conditions disappear. So what happens then? I explain why governments may be forced to intervene through rationing, price controls and deliberate allocation of resources, just as they did during and after the Second World War. I also explore how systems for rationing fuel, energy, and food could actually work in a modern economy. This is not an argument against markets in normal times. It is an argument about what happens when markets fail. And I think that moment may be much closer than most politicians are willing to admit.

What happens if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed? In this video, I argue that the current conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the USA could trigger a seven-stage global economic crisis that will unfold over the rest of this year. We are already seeing rising oil prices, higher food costs, and growing fears in financial markets. But I suggest that this may only be the beginning. I explain: Why oil shortages matter far beyond petrol prices How inflation could surge again Why central banks may make the wrong decisions How supply chains could begin to fracture Why business failures may follow And why this could eventually become a banking crisis bigger than 2008 This is not about panic. It is about understanding economic cause and effect before events spiral further out of control. The political response so far has been dangerously complacent. Meanwhile, the economic consequences are already arriving in people’s daily lives.

The local election results in England and national government elections in Wales and Scotland may prove to be among the most historically significant political events of modern times. In this video, I argue that Britain’s traditional two-party system is collapsing, nationalism is reshaping every nation within the UK, and the constitutional settlement holding the union together is now under unprecedented strain. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all now led by parties questioning rule from Westminster. At the same time, England itself is deeply divided over its identity, as Reform keeps alive the divisions created by Brexit, raising further questions about its future direction. The question now confronting the UK is, in that case, existential.  What is the nation now for, and does it still represent a shared future for the four countries that make it up? And might it be that each of those countries would now be better off on their own, pursuing a politics of care and the economics of hope, based on redistribution, inclusion, electoral reform, and rebuilding social solidarity within their own national frameworks?

England’s local election results are revealing a dramatic political shift. Reform is making major gains across poorer regions, coastal towns, and former Labour heartlands, whilst London and larger cities are resisting the trend. In this video, I look at what these results tell us about poverty, inequality, neoliberal failure, Labour’s collapse outside London, Conservative decline, Liberal Democrat resilience, and the Greens’ disappointing performance. I also ask whether Britain’s traditional two-party system is now breaking apart for good, and what this means for the future of English politics. The early results suggest a country splitting politically, geographically, and economically, and unless inequality is tackled, Reform’s growth may continue.

Britain may be witnessing the end of two-party politics. Today’s local and devolved elections could mark a turning point in the political history of the UK. Labour and the Conservatives are now polling at historically low combined levels, whilst Reform, the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats are all gaining and in Scotland and Wales, the SNP and Plaid Cymru are leading polls, questioning as a result the whole nature of the United Kingdom. In this video, I explain why Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system is now struggling to cope with a fragmented electorate and a fragmented country, why coalition politics may become unavoidable, and why the Westminster constitutional system may not survive unchanged. I also ask whether proportional representation, Lords reform and wider constitutional change are now inevitable. Could Britain become a continental-style multi-party democracy as our two-party system and even national unity run out of road?

The UK government was warned in late April that the country had only six weeks of jet fuel supply remaining. Jet fuel prices across Europe have already doubled. Absolute shortages could hit in June. And the government's response has been to offer short-term reassurance with no plan beyond the next six to eight weeks. Will your summer holiday actually happen this year? Who knows, least of all the government, it seems. And this is just a microcosm of what the whole economy is about to face. The Strait of Hormuz closure and the geopolitical crisis involving Israel, the US, and Iran are not temporary disruptions. They now look to be structural nd ongoing. And the government's response so far is nowhere near equal to the scale of the threat. So, what should you do right now? Do not assume your summer flight will go ahead Check your consumer rights — especially the £200+ compensation threshold for cancellations If you have a package holiday, check the financial resilience of the operator and the insurer Plan a possible alternative. Get your disappointment in early. Pray to whoever you think might listen. We might need that. 

From April 2027, the government will cut the cash ISA allowance for the under-65s from £20,000 to £12,000, forcing the remaining £8,000 into stocks and shares. But the Bank of England is now warning of a "significant risk of a stock market adjustment." Is this really the right moment to push small savers into a volatile market?   In this video, I explain why this policy is recklessly irresponsible. The government claims that redirecting savings into stocks and shares ISAs will benefit the UK economy, but around 99% of all activity on the London Stock Exchange takes place in the secondary market, where second-hand shares are traded. No new money reaches UK companies as a result. No jobs are created. The economic rationale for this change simply doesn't hold up. That means this is the moment to reconsider how you save, and not be pressured by the government into shares if that is not what you think is right for you.

BP made $3.2 billion in the first three months of 2026, which was more than double its profit from the same period last year. It did not achieve this by finding new oil or selling more of it. It did it by trading oil contracts. In other words: by betting on war. And your energy bill paid for it. What is actually happening: In 2025, around 383 million oil trades were recorded in the UK, each covering roughly 1,000 barrels of oil at over $100 a barrel The total value of those contracts runs into the tens of trillions of pounds, dwarfing the value of all UK share trading The post-Ukraine energy price spike that devastated household budgets was not caused by a gas shortage; it was caused by financial speculation of this sort, and it is happening again The tools to control the damage from this trading already exist, but the government just refuses to use them: The London Stock Exchange already charges 0.5% Stamp Duty on share trades, raising over £4 billion a year. A financial transaction tax on oil trading could work in exactly the same way and potentially raise more money. Alternatively, a tax of this sort could, as Nobel Laureate James Tobin, who proposed it in the 1970s, said, "throw sand in the wheels" of the speculative machine, and that is what is needed.  Even a fraction of a per cent on commodity trades such as those in oil, wheat, rice, and soybeans would reduce trading volumes, cut price volatility, and protect household budgets A windfall tax on wartime trading profits would claw back what BP and others are extracting from the crisis This is not complicated. It is a political choice to permit wartime profiteering. And it is now a necessary political choice to stop it.

Why write 25,000 blog posts? Why make a video every single day? In this video, I explain what drives my work, why I have spent decades challenging mainstream economics, and why I believe much of what we are told about the economy is simply wrong. This is not about academic debate for its own sake. It is about the real-world consequences of bad ideas; ideas that shape public policy, justify inequality, and limit what governments claim they can do. From tax justice and the exposure of tax havens, to the deeper question of how wealth and power are concentrated, I explore how the system actually works, and why it so often fails ordinary people. I also explain why the claim that there is “not enough money” for public services is not an economic truth, but a political choice. This matters because the stakes are now incredibly high. We face a climate crisis that demands large-scale public investment. We face public services under strain after years of deliberate underfunding. And we face levels of inequality that are both economically damaging and morally indefensible. None of these problems can be addressed unless we first understand how money, government, and the economy really work. That is why I write. That is why I make videos. And that is why I do it every single day. If we do not challenge bad economics, it will continue to harm millions. But if we do understand it, we can begin to change it. Let me know what you think in the comments—and don’t forget to vote in the poll below.

Four crises are converging on the world's food supply.   War has closed the Strait of Hormuz.   Extreme heat is cutting crop yields.   The strongest El Niño in a decade is forecast.   And Trump's tariffs are fracturing the trade networks that keep food moving.   The UK could face food shortages as early as this summer. World food prices are already at their highest level since November 2023, and that pressure has not yet fully been transmitted to what you pay at the till. UK inflation is already expected to breach 5% in 2026, partly as a result of these pressures and the Bank of England warns it could get worse. Meanwhile, it's the developing world faces the sharpest pain. In countries where food takes the largest share of household income, price spikes tip millions into food insecurity. But the UK is not immune None of these four pressures arose by accident. Each is the consequence of political choices: the decisions to wage war, to burn fossil fuels, to impose tariffs. And the political response so far is nowhere near equal to the scale of the threat. Will you go hungry? That's the question now? The possibility is real.

The Bank of England has held interest rates, but the real story is what happens next. Beneath its decision, pressure is building to raise rates again, and that could prove disastrous.  In this video, I explain why that is the case. The inflation we are facing is not driven by excess domestic demand. It is being driven by war, supply shortages, and speculation in global commodity markets. Interest rate rises cannot produce more oil or resolve supply disruptions, but they can further suppress demand in an already weakening economy. That is the risk we now face. Raising rates in these conditions could accelerate the move toward recession, increasing business costs, reducing investment, and undermining confidence. There is a real danger that central banks could turn a fragile situation into a much deeper economic crisis. The problem, at its core, is that central banks are applying the wrong theory to the wrong problem. When inflation is supply-driven, higher interest rates do not solve it. They can only make it worse. And unless that is recognised soon, the consequences could be severe.

The Bank of England has warned that serious financial risks are building — and I think people need to pay attention. An AI stock bubble, war in Iran, and risks in shadow banking could trigger a major financial correction. In this video, I explain: Why I think the risks are real What the Bank of England is actually saying How to protect your pension WWhat to do about debt Why certainty matters more than chasing returns right now This is not financial advice. Please seek regulated advice where appropriate. But doing nothing may be the biggest risk of all.

Tony Blair’s institute has published a report proposing sweeping cuts to UK social security by redefining mental illness, ADHD, autism and other health conditions as “non-work-limiting.” This will force many who are unable to work to look for jobs and leave them destitute if they cannot find them, as is likely Worryingly, his whole report includes not a single reference to medical support for the reforms he is proposing. He is targeting those with ill health for the sole purpose of cutting taxes due by the wealthy, whose interests he seems to now serve.  His report ignores the real causes of poor health in Britain, which has increased because of: austerity poverty insecure work poor housing ultra-processed food NHS underfunding Meanwhile, healthy life expectancy in Britain is collapsing. This is not reform. It is coercion. And it could leave millions worse off.

The Bank of England has suggested we're facing mega economic uncertainty right now. Stock markets are at record highs. Shadow banking is exposed to AI speculation. The war in Iran has no end in sight. And the minister responsible for managing crises in the UK - Darren Jones MP-  is telling us to keep calm and carry on. That is not good enough. There are things you could actually be doing right now. These are practical steps to protect yourself: Pensions: if you are near or are in retirement, take advice now on pension risks and withdrawals and choose the right risk exposure for you. Savings: if you hold more than £120,000 in a single bank, split it to stay within the government guarantee limit. Your job: this might not be the moment to change employer; job security is more valuable than it looks at times like this. Mortgages: You might want to avoid locking in a long fixed rate; consider a variable or one-year deal, as interest rates may fall sharply if the economy crashes.  Energy: if you can afford a fixed-price contract, it may be worth taking one now before prices rise further.  Secondhand goods: sell your unwanted items now to realise cash, before a downturn floods the market and prices collapse. Cars: do not buy now, but wait for a better-quality used car at a lower price as finance deals unwind, as many might do soon. Voting: back parties that believe in state intervention: the Greens, SNP, and Plaid Cymru are most likely to act in your interest when markets fail The government is not being straight with you. The tools to protect yourself exist, but you need to act before the crash, not after.

The world is facing a financial crisis because we will be facing absolute shortages of oil, food, and raw materials very soon. And that changes everything. Markets can never solve the problem of absolute shortages: they simply supply whoever can pay the most. If we leave allocation to the market, the vulnerable will be left with nothing. The Economist forecasts that the oil crisis will hit us by June 2026 if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, as it will. But all politicians are still talking about are fiscal rules. That is not good enough. There are only two things that can manage this crisis now. We need rationing of food, petrol, and diesel to ensure they are distributed equitably, and not sold to the highest bidder. And then we must increase taxes on large companies, commodity traders, and the highest earners and wealthiest people to ensure money can be reallocated to those who will otherwise suffer as a result of the inflation that shortages are going to create. These tools exist. What is missing is the political courage to use them.

Israel is a rogue state. Its wars in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran have no justification in international law. More than 70,000 civilians have died in Gaza alone. Ambulances and crews are being deliberately targeted in Lebanon. These are war crimes — and the world has seen this before, in apartheid South Africa. What a full boycott must include: End all defence agreements and halt armed supplies immediately Ban trade, block financial flows, restrict travel Break sporting, artistic, and academic links Begin war crimes investigations and prosecutions Opposing these actions is not antisemitism. Allowing them to continue unchallenged would be a moral failure of historic proportions. Sanctions eventually ended apartheid in South Africa. Nothing less will do here — and the time is now.

The FTSE 100 and S&P 500 are near record highs. The real economy is deteriorating. And the Bank of England's Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, Sarah Breeden, has now said publicly what most politicians will not: a stock market crash is coming, and the financial system is not ready for it. This crash could be worse than 2008 because of overvalued stock markets, the AI bubble, an overexpanded and at-risk shadow banking system and the Iran energy shock, which the International Energy Agency is calling the biggest energy shock in history. If any of these risks crystallise simultaneously, and Sarah Breeden thinks they might, then the result will not be a market correction. It will be a financial crisis that will result in falling confidence, rising interest rates, frozen lending, job losses, and a domino effect through the real economy. Governments must act now to plan for this eventuality and not after any crash happens.  Contingency plans must exist, and nothing appears to be being done as yet. If ever there was a moment to worry, even the Bank of England is saying this is it. 

What would I do on my first day in office as Chancellor to create an economy in the UK based on the thinking that modern monetary theory makes possible? In this video, I explain why MMT does not need to be “implemented” in Britain, because it already describes how government money works. The real task is to change policy. In that case, I set out six first-day reforms to: Replace false fiscal rules Launch a targeted public investment programme Create a policy that delivers secure, long-term jobs Reform the Treasury and Bank of England relationship Redesign tax to tackle inflation, inequality and rent extraction Redirect savings and pension subsidies into productive investment This is not about fantasy economics. It is about ending neoliberal myths and managing the real economy in the public interest. If you want to understand what an MMT-based economic strategy for the UK would actually look like, this video explains it.

Should the Bank of England control UK interest rates, or should that power return to elected government? In this video, I argue that the Bank of England's independence was never a neutral, technocratic decision. It was a deliberate political project, rooted in far-right Public Choice Theory, designed to strip democratic control away from ordinary people and hand it to unelected bankers. Since 1997, the Bank of England has been given a single tool, control of the base interest rate, to chase a single target of a 2% inflation rate that no economist can convincingly justify. There are no targets for growth, employment, living standards or climate change. There is just a number pulled from thin air, enforced at enormous cost to people in this county. The result is near 5% unemployment, 10% youth unemployment, soaring mortgage costs, and excessive rents. We have a Treasury with its foot on the accelerator while the Bank of England slams the brake, both pulling the economic steering wheel in opposite directions. No wonder the country is not performing. The rot starts in this dysfunctional relationship This video explains why Bank of England independence was always a neoliberal political experiment that was designed to undermine democracy and the people of this country. Now, the neoliberal era is over. The Bank of England's independence has delivered incoherence, crisis, and a democratic deficit that the UK can no longer afford. It is time to bring interest rate policy back to the Treasury, where elected politicians should be accountable for their decisions. Whether you agree or disagree, this is one of the most important economic debates in British politics today. Watch, share your view in the poll below, and leave a comment.

In this podcast, I speak with William Thompson to explore one of the most important internal debates within Modern Monetary Theory. We agree on the fundamentals: that governments with their own currency can fund full employment, and that the real constraints are resources, not money. But we disagree on how to achieve that goal. William makes the case that the job guarantee is central to MMT as a price anchor, an automatic stabiliser, and a mechanism for delivering dignity in work. I argue that while the diagnosis is correct, the proposed solution is not. The job guarantee, as currently conceived, is administratively unrealistic, underpaid, and risks undermining the very dignity it claims to support. Instead, I set out an alternative: direct public employment, a living wage, and long-term investment in care, housing, the NHS, and climate transition that effectively delivers the job guarantee, as the UK state once did. This is not a rupture, but it is a serious disagreement about how MMT policy should work in practice. And that is healthy.

What is next for the world? I think we may already know the answer — and it is deeply troubling. In this video, I argue that the conflict driven by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing the global economy towards a crisis on the scale of World War II. Not in terms of deaths, but in terms of systemic economic breakdown. This is not a short-term shock. It is a structural rupture. The warnings are already being issued. The International Monetary Fund, alongside firms such as Deloitte and EY, are signalling rising recession risk, including in the UK. But the impact will be global. Supply chains are being disrupted across energy, raw materials and manufacturing. These are not marginal effects. They go to the core of how the modern economy works. Even if the conflict ended tomorrow, the consequences would last for years. That means hardship. It means poverty. It may mean famine in the most exposed regions, and a refugee crisis on a scale we have not recently seen. In the UK and elsewhere, recession is increasingly likely, and if mishandled, it could become depression. So what is required? First, honesty about scarcity. Rationing may be necessary to ensure fair access to essential goods. Second, protection. Stronger social security will be needed to support those most exposed to the shock. Third, redistribution. Progressive taxation will be required to sustain that support. And beyond that, something bigger: reform. The institutions created after World War II — from the World Bank to the World Trade Organization and NATO — were built for a different world. They are failing now. The deeper issue is this: neoliberalism built a fragile, carbon-dependent global system. That system is now breaking. If it has failed, what replaces it?

The UK pension system is built on a false idea: that savings and financial assets can guarantee security in old age. In this video, I argue that pensions do not ultimately depend on money saved in the past, but on the productive capacity of those still at work in the present. That is the real pension contract, and it is one the UK has steadily abandoned. I explain how the state pension once reflected this collective responsibility, why Thatcher’s reforms changed the whole theory of pensions, and why the savings-based model now dominant in the UK is fundamentally detached from economic reality. I also explore why demographics, weak productive investment, and the financialisation of the economy mean that many pension promises may not be kept. This is not just a technical problem. It is a political choice, and one that may leave millions exposed to insecurity in old age unless we confront it now.

In this podcast, I discuss with John Christensen how capitalism and democracy have come apart — and why this was not an accident. Together, we explore the growing fracture between democratic accountability and economic power, and the role of James Buchanan in shaping the ideas behind it. Public choice theory, which he created, claims to defend freedom, but in practice, we argue that it works to constrain democracy and protect wealth from challenge. As a result, we examine the idea of the “night-watchman state,” where government exists primarily to defend property rights, not people. We also look at how tax havens, created in this form, shift power away from nation-states, creating a race to the bottom on tax, regulation, and rights. Along the way, we discuss how the language of government itself is being reshaped by far-right thinking of the sort promoted by Buchanan, with terms like “fiscal responsibility” being used to justify policies that are deliberately designed to harm the most vulnerable. This is not abstract theory. These ideas influence governments, institutions, and everyday life. If you want to understand why politics feels broken, and why inequality keeps rising, this conversation explains what is really going on — and why it matters.

Donald Trump is waging a war that will actively harm the poorest people on earth, and the world's political leaders are almost entirely silent in response.   The exception is the Chicago-born Pope, who has issued fearless, gospel-based criticism of Trump's actions, while the UK government plans a state visit to the USA for King Charles,  Labour's Deputy Prime Minister is meeting JD Vance, and the new Archbishop of Canterbury has said nothing worth noting. This is not a failure of courage alone. It is the result of a structural failure in neoliberalism. When an ideology reduces all human decisions to those around wealth accumulation and treats morality as an economic externality, like climate change, and so as something to be ignored, it inevitably produces politicians who literally cannot make ethical judgments. Right and wrong become irrelevant categories. Ends justify the means. And the poor pay the price. The Pope's message is of good news for the poor and freedom for the oppressed. Trump's agenda is the precise opposite. That one religious leader can see this clearly while secular governments cannot tells you everything about what neoliberalism has done to political life, and why reclaiming ethics as the foundation of politics is not a religious question. It is an urgent economic and social issue.

The core purpose of government is to provide freedom from fear. That means freedom from physical threat, Freedom from want, freedom from discrimination and freedom from the deliberate chaos that destroys the social fabric on which democracy depends. That is what government is for. And right now, in the UK and across the Western world, government is doing the precise opposite. The far-right has a strategy. It is not chaos by accident. It is chaos by design. Disorder is their desire. Crisis creates their opportunity. Division, whether between communities, between religions, or between nations, is the mechanism by which an authoritarian minority dismantles the institutions that protect the majority. And it has been working, not because the far-right is powerful, but because too few are stopping it. It is something called traditionalism that is driving this.  Steve Bannon promotes it. Liz Truss travelled to a US conference to sell it, using the phrase "Europestan" to describe the continent where she lives. Traditionalism rejects Enlightenment thinking. It rejects equality. It rejects democracy. It promotes hierarchy, privilege, and the restoration of a pre-democratic order. It is fascism with better branding. And it is now operating inside mainstream political parties. In this context, the danger is that democracy in the UK is already weakened by an electoral system that can return governments rejected by the majority of voters, by institutions that were designed for a different century, and by a political culture that mistakes caution for neutrality. The far-right's chaos strategy is not meeting effective resistance as a result. This video explains how that strategy works, why traditionalism is the intellectual cover for fascism, and what a genuine politics of freedom from fear would look like in contrast.

Lord George Robertson - a former Labour defence secretary, and former Secretary General of NATO - has made a claim about the UK's defence capability that is not merely wrong; it is dangerously wrong.   His argument is that the Iran War now justifies higher defence spending, and that social security is the obstacle standing in the way of a proper defence strategy for Britain. This video explains why that argument is the precise inversion of the truth. Defence is not about weapons, budgets, or protecting elite interests overseas. Defence is about protecting people. It is about ensuring people enjoy freedom from fear, including from physical threat, from poverty, from want, and from the social instability that erodes the fabric of a nation from within. By that definition, which is the only definition that actually serves the majority of British citizens, social security is not the enemy of defence: it is the foundation of it. Consider what a serious defence requires. You need a fit population. You need people who are healthy, well-nourished, mentally resilient, educated, and able to serve. You do not build that population by cutting the systems that feed children, heat homes, and provide security in times of illness and unemployment. You destroy it. Cut social security, and you cut the recruitment pipeline for the armed forces themselves. You weaken national resilience precisely when you claim to be strengthening it. The statistics make the scale of the real threat plain. 14.2 million people in the UK live in poverty. 4.5 million of those are children, which means 31% of children in this country live in poverty, and 3.6 million of those children go without heating, food, a secure home, or adequate clothing on a regular basis.  Britain is not primarily threatened by Iran. It is threatened by poverty, by inequality and by the political failure that allows 3.6 million children to suffer preventable deprivation in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Robertson's neoliberal framework cannot see this because it fragments defence into a single military budget line, disconnected from the social infrastructure on which any genuine national resilience depends. The economist John Maynard Keynes also understood something in the last century that Robertson has forgotten. Keynes managed the UK's economy during two World Wars. His principle was clear: in a time of national crisis, the burden of sacrifice must fall on those most able to bear it - who are the wealthy - and not on the poorest. To demand that the most vulnerable people in Britain pay for a defence strategy they will never benefit from, as Robertson is demanding, is not just unjust; it is economically irrational, strategically dangerous, and the precise opposite of what is required right now. Social security and military defence are not in a political trade-off. They are mutually dependent. You cannot have one without the other. This video explains why Lord Robertson is dangerously wrong, why Britain's greatest threat comes from within, and what a defence strategy that actually defends people, rather than elite interests, would look like.

We are heading into an economic crisis on a scale comparable to the aftermath of a World War. Supply chains are fracturing. Energy costs are rising. Shortages of fuel, food, and raw materials are already visible. And the economic framework that has governed the West for the last 45 years - neoliberalism - is not just incapable of managing what is coming. It is designed to make it worse. This is not an accident. Neoliberalism deliberately keeps people unemployed. That is not a side effect - it is deliberate. Unemployment is how neoliberals control inflation, operating through the relationship between joblessness and interest rates. Neoliberalism, by design, chooses to manage an economy suboptimally. In a crisis of the scale we are now entering, neoliberalism's response will be to further restrict government action and accept failure by design. Poverty will rise. Unemployment will rise. Real resources will go unused. And people will suffer, not because there is no alternative, but because the dominant ideology refuses to see one. The alternative exists. It is modern monetary theory, or MMT, and what MMT tells us is this: money is not a constraint on government action if the real resources exist to achieve the goals we need to fulfil. A sovereign government that issues its own currency can always spend to the limit where full employment is reached. The question is never "can we afford it?" The question is always "Do we have the real resources - the workers, the materials, the capacity - to achieve it?" If we have, an MMT approach says action should be taken, and the money to fund it will always be available, as will be the taxation to balance any inflationary consequences. As a consequence, an MMT economy will, by trying to put all available resources to use, always deliver better outcomes for people than a neoliberal economy can in any situation and will most definitely do so now. That is a simple, straightforward statement of fact. In a World War-level economic crisis, the question of which economic framework guides government policy best is not academic. It is about which system has the best chance of delivering an economy where people live free from fear. In this video, I explain why neoliberalism will make the coming crisis worse, and what MMT offers instead, and why the choice between these two frameworks is the most consequential economic decision our society will make.

Viktor Orbán has been defeated in Hungary. After sixteen years in power, during which authoritarian rule, rampant corruption, the systematic dismantling of Hungary's free press and independent judiciary became the norm, and the deliberate undermining of the European Union and Ukraine took place, the Hungarian people have delivered a supermajority to the country's opposition. Orbán is gone. And this matters far beyond Hungary's borders. This was not supposed to happen. Orbán was the template for the global far right. He was the proof of concept; the man who demonstrated that once you captured the institutions, rewrote the rules, and weaponised the media, you could hold power indefinitely. Nigel Farage openly supported him. Reform modelled itself on his movement. MAGA looked to Budapest as a blueprint. JD Vance flew to Hungary to lend personal support ahead of the election. Russia backed him. The US administration backed him. None of it was enough. The Hungarian people voted him out anyway. And in doing so, they have broken the myth of the far right's invincibility. The implications are enormous. Hungary's sixteen-year obstruction of EU policy, on climate, on Ukraine, and on democratic norms ends. The policy gridlock Orbán manufactured to serve Russia's interests and his own family's financial ambitions is removed. The path opens for constitutional restoration, judicial independence, and genuine accountability for the corruption that defined his regime. A reckoning is coming. But the deeper significance is political and psychological. The far-right has spent years cultivating the narrative that it is unstoppable and that history is moving in one direction, and that liberal democracy is a spent force. Hungary has just demolished that narrative. Authoritarianism can be peacefully defeated by voters through democratic means. And that sends a message to every country in Europe and to the United States, where the same forces are at work. The USA remains the most acute problem. Its democracy is under greater strain than Hungary's ever was, and its institutions are being dismantled with greater sophistication. But the Hungarian result demonstrates that the capacity for democratic correction exists and that the far-right's confidence in its own invincibility is its greatest weakness. This is a rare moment of political optimism. Orbán's defeat matters. Fascism can still be beaten.

Just about everything you have been told about stock markets and the UK economy is wrong. Politicians talk nonsense about stock markets. Financial advisors repeat it. The BBC reports FTSE 100 movements as economic news, and economics textbooks embed a set of false thinking in students' heads.  But the truth is that while the City of London likes to claim that stock markets are essential to saving, investment and economic growth, that is not true. In this video, I challenge the claim that buying shares funds real investment in the economy. To do that, I explain the crucial difference between the primary stock market, where companies issue new shares and raise money, and the secondary stock market, where existing shares are traded. The reality is simple: the primary market is small, and the secondary market dominates. Most stock market activity is just the exchange of existing wealth between savers, not the creation of new investment. I also look at the numbers. Trillions of pounds of shares are traded each year on the London Stock Exchange, but only a small fraction raises new capital for companies. Maybe 98% of all share trading is in secondhand shares, and the companies whose shares are traded get no money at all as a result of that. That breaks the assumed link between stock markets and real economic activity, such as jobs, productivity and growth. The video also explores what stock markets actually do: they provide liquidity for unnecessary share trading, generate potentially quite misleading price signals about the value of companies, and it enables wealth to change hands and accumulate. What they do not reliably ever do is fund productive investment. I then consider the policy implications. The UK provides large tax subsidies to pension saving in shares, yet the return in terms of real investment appears to be negative: the subsidy exceeds the sum that reaches businesses for productive purposes. That raises serious questions about whether public policy is directing money to the right place for the benefit of the economy at large. Finally, I explain what really funds business activity, which is bank lending, retained profits and public investment. If you think stock markets drive growth, this video will challenge that idea, I hope, because that claim is very largely a work of fiction. 

We are living through a wartime economic crisis. And our government is choosing not to act. Not because it can't. Because it won't. The claim that the UK cannot afford to respond decisively to this crisis is a fiction — a deliberate political choice dressed up as fiscal responsibility. The UK government issues its own currency. It cannot run out of money in the same way that a household or a business can. The real constraint is not financial. It is political will. And right now, Rachel Reeves and the EU are choosing austerity at precisely the moment history tells us governments must spend. Lord Keynes made this argument during the Second World War. The challenge of wartime mobilisation is not finding the money — it is allocating real resources effectively. That means rationing. It means windfall taxes on the energy companies profiting from this crisis. It means intervening to stabilise prices and guarantee every household affordable access to energy. It means accelerating the transition away from fossil fuel dependence so this can never happen again. None of this requires the government to find money it doesn't have. It requires the government to choose to act. Instead, what we are getting is tightly constrained, temporary, means-tested interventions — austerity by design. The consequences are entirely predictable. Rising energy and food costs for households. Closures of smaller businesses that cannot absorb the shock. Deepening inequality as energy companies and large corporations profit from the chaos. And for the poorest — suffering that could have been prevented. The crisis driving all of this was created by Donald Trump's actions against Iran. The economic fallout — rising prices, supply chain disruption, the risk of famine, the risk of refugee flows — was entirely foreseeable. The question was never whether governments could respond. It was whether they would choose to. Rachel Reeves is making the wrong choice. This video explains why — and what the right choice looks like.

I recently sat down with Steve Keen to explore a deeply uncomfortable truth: the global economic system is far more fragile than mainstream economics admits. In the resulting conversation, we explained why supply chains are not resilient, why energy underpins everything, and why even small disruptions can trigger systemic collapse, which we think might be coming our way, soon. This is not a temporary shock. It is a structural failure, and the policies we rely on may be making things worse. As a result, the question we addressed was, " What can we do now?"  

The United States want to start peace negotiations with Iran because diplomacy prevailed. It did so because it had no choice. It is running out of weapons. In the course of a few weeks, the US military has used somewhere between eight and ten years' worth of Tomahawk missile production. The United States can manufacture approximately one hundred Tomahawk missiles per year. It has fired many hundreds, and possibly a thousand, in this conflict alone. Those stocks cannot be replenished quickly. They cannot be replenished at all in the near term. And without them, and other critical weapon supplies, the USA has no credible capacity to restart a war with Iran. This is not a temporary logistics problem. It is a structural failure, and neoliberalism created that. The US military, like the US economy, has been run on just-in-time principles: minimal stockholding, maximum efficiency, profits prioritised over resilience. In addition, more than half of every US missile is manufactured outside the United States, across global supply chains that are now disrupted by the very conflict those missiles were used to fight. Aluminium, a critical component, is, for example, in short supply precisely because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has constrained the materials needed to make the weapons that were supposed to open it. The damage goes beyond missiles. Maybe three complex radar systems have been destroyed in the Middle East, each taking up to seven years to replace. The B-52 bombers flying missions from the UK are operating well beyond their operational lifespan. So are the refuelling tankers that support them. As a result, the Financial Times is reporting that Trump himself appealed for peace via Pakistan, a reality that Pete Hegseth and the White House press operation will never publicly acknowledge. Meanwhile, Iran's military model, based on low-cost, simple, rapidly replicable weapons, has proved devastatingly effective against the world's most expensive and over-engineered military power. Low-tech warfare has beaten the neoliberal military. Now, as a result, time favours Iran. It can replenish its arsenal quickly. The USA cannot. The conclusion is stark: US military hegemony has been structurally weakened, and not just temporarily set back. It will take years, and possibly a decade, to rebuild. And in that window, the United States cannot threaten, coerce, or intervene with the credibility it once had. The world has changed. This video explains exactly how and why neoliberalism is the ideology that brought the world's biggest military power to its knees.

Yesterday might mark a turning point in global history, and not because of what happened, but because of what did not. For the first time in my life, I found myself relieved that genocide had been avoided. That alone tells us how dangerous this moment has become. We are now told there is an Iran peace deal. The United States is presenting this as a success. It is not. Strip away the rhetoric, and this looks like a retreat. After huge cost and escalation, the US has stepped back from a weaker position than the one it started from. In this video, I explain why that matters. First, the deal itself appears to favour Iran. Claims that Iran “begged” for peace look implausible. Instead, this is a fragile ceasefire born of failed escalation. Second, this signals a shift in global power. Iran has held the combined pressure of the US and Israel at bay, not through overwhelming force, but through strategy and economic leverage, especially via oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Third, the wider consequences are profound. NATO’s credibility is shaken. Europe can no longer rely on US leadership. And new global alignments may now begin to emerge. Fourth, markets are dangerously complacent. Share prices have risen, and oil has stabilised, but the risks of supply disruption, renewed conflict, and economic instability remain very real. Finally, this conflict exposes a deeper issue: our dependence on fossil fuels. Energy and fertiliser supply chains remain fragile, and the risk of shortages has not gone away. The conclusion is simple. The US is no longer the uncontested centre of global power. Iran has gained influence. Old alliances are under strain. And the new world order has not yet been formed. Everything has already changed. The question is whether we are willing to recognise that — and respond.