Mature democracy

We like to think that we are a mature democracy. Showing rest of the world how it should be done - although it may well be that some of the rest of the world has rumbled us at last. We don't know how it should be done and do seem, just recently, to have been making an awful mess of things.

This evening, it is our continuing failure to have a grown-up discussion about money that is annoying me. That is to say, where is all the money to come from that our Chancellor needs to pay all the people who are not working and all the companies which are in danger of going under. The collective wisdom of the ruling classes and the media seems to be that the rest of us should be lulled into thinking that it all comes from some big money tree in the sky.

From one point of view, it should be easy. All the vast amount of money that we usually use to pay for personal, hospitality and holiday services of one kind or another and which is now, largely, sitting in our bank accounts unused, could be diverted to all pay all the people that usually provide those services. So they get their money, they can buy their grub and pay their rent - while we just don't consume all these unnecessary - not to say luxury - services. We just pay for them as if we were. Which we should be able to manage for a few months.

But at the very least the Chancellor should be setting out some options. 

One, get his hands on some of that unused money by raising tax rates.

Two, some sort of a one-off wealth tax. In the middle ages they used to have things like tenths and fifteenths, to which we might possibly go back. See reference 1 if you need to brush up on this one.

Three, fire up some inflation so that the national debt shrinks in real terms, along with the wealth of those of us unlucky enough to hold ours in cash.

Four, sell off some more chunks of our green and pleasant lands to the Saudis, who must be sitting on a humungous pot of gold. Maybe we English could contribute the Isle of Wight, the Welsh the Isle of Anglesey and the Scots the Isle of Skye. Make up for all the Hong Kongs, Gibraltars and Falkland Islands that we have been sitting on for so long. Which gives rise to yet more options. And what about the Channel Islands?

No doubt Cummings and his friends can dream up some more. At least get a sensible, grown-up discussion going.

Reference 1: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp294-303.