Funding the Future

I recently recorded another Funding the Future podcast with John Christensen, with whom I have discussed tax justice and corruption for more than twenty-five years. We set out to talk about why corruption is suddenly back in the headlines. We concluded that corruption has not suddenly appeared. It has been embedded in our economic system for decades.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Why trust in banks, governments and corporation...

Conspiracies exist. But they are not secret meetings in dark rooms.

They are systems of coordinated power operating in plain sight.

States pursue power. Corporations shape regulation. Finance influences policy. Big tech lobbies governments. Trade rules protect capital. Electoral systems entrench incumbents.

This is not fantasy. It is political economy.

In this video, I explain the difference between conspiracy theories and structur...

Modern economics behaves as if some people simply do not matter. In this video, I reject that idea outright.

Neoliberal economic policy treats people as costs, blames them for failures they did not create, and deliberately excludes those who do not contribute to its narrow definition of “productivity”. Disabled people, carers, the long-term sick, the elderly, migrants, and those in insecure work are all made disposable by design.

I...

The UK is no longer a unitary political system. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England now operate as distinct political realities, yet Westminster still governs as if nothing has changed.

This video argues that Labour’s current crisis is not tactical or personal, but constitutional. The collapse of national political consent, the distortions of first-past-the-post, and the absence of a governing theory have created a danger...

Why does Britain feel poorer, more unequal and less productive than it should be?

In this Funding the Future podcast, I speak with John Christensen, co-founder of the Tax Justice Network, about the finance curse, which occurs when banking and financial services grow beyond any socially useful scale.

Drawing on John’s work in Jersey and decades of UK experience, we explain how finance crowds out real economic activity, drives up hou...

New reporting shows the US State Department planning to fund MAGA-aligned think tanks, charities, and political movements in Europe. That includes organisations and figures linked to UK politics.

This video follows the money: from post-war neoliberal networks, to modern think tanks, to today’s use of US state funding to legitimise extremist ideology. The far right no longer opposes the state. It has captured parts of it and is now ...

Mass membership growth means something real is happening in the Green Party in England and Wales. People - who I call the watermelons, as they're red inside and green outside - are choosing commitment to that party over despair. But, critically, movements can outrun institutions.

In this video, I set out the opportunity facing the Greens, the risks they must avoid, and the hard truth that values alone are not enough. If plausible, ...

Bitcoin has halved in value since October, and this is not a routine market correction. It is a crash.

In this video, I explain why crypto has no underlying value, why the collapse still has further to go, and why banks that lent money so people could speculate on Bitcoin are now exposed.

I also look at the growing fragility in stock markets and tech valuations, including AI, and explain why this could become a systemic crisis that...

Keir Starmer’s authority collapsed in the House of Commons this week, and it will not recover. This video explains why his judgment failed, why sacking aides will not save him, and why Labour is now a hollowed-out party with no credible future leadership.

But this crisis goes much further than Starmer. It exposes systemic failure in Labour, growing paralysis in government, and deeper institutional rot that threatens the Union and t...

What if a US president simply refuses to allow an election to take place?

This video is not a conspiracy theory. It is a risk analysis based on polling data, Trump’s own record, and the legal powers he has already claimed. I examine what could happen if the 2026 US midterms are cancelled or ignored, how states might respond, the risk of constitutional rupture, and why this matters not just for America, but for the UK and Europe as ...

GDP dominates political debate, but it tells us almost nothing about real prosperity, well-being, or care. 

Created as a technical statistic of massive use in wartime, GDP was never meant to measure success and yet it now drives policy, justifies inequality, and is used as an excuse for austerity.

In this video, I explain why GDP is conceptually flawed, how it rewards harm and ignores distribution, and why we urgently need econom...

This video argues that we are facing a stark economic and political choice: fascism or care.

Fascism is not history. It is happening now. It has a distinct economic logic built on extreme neoliberalism:

• Market worship
• Punishment instead of protection
• Austerity
• Fear, and
• The use of the state to enforce cruelty while insulating wealth.

The economics of care offers a different framework entirely. It puts human needs first, ...

Neoliberal politics promised growth, efficiency, and renewal. What it has delivered is inequality, insecurity, and democratic exhaustion. The right has failed.

But, as this video explains, much of the left has no alternative to offer. Labour’s fiscal rules, growth-first economics, and treatment of public services as costs are not left-wing ideas – they are neoliberalism with a softer tone.

No wonder most people are alienated from t...

Is Nigel Farage the strongman who could deliver fascism to the UK? Or is that the wrong way to understand the danger he represents?

In this video, I examine what fascism actually requires: ideology, discipline, institutions, and the willingness to rule. By those standards, Farage fails the test.

But that does not make him harmless. Farage’s role is not to govern, but to corrode democracy, normalise cruelty, and weaken trust ...

People assume pensions are “saved money” — a pot with their name on it, safely invested for the future. They aren’t.

In this video, I explain how UK pensions actually work, why defined contribution pensions are inherently risky, and why most pension money fuels speculation rather than real investment.

I look at the state pension, defined benefit schemes, and defined contribution pensions and explain who really benefits from the cur...

We are told that artificial intelligence can replace human judgment. It cannot.

In this video, I explain why AI does not care, why it cannot exercise judgment, and why deploying it at scale embeds neoliberal values into decision-making by design.

Algorithms prioritise efficiency, cost reduction and rule-following. Judgment requires care, context, responsibility and democratic accountability.

This is not a technical debate. It is a ...

Neoliberalism did not just “happen”. It was planned, funded, and carefully rolled out over decades.

In this conversation with John Christensen, co-founder of the Tax Justice Network, we trace how the post-war economic settlement worked, why it delivered rising living standards and falling inequality, and how it was deliberately dismantled.

We then discuss the role of think tanks, banks, tax havens, the Washington Consensus, and off...