An idea to stimulate economic growth without further government 
borrowing. Written in plain English and very easy to follow, this is the only really fresh approach out there to the intractable problems of the UK economy, and it is just beginning to be noticed in important places. Download 99p Paperback £2.99 CLICK IMAGE TO BUY
The state of the UK economy is such, and has been such for years, that growth is not going to happen on any meaningful scale without a significant boost. The complete failure of both the Tory led coalition and the Tory government, to hit any of their financial targets and to achieve their promised re-balancing of the economy underscores this. The GDP is too small for the growing population and has to expand significantly to create a wide enough tax base to deliver the required income to pay for all the public services properly.
Tax increases on the better off and corporations will certainly produce revenue in the short term, as will borrowing to invest. Investing in public housing, infrastructure, energy, broadband and so on are critical to economic growth and it is the refusal of the present model to borrow for investment that is the reason for the failure to grow the economy at a decent level thus far. Austerity lasting longer than eighteen months is a trap which inhibits growth and sucks resources from the bottom to the top, enabling the rich to grow richer at the expense of the poor.
But borrowing alone will not be enough. The financial sector, including both the post crash and post Brexit injections, has enjoyed £435 billion of printed money known as quantitative easing. If Labour wins power, either alone or in coalition with other anti austerity soft Brexit parties, it will have to pump the same amount into the base of the economy to re-boot it. This needs to be direct or via a national investment bank and must be in the form of investment rather than loans. I call it dynamic quantitative easing.
Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. The Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo many of the principles which I have set out in an easy read format. Labour now has the chance to spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.
Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 for paperback
Everything is possible. Never has a party and a leadership suffered from such a negative media coverage, for which the New Labour element of the parliamentary Labour party have much to answer for. You cannot rubbish your own leader for months on end, then expect everyone else not to follow suit when an election is called. At least if there is a massacre they will be the first to fall. However it is not over, the mountain is climbable, though to do so would make history on the style of 1945. So go and make history!
There are some pointers. Everywhere Corbyn goes he is greeted by large and enthusiastic crowds. He is clearly enjoying campaigning and is having the time of his life. May relies on rent-a-crowd supporters, is awkward when questioned and mostly looks haggard and ill at ease, unless mouthing her favourite platitudes. The polls are constantly moving ever so slowly towards Labour, but the gap is still wide. The unknown element, and this is the ground where Labour is strongest, is the fifteen million who have given up voting. A good five million of those would vote Labour and if this ground breaking manifesto, ridiculed by every section of the establishment, from economists, throughout the media, think tanks and of course the Tory electoral machine, catches attention on the doorstep, then all bets are off.
Because whatever the cries of the high and the mighty, the wise and the good, their system is failing the many and if the many vote, Labour can win. So turnout is the key. Labour must keep calm, work hard, persuade the young to vote, re-energise the Labour supporters Blair lost and June 8 can still be your day. Big Ask but the reward could be the biggest prize in UK electoral history.