Funding the Future

In 2023, the BBC admitted that comparing government finances to a household budget is “dangerous territory” that can mislead audiences. And yet we still hear that myth every day. Its own impartiality review said household budget analogies are wrong. So why do they keep talking about them? Why? Because the myth is politically useful. It limits debate, justifies cuts to public services and social security, and presents ideology as arithmetic. In this video, I unpack what the BBC admitted, why the myth survives, and how we challenge it. Fiscal policy is about choices, as the BBC knows. It's time the BBC started making better ones when talking about that fact.

Can capitalism still organise society for the common good? That was the question I put to John Christensen. What we discovered is that the answer lies not in abstract theory but in practical experience. Mutuals, co-operatives and democratic institutions already shape our lives. The Nationwide building society, the Co-op, mutual insurers, some energy suppliers, pension funds and some phone providers prove that another way of organising the economy exists. In this video, we discuss why shareholder capitalism has produced monopolies, failing utilities and democratic erosion, and why cooperation may be the basis of a politics of care. If capitalism is failing, the question is not whether change will come, but how.

The conversation challenges why a hereditary monarchy exists in a modern democracy. It explores how royal symbolism and inherited wealth undermine equality and distort politics. It argues for an elected, accountable head of state, a written constitution, and reforms like proportional representation and limits on corporate party funding.

A clear challenge to the idea that governments must budget like households. Explains how state money is created and why spending can precede taxation. Reframes bond sales and shows how deficits can boost private savings. Identifies real limits—resources, skills, energy, environment—and argues for resource-guided public investment and care-focused policy.

Medicine sits where fear meets trust, and Big Pharma - the companies that make up the Medical Industrial Complex - know that. In this video, I explain how the 1910 Flexner Report, written in the USA at the peak of an era of toxic capitalism, reshaped medicine, why big pharmaceutical companies gained power as a result, and how the NHS is now at risk of becoming a profit gernation machine rather than a care system. This is not about denying science. It is about asking who benefits from today’s model of healthcare and why prevention, public health and social care are being sidelined. We need a politics of care, not a politics of profit.

The show breaks down why rising anger in the UK stems from stagnant wages, unaffordable housing and collapsing public services. It examines how inequality, deindustrialisation and political choices created insecurity. It explores migrant scapegoating, media-driven fear and anxieties about climate and AI. It presents a politics of care and practical public-investment proposals as alternatives.

What would actually happen if the UK deported two million people in three years, as Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain political party proposes? In this video, I look at the real economics and not the slogans. - NHS staffing and social care would collapse - Construction and food supply would face massive disruption - We'd have falling GDP and tax revenues - And there would be rising inflation, and austerity This is not immigration policy. It is economic self-harm driven by a politics of hate. A politics of care offers a real alternative: investment in social care, strengthening social security, training workers, taxing wealth fairly, and rebuilding the capacity Britain actually needs.

Limited liability is treated as harmless legal plumbing, but it is one of the most powerful privileges granted to wealth in the UK and around the world. In this Funding the Future conversation with Professor Dan Plesch, we explore how corporate law shields shareholders from responsibility, fuels secrecy and tax abuse, and distorts democracy. We explain where limited liability came from, why it now protects inequality, and what reforms could restore balance between corporations and society. This matters for tax justice, corporate accountability and the politics of care.

Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain paper on mass deportations is not just about migration, although that is its toxic superficial focus. It is also about power, law, and the kind of state we want to live in. In this video, I explain why his proposals would require dismantling human rights law, rewriting the UK constitution, and creating a politics of hate that harms everyone and not just the millions of migrants he wants to expel from this country. My suggestion is that we choose something else: a politics of care, investment, and social security that protects everyone's well-being. This is about the UK’s future. What state do we want? Lowe's dystopian state of hate, or one where everyone can flourish?  

A look at how a once-important word for noticing injustice got twisted into a sneer. Discussion of how that language shift shields wealth and hinders policies of care. Exploration of who gains from mocking compassion and how it blocks debates on taxation, climate and public investment. A call to reclaim caring language to defend democracy and economic justice.