Scotland already has proportional representation for its local authority elections. England needs it, and Labour would win as a result. If we’re to have a pathway to better democracy in the UK as a whole, this is a place to start it. It’s time Labour gave us PR in local elections.By Richard Murphy

Vast numbers of people are paid the minimum wage, but it makes no allowance for out-of-hours working or weekend and night working. It really should, and Labour could deliver that change to improve the well-being of all who work in this way at very little cost to it.By Richard Murphy

Politics in the UK is blighted by the influence of big political donors, all of whom are seeking to influence how our politicians behave to advantage themselves. That influence is malign. We need clean politics and Labour could deliver that by ending large donations, for good.By Richard Murphy

Labour could end the curse that the UK's tax havens represent to this country's tax revenues - and to those of other countries. It demanded action on tax havens when in opposition. Now it is time for it to deliver to open up the secrecy that lets these places operate, once and for all.By Richard Murphy

There is still massive opacity available to businesses in the UK, many of which provide little or no information as to who they are, especially on the web. Labour could change that by demanding full disclosure wherever a business trades, meaning we should all be better protected from fraud.By Richard Murphy

Labour has already introduced a 20mph speed limit in Welsh towns. It’s already working to reduce the severity of accidents, saving money and lives, and helping the environment. Labour could extend this to the whole of England at almost no cost to the government.By Richard Murphy

Labour could demand that every mortgage provider in the UK should have a fixed rate mortgage for the rest of a loan’s life available to borrowers so that never again should people be caught out on the whim of the Bank of England. It would cost Labour nothing but it would give certainty to millions of people’s lives.…

GDP – which measures our national income - does, as the late Robert Kennedy said, value everything except the things that really matter in life. So why is Rachel Reeves trying to maximize it when there are so many better things for her to do?By Richard Murphy

Libel laws massively limit free speech and proper investigative journalism in this country. That’sdangerous for our democracy. Labour needs to change these laws now, and it would cost them nothing.By Richard Murphy

AI is not only going to massively increase energy usage around the world, it is also going to use vast amounts of water to cool the data hubs that will drive it. When clean water is already scarce does that mean AI will threaten HI – or human intelligence – by denying HI the resources it needs to survive?…

Total annual student loan repayments are way less than the interest supposedly charged on these loans at present. In that case why impose these charges? They make no sense. Labour should scrap them and give graduates a chance in life instead.By Richard Murphy

How can we have a serious parliament that can do its job when there aren’t enough seats for all MPs and when so many of parliament’s systems are so antiquated it’s hardly got into the 20thcentury as yet, let alone the twenty first. Isn’t it time it got its act together?By Richard Murphy

The 92 remaining hereditary peers in the House of Lords are a historical anachronism that preserves privilege for the aristocracy when that should have been gone long ago. It is time for them to go.By Richard Murphy

People are tired of meaningless badges, titles, rosettes and banter in politics. They don’t want symbols and logos. They want conviction and delivery. And they’re not getting it.By Richard Murphy

Towns and large villages across the UK are being blighted by bank and post office closures. By making a simple change to banking regulation Labour could require that every place with a population of more than 10,000 in the UK must have a banking hub – from which every bank and a post office could meet the needs of the local community, and at no cos…

Labour governments have a long history of changing this country with measures that cost the government very little, or nothing at all. In a new video series – which will go on for some time – I am going to suggest how Labour might do that now. It’s time to be positive about the changes that Labour could deliver without any arguments about economics…

Wealth is not just pounds saved. It’s also good health and education, a sustainable environment, decent housing and so much more. So why does Labour, when it talks about growth, only seem to talk about finance?By Richard Murphy

A couple of days after the election I feel even more strongly than ever that we need proportional representation.By Richard Murphy

Labour is planning to base all its policies on the basis of growth and wealth creation. Neither makes sense, and they’re in direct conflict with each other economically. It’s as if they have announced in advance that they plan to fail.By Richard Murphy

Starmer received gifts of more than £18,000 to polish his image in the run-up to the election – including £2,485 on glasses. Really? Does this mean he’s a man who is more interested in style than substance? And does it mean he’s also a man willing to be in hock to his donors? None of this feels good about a new prime minister.…

Trump packed the Supreme Court of the USA with his mates, and now they’re returning the favour by granting him immunity for his actions when in office. Will he use that power to persecute those who he sees as his enemies? You’d be a fool to think otherwise.By Richard Murphy

The private finance initiative was one of the worst legacies of the last Labour government. It was a massively expensive attempt to avoid incurring government debt. We’re still paying the price. And it’s looking like Rachel Reeves might be planning to do something similar.By Richard Murphy

England’s football team might get by on last-minute equalisers after 90 clueless minutes, but that’s not the way to run a country.By Richard Murphy

Centre right parties – like Labour is now – have always facilitated fascism by promoting neoliberalism that deliberately ignores the needs of most people. The result has been a political vacuum that the centre-right created, which the far-right and fascism is now trying to fill.By Richard Murphy

Trump might win the US presidency again. It might be the biggest shock to the world order in the lifetime of most people now on the planet.By Richard Murphy

No one wants to talk about fascism, but unless we do, and realise what is required to beat it then we are all in the deepest of trouble. Jason Stanley 1. The mythical past—used to invoke a nostalgia for a fictional time when the nation was great as it was not yet sullied by the “Other.”2. Propaganda—to attack enemies, to justify violence, to justif…

The Tories are likely to cease to be after this election, becoming so irrelevant that no-one will ever vote for them again. But could Labour, dedicated as it now is to Tory policies, go the same way by 2029? And what happens to our politics then?By Richard Murphy

There is no magic to any government finding the money to do the things that we are capable of doing, because it can always create it by simply spending on these things we need – and then taxing that money back, if need be.By Richard Murphy

We might have had fourteen years of left-wing government in the UK, but except for 2015 it’s been unknown for most people of this country to vote for right-wing parties in a general election. And they won’t this time either, unless you include Labour in that number, which most people don’t, as yet. So, when will it be that people will actually get …

It seems as if Wes Streeting’s dream for the NHS is that it be a low-cost, semi-automated, significantly privatised provider of healthcare to consumers – which is what he thinks we all are. That dream is going to be shattered by a sugar and ultra-processed food healthcare crisis and the wave of litigation that is going to hit the NHS as a result of…

Far-right commentators – the sort to be found in the Tufton Street think tanks – are suggesting that I am on the far-left of the political spectrum. Really? Since when did a belief in democracy, the need for a strong government capable of delivering decent public services for a very mixed economy, plus an absolute determination that no child should…

Rishi Sunak’s very limited legacy will include the creation of freeports. They are however deeply dangerous places where the normal rule of law is suspended for the benefit of financial capital, usually at cost to the workers in the places and the communities that host them. As such, they undermine democracy. What could possibly go wrong?…

Keir Starmer is going to win a massive parliamentary majority on 4 July. That, however, is really dangerous in our democracy. Who is going to hold him and his party to account in parliament?By Richard Murphy

After 5 July the hard work begins. Then we have to work out how truly socially transformative ideas can be promoted so that the 2029 election campaign can be won for the people of this country.By Richard Murphy

The UK looks to be a wealthy country with £15 trillion of financial assets. But they’ll rapidly disappear if we do not invest in our children and young people, in climate change and in preserving our democracy and most of our politicians appear quite uninterested in that.By Richard Murphy

The biggest problem Labour will face – as a result of which all of us might suffer – is that almost no one in the Shadow Cabinet has any experience of being in government, or of ever having actually run anything of consequence. This might not turn out well…..By Richard Murphy

The old idea that there is money in a bank is almost always wrong. There’s just a pile of bank statements in a bank these days, and it really is time we got our heads around that rather basic fact.By Richard Murphy

Savings do not create economic wealth. They have a use in terms of financial security, but they rarely create useful economic activity. So why does the government spend £760 billion or more a year subsidising them?By Richard Murphy

Nationalisation does not cost the taxpayers of a country anything if it is done properly. Labour knew that in 1945, but apparently, they do not do so now. Why have they forgotten all that they once knew?By Richard Murphy

The UK tax system is riddled with tax anomalies - or tax spillovers as I prefer to call them. And politician who is serious about making the tax system work better should be aiming to get rid of them - but none are saying that’s their plan.By Richard Murphy

HM Revenue & Customs reckons more than 30% of all tax owing by small UK limited companies is not paid. Why are our politicians doing nothing about this - and why are they letting down honest small businesses so badly by not doing so?By Richard Murphy

We all know what the ‘bads’ in our economy are - tobacco, alcohol, sugar, carbon, plastics, and more. Some of them we tax heavily because we know they are ‘bad’. But sugar, plastics and even carbon are still getting an easy ride. It’s time we tackled them properly.By Richard Murphy

Politicians might talk endlessly about black holes in government funding but in reality, there can never be any such thing. All that actually exists are choices about how the government might fund its spending - some of which options those same politicians are refusing to consider, at a cost to us all.…

Neoliberalism has killed conviction based politics.By Richard Murphy

Labour will only have months to keep the electorate happy after the general election, and if they don't, the backlash could be severe and long-lasting.By Richard Murphy

Every politician should understand double entry. If they did, they might work out the consequences of their actions and the ridiculousness of many of the claims that they make about government spending.By Richard Murphy

Why is it that the English-based parties are ignoring the issue of independence for three of the four countries that make up the UK during this election campaign as if that is a matter of inconsequence when, in truth, the whole nature of this supposed country is open to question? Could they be cooperating in a conspiracy of silence?…

Criticising Labour has nothing to do with wanting it or any other party in power. It has everything to do with wanting Labour to deliver for the people of this country when it really does not look like it will at present.By Richard Murphy

Today is the last day when people can be nominated as candidates in the general election. Rumour has it some right wing Tory MPs will quit the party this afternoon and become Reform candidates, leaving the Tories no time to replace them. Could a perverse coup of this sort be on the cards today?By Richard Murphy

If government can influence the distribution of wealth in an economy - and we know that is a possibility because tax can redistribute both income and wealth, and does - then what? What should government be doing when it exercises that power? Should it, as Keir Starmer has now said, be intensely relaxed about people getting wealthy? Or is it its job…