PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ The Green Party’s Manifesto - Costed
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
sentences flagged
Toxicity
7
sentences flagged
Hate speech
11
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of Brokonomics, I dig out the Green Party's manifesto and try and figure out how much it would cost to have a Green government. It's not easy, but it's not impossible, is it?
Transcript
00:00:25.960
Now, as you may be aware, I've been doing this series with Carl
00:00:29.680
where we look at polls and analyse current political trends
00:00:33.080
and all that sort of stuff, and it has come to my attention
00:00:40.560
that the Green Party may actually win the next election.
00:00:43.960
They have been surging under the leadership of Zach Polanski.
00:00:53.140
it wasn't that but they had a decent presence anyway for a secondary or tertiary party or
00:00:59.020
whatever they are um but yeah they're absolutely surging i mean i saw a poll this morning
00:01:03.560
that said uh amongst the um uxbridge types you know the oxford and cambridge um people you know
00:01:10.160
the apparently these people are going to be the elite built on british society in a few years
00:01:15.660
when they all graduate they are 50 going to vote green 50 of the students that are
00:01:21.980
two elite universities are going to be voting green and actually that's lower than their age
00:01:29.820
cohort as a whole amongst the young people greens utterly dominate so it behooves me to try and take
0.99
00:01:38.880
them seriously and on that basis I've decided to dig out their manifesto and why don't we cost it
0.99
00:01:45.300
Find out how much it's going to cost to have a green government.
00:01:50.740
Now, I've skimmed through this before and put a few notes together.
00:01:56.640
And I'm afraid to say it's, well, I don't want to give any spoilers, but it's a tiny bit expensive.
0.86
00:02:02.940
And by a tiny bit, I mean absolutely massively, as in blowing the arse off your economy,
00:02:11.520
And actually, even then, that doesn't capture it, the sheer magnitude of the spending.
00:02:15.300
But, you know, let's lead with that and see what they've got.
00:02:19.060
Right, so on your screen, you should have the Green Party manifesto.
00:02:22.400
Now, as you can see as we go through it, it's written for Simpleton,
00:02:26.020
somebody who has a very basic command of the English language.
00:02:37.240
And by the way, this is the last election manifesto.
00:02:46.240
but this is before the Green Party got properly bonkers.
00:02:50.120
So whatever we're going to talk about here today,
00:02:51.960
the current reality is actually even worse than this,
00:03:02.820
So about this, I'm going to tell you what we do.
00:03:09.320
the chosen MP goes to parliament to speak up for you and make new laws. Well, thank you for
00:03:15.160
explaining what an MP is. That's very helpful. Green parties have been getting stronger and
00:03:19.100
stronger, hasn't it just? These people are helping make your community greener and fairer. And then
00:03:23.840
there's a picture of an actual spastic. In this election, we want to do well. That is the point
1.00
00:03:29.040
of political campaigning, I suppose I'll give you that. We urgently need more green MPs to get
00:03:33.560
more done about the climate emergency. We need to stop more of our services and natural
1.00
00:03:39.000
resources like water being sold off we need to we need them owned by all of us again okay right
00:03:44.220
fine so um nationalization is going to be in this uh and then it explains uh the policies
00:03:52.000
each of these is illustrated by a picture for example well here's one there's a picture of
00:03:58.320
an empty bench and it says lots of people are homeless so i hope you're keeping up with this
00:04:41.200
What we know, the NHS has not had enough money.
00:04:45.740
Right, their view is the NHS has not had enough money.
00:04:50.560
The enormous fiscal black hole that is the NHS has not had enough money.
00:04:58.000
Or it has been wasted spending it on private companies.
00:05:01.080
Well, yes, because private companies supply stuff that the NHS needs
00:05:05.640
because we don't live in a command-and-control economy.
00:05:09.340
Our promise is to see health and social care get enough money to do a good job.
0.97
00:05:15.460
And they've got a woman with her thumb up just to reinforce that this is good.
0.99
00:05:19.580
What we will do, we will make sure you do not have to wait long
00:05:31.080
children and people with not much money can see dental nurses you can see your gp the same how
0.94
00:05:38.400
are they going for fuck's sake we pay nhs staff more okay but where is where is the money going
0.92
00:05:46.860
to come from to do the extra paying when we are already 110 billion in the hole every year and
0.99
00:06:10.220
We will stop any new people getting HIV by 2030.
00:06:22.420
Britain's elite universities overwhelmingly backing this party.
00:06:30.600
We all know the social care system has not had enough money or staff
00:06:40.340
There's going to be a lot of this in this manifesto.
00:06:42.780
We just need to give them more money and more money in every single section.
00:06:50.600
right they've also they've got a policy details document which we which we take a look at
00:06:55.140
so let's start with um health and social care just have a quick look at their promises um
00:07:02.820
okay initial three billion for local authorities health and care what have they got oh yeah 20
00:07:12.060
billion of investments yeah so full set of claims so so they they believe that um you know that
00:07:21.160
they're going to inject eight billion annually um into into the nhs um and increase it to 28 billion
00:07:30.500
by um by 2030 so that would be the end of this parliament they're in of course they didn't win
00:07:38.200
this election but you know had they have got in but 28 billion a year is the ambition um dentistry
00:07:44.780
we're getting extra 3 billion social care um i picked that out that was in there somewhere that
00:07:50.540
gets an extra 20 billion investment um oh and 3 billion for the child social uh care of course
00:07:58.100
so you know this all ramps to about 30 billion a year um on their on their sort of promises here
00:08:04.980
and then in social care they're looking for 20 billion um but i mean they think they can make
00:08:13.320
it a one-off but in practice it won't be because that will just get absorbed by the system
00:08:17.280
um free personal care um workforce rebuilt you know these are all structural things that are
00:08:24.140
going to result in um you know um substantially higher spending so really they're understating
00:08:30.200
they're spending on um nhs and social care to the tune of about 25 billion to 50 billion
00:08:36.680
you know they're they're they're basically say we're just going to throw more money and staff
00:08:40.920
at it but okay well where where are these staff coming from are they all just going to be imported
00:08:46.900
do we just have vast swathes of somalian nurses and doctors and dentists waiting to to flock
00:08:54.060
crew possibly that's what they think so they're envisaging shorter waiting lists and better care
00:09:02.580
um but but really what i'm seeing is higher wages um persistent shortages and rising costs
00:09:11.820
with probably no output gains you know that you know in this in this document here they're
00:09:22.340
but without solving who's going to deliver it and how.
00:09:27.600
You can't just spend your way out of a labour shortage.
00:09:34.520
suppose if you offered every foreign doctor in the world enough money,
00:09:38.200
they might come, but whether the money would arrive
00:09:46.060
You know, the constraint that they've identified is not money, it's people,
00:09:50.780
even if they could just, you know, put people at it.
00:10:03.180
Yeah, they've got some white people in the policy document.
0.67
00:10:08.640
Everybody needs a warm, secure, and affordable home,
00:10:12.040
yet millions of people don't have this most basic building block
00:10:29.200
They're going to spend $29 billion on installations,
00:10:42.040
$4 billion for, you know, other building renewal.
00:10:49.000
Oh, rent controls and higher environmental standards on new buildings.
00:11:12.040
somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 to build.
00:11:15.820
So you're looking at somewhere between $30 billion to $45 billion
00:11:26.340
So realistically, you're looking at $20 billion to $35 billion on this.
00:11:44.460
And what they're envisaging of all of this is more homes and lower rent.
00:11:50.340
But where are you going to get the builders from?
00:11:55.040
when you've taken everybody who could feasibly operate as a builder
00:12:00.340
and you've sucked people into it to build these homes?
00:12:07.800
so we'd have to import all the Polish builders back again
0.82
00:12:34.040
extra homes so you're going to get a slower build out higher costs tighter rental market
00:12:42.720
and basically your local authority you control who gets housed okay
00:12:49.460
they're trying to aggressively expand supply which i agree is the right
00:12:58.720
goal but they're also suppressing the private incentives while doing it
00:13:05.420
so you've got a stated preference which which pulls in directly opposite directions okay
00:13:12.500
fine but housing and um what did we do we did the nhs so add those two lots together
00:13:21.160
and we've added so far between 110 billion which is the current deficit so the so even
00:13:28.040
even at the low end the deficit doubles and we've only done two sections so far
00:13:33.240
and actually at the high end what would that come to 165 billion
00:13:36.780
right getting expensive so far what did i want to look at next there was an economy bit where they
00:13:45.520
try here we go no so their picture of an economy is a house um some solar panels on it and they're
00:13:53.360
in creating a fairer greener economy green mps will fight for an economy that delivers security
00:13:59.360
well-being and a better quality of life for everyone as well as protecting our environment
00:14:04.220
and enabling us to tackle the the climate crisis with the ambition and speed it demands
00:14:10.840
40 billion new investment in for the green economy carbon tax
00:14:18.280
green mps will push for 12.4 billion investment in skills and training
00:14:25.020
taxing wealthy fairly to borrowing to invest us we got so we got some fundraising bits at last
00:14:31.880
right a wealth tax of one percent annually on assets over 10 million and two percents on assets
00:14:46.140
Only a tiny minority of people would pay this tax.
00:14:49.960
Reform capital gains tax to align the rates paid
00:15:03.960
Are they thinking it's going to raise between $50 and $70 billion?
00:15:06.820
2 billion in grant funding for local authorities
00:15:14.520
Okay, well, let's just think about this set of claims.
00:15:28.340
Also, they're going to take into public ownership
00:15:34.000
uh the wealth tax that that is a little bit troubling because okay let's say you've got a
00:15:43.100
something which is fairly illiquid a farm or family business or something and you know you
00:15:48.400
take you take a modest income from it and yes the business as a as a as a whole on paper is worth a
00:15:54.480
lot but it's not like you can sell it it's the family business you need to run it so it's not
00:16:00.220
liquid it's not a pool of cash sat there it is a bit it could be tied up in trucks and
00:16:04.820
you know oh bloody builders material or or or lathes or you know production lines or whatever
00:16:14.460
it is the business has got real assets and yeah on on paper that the business could be sold for
00:16:19.800
something but but you know a lot of these family businesses they're clearly going to be worth more
00:16:24.120
than a million pounds on paper at least but it's not liquid you know the the the family the
00:16:29.780
beneficiaries, the people running it, they're just drawing a salary and a little bit of
00:16:33.340
dividends from it. So first of all, how are they going to pay this wealth tax, this one
00:16:38.960
or 2% wealth tax? I suppose it's 2% on assets over a billion. So at least the people with
00:16:44.180
assets over a billion are going to have more sophisticated tax planning. But let's take
00:16:47.900
a modestly sized family business. The family business might be worth, say, 8 million or
00:16:53.680
something but it's not a pool of cash that is just that's just tied up in trucks and lathes and
00:17:01.820
whatever you know tools and and all the rest of it for whatever it is that they produce okay
00:17:07.040
you're gonna have to hand over one percent of that every year but they've also said because
00:17:12.400
they're harmonizing tax and cgt i mean higher and additional rate tax is over 50 percent
00:17:38.840
and said, look, I've got an interesting little business,
00:17:57.140
If I am going to buy it, it's going to be with an aggressive discount.
00:18:03.700
because they're harmonizing CGT and income tax.
00:18:06.020
They're going to need to sell 2% of that business every year
00:18:11.420
and then they can pay the other half as the 1% wealth tax.
00:18:20.400
So actually, it's a 2% annual liquidation on family businesses.
00:18:29.700
you halve your ownership of that business in 34 years.
00:18:36.440
So if you have a family business within one generation,
00:18:44.320
Why would you bother running a family business in the UK?
00:18:49.620
or a farm or anything or any long-run enterprise when you're going to lose half of it
00:18:59.020
over what over one generation having to pay this tax and that assumes that you can sell your the
00:19:07.620
one percent of your business every year at the full rate of the business as a whole which you
0.88
00:19:13.520
won't be able to because who the hell is going to buy one percent of a business without a ridiculous
00:19:18.340
discount on it I mean I wouldn't I'll just say no no not unless not unless I'm getting a big
00:19:24.460
discount so that the dividends actually hold up so so so this is this is just fundamentally
00:19:31.000
unworkable but but yeah I mean look at look at this so they think that they're going to raise
00:19:38.280
50 to 70 billion with that wherever that was and they reckon they're going to raise 80 billion in
00:19:45.660
their carbon tax no they're not the cost of nationalization that was in there as well
00:19:55.320
that has to cost at least between five to 15 billion a year when you when you look at once
00:20:03.560
you take these into private ownership that you won't have the um commercial lines of credit
00:20:08.760
open to you anymore the lending facilities available to it so it has to cost five to
00:20:14.700
15 billion in financing cost and ongoing capex for those set of businesses and that and that's
00:20:20.600
that's conservative so i mean i'm i'm seeing 45 to 55 billion of additional spend in this section
00:20:31.660
alone if you enjoyed that content and of course you did because you are a smart person then why
00:20:37.180
don't you go over to lotus eaters.com where you can watch the whole episode for as little as
00:20:41.860
five pounds a month which really is not much money at all and you get loads of really good content.