Tag Archives: green book

The response to our first Green Book podcast was hugely encouraging.  We’re now working on the second in the series, looking at the climate emergency, focused on the challenge of net zero, and asking how the Lib Dems can recover our leading position on the environment.  That will go live later this month.

First, though, what did we learn for the debate on the economy?  We began here because concerns about the economy, be they low paid jobs, insecurity or our apparent inability to fund decent public services and infrastructure, are at the top of most people’s concerns. 

The lack of investment, both public and private, that has led to this situation is well known. However, the standard answer has been ‘but there is no money’ – the excuse for the austerity of the last 13 years – which has only made things worse while debts, both personal and public, have actually got bigger.  

In the podcast, we set out to start a fresh debate and to come up with innovative and distinctive ideas and new ways of thinking about political economy. The podcast looked at what has been done differently elsewhere, in particular in the USA where Biden is turning the economic approach of the last 20-30 years upside down, and then asked where the money might come from.

We had three great guests:

Vicky Pryce is a very well-known economics commentator, regularly on TV, radio and in the media. 

Max von Thun was economic advisor to the party when Vince Cable was leader and is now the European director for the US based Open Markets Institute.  

Richard Murphy is one of the creators of the original Green New Deal and also the tax justice movement, whilst being a very active blogger on political economy.

Overall, the panel felt that just ‘leaving it to the market’ with the cuts to state expenditure and investment have left us with failing infrastructure and public services, and with an unproductive economy.  Brexit and Covid have made problems that were already there much worse.  This needs the state to take more of a lead with a very different economic narrative along the lines that we are seeing in the USA and the EU.  This especially applies to infrastructure and the investment needed to tackle climate change where the state can take a lead to stimulate private sector investment.