Zack Polanski tells voters there is no ‘time to wait around’ for Corbyn party

It's always good to see new young faces enter the political arena, but politics is a long hard slog with reality and competing forces, something Jeremy Corbyn was unable to deal with. Great campaigners who appeal to a sense of justice and fairness, yet seem blind to the powers ranged against them.

Zack Polanski is right to reject the austerian nostrums of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Like the UK Government and the Bank of England (but, see below*), not to mention the right-wing media, they pretend ignorance of how money really works. Even the Guardian gives little space to this topic, evidently lacking any real understanding and/or not having the capability to report on it. The IFS and the rest prefer a cutdown version that omits the government's key roles in creating money (subject to a budget approved by parliament). It commits government to borrowing and tight monetary policies, completely unnecessarily and dangerously, prejudicing households and small businesses especially. See the empty shops in your high street and think isn't neoliberalism great (not)... I was asked recently by another commentator for examples of where this Modern Monetary Theory (MMT, or derided as the 'magic money tree') is used and where it has been successful. I guess he expected me to say Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Peru, well-known for their hyper-inflationary periods... All sovereign countries with fiat currencies, and that is most of them, do exactly that - they create money by printing it or by pushing buttons. Admittedly, some of these countries are not necessarily otherwise credited with quality economic management, but that's nothing to do with MMT. *Readers might refer to the BoE's Q1 bulletin in 2014, which the bank appears to have forgotten in the prevailing political winds (independent? huh!), which endorses MMT. The European Union does it, the US does it and the UK does it. But sometimes, like the UK currently for wholly political reaons, they are sheepish about it and attempt to conceal it things like Quantitative Easing (QE). Thatcher said the 'there is no such thing as a magic money tree' and of course she was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about everything. Except many things... She also said that we needed to have a healthy economy before we can protect our environment. Alas, not much sign of that over the intervening 40y, an obvious reflection of the failure of the neoliberalist economics that she and her acolytes took the UK into. And what we are still suffering from! Always remember, austerity is a political choice (by Tories, Reform and Labour); it is not forced by economics.

Zack Polanski... I don't know. He says all the right things, but as a Lib Dem defector he'll know all about changing his beliefs at the drop of a hat. Also it's not so long since he was grifting a living from hypnotising women into having bigger breasts. https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/zack-polanski-deputy-green-party-hypnotherapy-womens-breasts-5HjcmXc_2/ Given how rubbish all the other options are I'd really like to believe that he's decent, but the odds are that he's just another con-man looking for an easy way to power, influence and money.

Thanks, Felicity. Yes, and cannot you see how the private sector, no longer crowded out by gummint, has expanded and contributed so much to renewing our society. So civic spirited, the evidence is everywhere! Borrow my rose-tinted spectacles if you need to... Thanks too for your comment, Bram. 'Money printing' (ie. electronic) is already utilised to invest in schools and hospitals (though not enough) and increasingly it seems, in armaments (huzzah!) - the private sector doesn't invest because it is risk averse. High income and net wealth people don't either - they save (because they can!), creating dead money. And they are risk averse too. I oppose material growth (though very supportive of growth in culture, in education, in health etc) because of the harm it has done and continues to do to our environment and resource base. Only some government investment will create growth but it's usually at a low rate over the long-term. Growth in the sense you mean it will not 'offset inflation concerns'. It's much more likely to contribute to it. With respect, inflation arises when demand approaches the physical limits of the economy. Inflation, notwithstanding the silly games being played by the BoE and the Chancellor of the Exchequer with interest rates (and not in your interests), is managed by using a fully developed tax system and by empowering the tax agency to tackle evasion and avoidance, all those loopholes that most people don't have access to... We can see that the recent causes of inflation in the UK were oil and gas prices (not susceptible increased interest rates) and continues from the undertaxed top 10% (yachts, houses etc). No MMT economist would claim there is no limit to money creation (see above). Certainly not a suggestion I would ever make. But a MMT economy would quickly bring about an increase in well-being - and that's what an independent Cymru will be able to offer. Increased wages, benefits and pensions. A more generous state than the misrerabilist UK governments have offered since Thatcher. Read about the post-war period (~1946 - ~1976) and Professor Richard Murphys' excellent blog to learn more about MMT. For example...https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/09/02/keynes-vs-mmt-which-economic-theory-fits-our-world/ Avoid the neoliberalist parties (Labour, Reform - on steroids and Tory) in the Senedd 2026 election... There are better options in and for Cymru.