A Wealth of Opportunities

In 1988, the taxation of wealth at a lower rate than earnings was corrected by Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson. But in 1998, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown put the clock back to the Chancellor of the Exchequer who had gone on, as First Lord of the Treasury, to introduce monetarism to Britain 50 years ago this December. Now, though, even Wes Streeting wants to tax capital gains at the same rate as earnings.

Yet Thatcher must never have seen a banknote, since she thought that the State had no money of its own. In reality, the issuing of currency is an act of the State, which is literally the creator of all money. As a sovereign state with its own free-floating, fiat currency, the United Kingdom has as much of that currency as it chooses to issue to itself, with readily available fiscal and monetary means of controlling any inflationary effect, means that therefore need to be under democratic political control. The responsibility of the Government is to ensure the supply of goods and services to be purchased with that currency.

It is impossible for the currency-issuing State to run out of money. Money “lent” to the Treasury by the Bank of England is money “lent” to the State by the State; such “debt” will never be called in, much less will bailiffs be sent round. Call this “the Magic Money Tree” if you will. There is no comparison between running the economy and managing a household budget, or even a business. There is no “national credit card” to “max out”. “Fiscal headroom” is only the gap between the Government’s tax and spending plans and what would be allowed under the fiscal rules that it sets for itself and changes frequently.

That is what both fiscal policy and monetary policy are for: to give the currency its value by controlling inflation to a politically chosen extent while discouraging certain politically chosen forms of behaviour, and while encouraging others, including economic equality, which is fundamental to social cohesion and thus to patriotism. If there were “no such thing as society”, and Thatcher really did say that, then there could be no such thing as the society that was the family, or the society that was the nation. But there is no debt. It is an accounting trick. The Treasury, which is the State, has mostly issued bonds to the Bank of England, which is the State. Even when those bonds were held by the big scary “bond market”, then the State could simply issue itself with enough of its own free-floating, fiat currency to redeem them. Say it again that there is no debt. There is no debt. There is no debt.

The money can always be found for wars. But taxation is not where the State’s money comes from. Nothing is “unaffordable”, every recession is discretionary on the part of the Government, and there is no such thing as “taxpayers’ money”. Within and under that understanding, a tax of one to two per cent on assets above £10 million could make up the abolition of the two-child benefit cap 17 times over, while merely taxing each of Britain’s 173 billionaires down to one billion pounds per head would raise £1.1 trillion, an entire year’s tax take. And so on. With the Gulf looking a lot less attractive, the tiny numbers of people directly affected would not get a better deal anywhere where they might ever wish to live. Even the putative Iranian nuclear cloud has a silver lining.

There was never any case for retaining the two-child benefit cap or for withdrawing the Winter Fuel Payment from anyone, and there is none for cutting the benefits of the sick and disabled as if that would cure them or find them jobs,  or for increasing workers’ bus fares by 50 per cent, or for failing to freeze Council Tax, or for threatening to abolish the single person discount, or for increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions so as to destroy charities and small businesses while making it impossible for big businesses to take on staff or to increase wages, or for forcing working farmers of many decades’ standing who formally inherited their parents’ farms to sell them to giant American agribusinesses, or for any other form of austerity.

There is an unanswerable economic and moral case for the full compensation of, among others, the victims of Orgreave, Grenfell Tower, the Windrush scandal, the Post Office scandal, and the contaminated blood scandal, as well as the nuclear test veterans, the WASPI women, and those, such as Andrew Malkinson, who had been wrongfully imprisoned. All while renationalising the railways, the water companies, the Royal Mail that pretty much seems to have given up, and the energy companies that have tripled their standing charges since 2021 while their captive “regulator” increased their cap to order.

Declined To Avoid

Ethan Shone writes:

The government has no official records of meetings that top civil servants held with senior figures and clients from Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm last year, including an undeclared meeting with oil giants and private equity firms, openDemocracy can reveal.

Global Counsel went into administration earlier this year after details of Mandelson’s close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the Epstein Files, including emails showing how he sought the billionaire paedophile’s advice on establishing the firm.

But before its collapse, Global Counsel’s business was booming as it and its founder established close ties to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the company donated a member of staff to support Labour’s work on financial services policy development and produced promotional materials, which openDemocracy has seen, touting its significant access to the party. “Our clients’ engagement pays dividends in the long run,” it promised, adding that it was “uniquely placed” to help corporate clients “establish relationships that outlive the election and deliver policy dividends on the other side”.

By the end of that year, Starmer had appointed Mandelson as the UK’s US ambassador, and Global Counsel had seen its UK revenue surge by 75% since 2022, from £7.9m to £13.9m. The business also took on over 20 new clients in the first quarter after Labour’s win – more than in the previous five years combined – including Palantir, Shell and TikTok.

Now, openDemocracy can reveal that the most senior civil servant from the Department for Business and Trade and a senior Treasury official met with Global Counsel’s representatives several times last year, including at a roundtable the firm hosted for its clients.

No records from the discussions – including notes or minutes – exist, the government told openDemocracy in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Our investigation comes as parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee takes the rare step of voicing “grave concerns” about the government’s failure to keep proper records from official meetings, following its review of documents set to be published relating to Mandelson's time as US ambassador.

ISC chair Lord Beamish wrote to the government expressing a number of concerns, including over a “lack of an audit trail – in terms of agendas, minutes and records of conversations,” which he described as “unacceptable in government.”

Shadowy meetings

In January last year, Gareth Davies, then permanent secretary at the Department for Business and Trade, met Global Counsel’s most senior adviser on business and trade, Geoffrey Norris, at the exclusive Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall.

The meeting was useful enough that four months later, in May 2025, the pair returned to the same hotel to chat some more.

Yet little is known about what they discussed. The department quite vaguely recorded the purpose of these meetings as “to discuss latest business updates” and “discussion on growth”, respectively.

When openDemocracy asked for more information, the government said it had none.

Davies then spoke at a Global Counsel dinner event in early June and attended a client roundtable event that the firm hosted, which Norris chaired, at its offices weeks later.

There, the senior civil servant spoke with executives from several Global Counsel clients, including oil giants Shell and Equinor, plus JP Morgan and Blackstone. But you wouldn’t know that from the government’s published transparency requests, which fail to mention that clients were present. Their attendance was revealed to openDemocracy only in documents obtained via Freedom of Information requests.

Norris was not the only Global Counsel member Davies was in touch with. In July last year, he met with Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, the company’s co-founder and CEO, “to discuss the industrial strategy”.

Both Norris and Wegg-Prosser are New Labour alumni. Norris was a top business aide in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments, and later advised Mandelson while he was business secretary, while Wegg-Prosser worked as an adviser to Mandelson before becoming Blair’s director of strategic communications.

When Labour lost power at the 2010 election, Mandelson and Wegg-Prosser established Global Counsel, which Norris joined soon afterwards, remaining at the company until its collapse in February.

Wegg-Prosser was reportedly offered a peerage and a role as Labour’s investment minister in September 2024, but declined to avoid stepping down as Global Counsel’s CEO. He eventually quit in February of this year after it was revealed that he’d had extensive contact with Jeffrey Epstein, including traveling to New York to meet Epstein in 2010, two years after Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Global Counsel went into administration weeks after Wegg-Prosser’s exit.

Davies is a long-serving civil servant who recently left DBT to become the top official at the Home Office. He began his career in government alongside Davies, Wegg Prosser and Mandelson, as a Downing Street adviser during the New Labour years.

A DBT spokesperson said: “Transparency returns are published in line with Cabinet Office guidance, and the Civil Service Code has not been broken.”

‘We need full transparency’

Global Counsel also enjoyed significant access to the Treasury under Labour – in some cases with no record of what it lobbied ministers and officials about.

A Global Counsel lobbyist specialising in financial services was seconded to the office of Labour’s first City minister, Tulip Siddiq, before she resigned in January 2025 over alleged corruption links to her aunt’s ousted government in Bangladesh. The staffer’s secondment was a registrable donation-in-kind valued at more than £35,000, and not against parliament’s rules.

In November 2024, Siddiq, who was also economic secretary to the Treasury, met with one of Global Counsel’s most senior figures, its financial services lead, Rebecca Park, to discuss “growth and competitiveness of the financial services sector”. The government declined to provide any details of what was discussed after openDemocracy submitted an FOI request last year.

Later, in July 2025, the Treasury’s director general of financial services, Gwyneth Nurse, met Global Counsel’s Benedict Brogan, a former journalist-turned banking lobbyist, at the Wolseley to “discuss the UK regulatory environment”. Again, the government told openDemocracy it held no further record of what was discussed at the meeting.

Follow-up correspondence obtained by openDemocracy shows Brogan invited Nurse to a client roundtable event in the autumn, with the suggested date of 20 October. Government transparency data shows Nurse attended a Global Counsel dinner event on 20 October, though the records do not show which of the firm’s clients were in attendance.

Financial deregulation has been a significant feature of Labour’s policy offering to the City, which has won the party rare public shows of support from some of the world’s most influential financiers, notably JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Jon Gray of Blackstone. Both firms have, incidentally, worked with Global Counsel.

The lobbying firm was also reportedly contracted by other financial giants as part of an ultimately successful campaign against an increase in ‘carried interest,’ the reduced rate of tax that dealmakers pay on their profits from private equity deals, which can often save them millions.

Mick McAteer, a former regulator and the director of the Financial Inclusion and Markets Centre, said the finance sector should “serve the interests of the real economy, environment, and society”.

“But, finance sector lobbyists now exercise undue influence over finance sector policy. As a result, we are seeing a programme of deregulation and corporate welfare designed to promote finance sector growth, which could ultimately harm our interests. We need full transparency on meetings between policymakers and finance lobbyists.”

The government has previously faced significant criticism over its failure to declare a meeting in early 2025 between Starmer, Mandelson and Palantir.

Now, its failure to keep records of the meetings it has had with Global Counsel and its clients appears to breach the Civil Service Code, under which all civil servants are legally required to “keep accurate official records”.

Separate guidance on managing records in ministers' private offices states explicitly that officials are “bound by the government's commitment to keep records of meetings with outside interest groups”.

Duncan Hames, senior director of policy at Transparency UK, said: “When government transparency is treated as a tick-box exercise, or ignored altogether, this undermines our right to know how decisions are made and leaves room for undue influence.

“In this case, as in so many others, it is clear that the current system is not working as it should. It's time for the UK government to follow Scotland's lead and publish a comprehensive register of those lobbying government.”

openDemocracy contacted Ben Wegg Prosser and Benedict Brogan but neither responded.

Summer Lightening?

Free bus rides for children aged 15 and under during August, the fuel duty increase pushed back from September to December, and a 12-month vehicle tax holiday for hauliers. All well and good, but you would have got more out of Boris Johnson, whose Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, went on as Prime Minister to try to get the supermarkets to sign up to voluntary caps on the price of staple foods.

I am not keen on giving control of food prices to Rachel Reeves. But in the last couple of days, and in the midst of considerably worse food inflation than three years ago, such caps have been screamed down as the end of civilisation, and those howls from the seven-figure salaried bosses of supposedly barely profitable corporations have carried the day. If their market were as cutthroat as they claimed, then no such measure would ever have occurred to anyone.

And how many of their employees are paid in-work benefits to be able to buy the products that they handled? Two out of five Universal Credit claimants are in work, even though there should be no such thing as in-work poverty, the mere existence of which proves that the economic system needs to be replaced. At the very least, no one with a full-time job should be poor. How can that be a controversial thing to say?

Not In His Place?

This year, the late May Bank Holiday does in fact fall on the real Whit Monday, so Nigel Farage has only today to turn up to Parliament before what is still called the Whitsun recess.

Farage has not voted since 18 March, he has not spoken since 25 March, and he has not tabled a written question since as long ago as 10 February last year. He is regularly mentioned on the floor of the House, when it is always necessary to add that he is "not in his place".

It is not as if he is in Clacton. Yet Keir Starmer effectively gave that seat to Farage, with the ghoulish Labour Party staff ordering Jovan Owusu-Nepaul not even to set foot there, much less to campaign. He still took almost as many votes as Farage's margin of victory, so who knows what might have happened if he had been allowed out on the stump?

Main Point To Highlight

When is Yvette Cooper going to be done for contempt of court? John McEvoy writes:

Britain’s former home secretary Yvette Cooper was warned that proscribing Palestine Action could prejudice the trial of six activists but went ahead anyway, it can be revealed.

Internal documents seen by Declassified show the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) advised Cooper not to proscribe Palestine Action within six months of any Filton hearings.

The Filton 24 are pro-Palestine activists accused of breaking into a factory owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms firm, in Bristol in August 2024.

The CPS was concerned that proscribing Palestine Action within six months of the hearings would prejudice their right to a fair trial.

Yet Cooper went against this advice and announced the proscription of Palestine Action less than five months before the first of those trials began in November last year.

Last week, The Guardian also revealed that Cooper risked being in contempt of court by justifying the proscription of Palestine Action in a column published in The Observer.

In that article, Cooper said the charges against the defendants involved a “terrorism connection” and accused the group of “intimidation, violence, weapons, and serious injuries to individuals”.

Defence lawyers sought to argue in court that Cooper had committed an “abuse of process” by discussing details of the case that were under reporting restrictions.

Mr Justice Johnson dismissed that application despite acknowledging that Cooper was “specifically advised that going ahead with the article might prejudice these proceedings”.

Taken together, the revelations suggest Cooper prioritised securing and justifying the proscription of Palestine Action over respecting due process.

The Home Office was approached for comment.

‘6 months gap’

The revelation comes in a cache of Home Office emails seen by Declassified.

It has not been possible to report on this information until now due to reporting restrictions, even though it relates directly to the defendants’ right to a fair trial.

On 3 April 2025, around one week after the Proscription Review Group had recommended proscribing Palestine Action, Cooper’s private secretary sent an urgent email to Britain’s head of proscription asking for a list of dates which could impact the timing of proscription.

“The HS [home secretary] has just asked for an update on upcoming dates relating to the proscription of PAG [Palestine Action] – she’s asked for it asap this lunchtime”, the private secretary wrote.

One of the key issues that Cooper wanted information about was “when court cases are expected”.

The head of proscription responded later the same day.

“Key dates as follows”, they wrote. “Main point to highlight is those relating to the Bristol/Elbit systems trials”.

They continued: “CPS have advised 6 months gap between any announcement and start of the trial to minimise risk of prejudice”.

The email highlighted in bold how the first trials of the Filton activists were due to take place in November 2025.

Yet Cooper announced the proscription of Palestine Action on 23 June, less than five months before the first Filton trial began.

Terrorism connection

The jury failed to convict any of the activists in that case but four of them were found guilty of criminal damage in a retrial earlier this month, with one also found guilty of grievous bodily harm without intent.

Those defendants could now be sentenced as terrorists, despite only being tried for criminal offences.

And while Johnson threw out the “abuse of process” application, he would go on to refer defence counsel Rajiv Menon KC for contempt proceedings regarding his closing speech.

In that speech, Menon reminded jurors of their absolute right to acquit, citing the landmark Bushell case of 1670.

The case against Menon was thrown out last week on the basis of lack of jurisdiction.

Campaign group Defend Our Juries said: “The fact that contempt of court proceedings were even brought against a barrister for his closing speech – for the first time in British legal history – should deeply concern everyone who cares about the rule of law”.

Simply Too Flawed To Be Fixed

Will the new Scottish Parliament and the new Senedd hold firm against assisted suicide? Meanwhile, the mighty David Alton, Lord Alton of Liverpool writes:

After narrowly passing its Third Reading in the House of Commons, at the end of the last parliamentary session, the assisted suicide Bill fell in the House of Lords. This came after Peers debated the Bill for sixteen days. In truth, however much time was given to it, the Bill was simply too flawed to be fixed.

The Bill’s demise came hard on the heels of a vote in the Scottish Parliament to reject similar legislation.

Yet, despite myriad deficiencies and the dangers inherent in such legislation, a controversial campaign is now underway to force the same Westminster Bill into law in the new parliamentary session by using the Parliament Acts to bludgeon it through the legislative process, effectively bypassing House of Lords approval and vital scrutiny.

Only seven Bills have ever reached the statute book through use of the Parliament Acts, which have never been used for a Private Members’ Bill.

Of course, unlike a Government Bill, with its pre-legislative, consultative, and draft phases, as well as protracted policy development and honing, the assisted suicide Bill, as a Private Members’ Bill, entered Parliament relatively untested, something borne out by the torrid time the Bill has had to date.

The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 are intended to be used only as a last resort when there is a deadlock between the two Houses over essential government priorities.

They have been used for significant issues, such as Irish Home Rule and the prosecution of individuals for war crimes during the Second World War. Utilising them now, in contrast, for a controversial and divisive Private Members’ Bill would set a troubling precedent. If you don’t get the answer you are seeking for your pet project, simply ride roughshod over the established constitutional and procedural settlement to obtain your desired outcome.

Many Private Members’ Bills do not pass due to the limited time available in each Parliamentary session. I have personally experienced this with a bill that never lost a single vote, but ran out of time.

This occurrence is neither unusual nor constitutionally irregular — indeed, only a small percentage of Private Members’ Bills ever become law. Analysis now shows that, in the case of the assisted suicide Bill, almost 80 Peers tabled or signed amendments raising concerns with the Bill, with the number rising to about 140 Peers when Peers who spoke against the Bill in the Chamber are added to the number — one of the highest levels of opposition for a Bill in the Lords, even without it reaching Report Stage.

Consider, too, that initial support among the general public plummets when they are made aware of the inherent risks of assisted suicide: a More In Common poll published in February 2026 found that only 28 per cent of the public “strongly support” legalising assisted suicide, down from 32 per cent in late 2024, and 54 per cent oppose bypassing the House of Lords to force the Bill through under the Parliament Acts, with only 46 per cent supporting such a move.

This shows that opposition to this particular Bill is far greater than campaigners in favour of the Bill claim, and demonstrates that many voters across all parties reject the idea of sidestepping scrutiny.

It is particularly striking that the House of Lords has been one of the few places where the voices of people with disabilities have been heard outlining their fears about this Bill. The interventions of peers with disabilities — such as Lord Shinkwin, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, and Baroness Grey-Thompson, who advocate on behalf of disabled individuals — had a profound effect.

As Baroness Grey-Thompson told the House, there is not a single organisation of or for disabled people that supports this Bill. And they are right not to do so — even the Government’s own Equality Impact Assessment, despite its shortcomings, concedes that “disabled people may feel subtle pressure [to end their lives] due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support”.

Opposition to this Bill from the Lords has also come from the upper echelons of the medical establishment, including a former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and President of the British Medical Association, a former Chief Nursing Officer and a former Chief Executive of NHS England, all of whom oppose it. Many opponents cite the negative and incremental impact of comparable legislation in other jurisdictions.

Particularly powerful contributions against the Bill have also come from Peers who received an incorrect terminal prognosis, such as Lord Polak, who was given six months to live 37 years ago. If this Bill were eventually to pass, it would mean that vulnerable people who are given incorrect terminal prognoses could end their lives despite not being close to death.

Historically, assisted suicide has been treated as a matter of conscience and subject to a free vote in Parliament. What message is sent by deploying the Parliament Acts in this context?

If we accept that the Parliament Acts should be used to override the Lords in this matter of conscience — concerning life and death — then why not for other issues?

This is not flippant.

Too often, we view the legislation before us through a narrow lens, mindful of the Government currently in power. This is dangerously short-sighted. Reflect for a moment on how a future Government — with different priorities — might utilise this dangerous constitutional precedent once it is set.

Weaponising the Parliament Acts on such a divisive issue may deliver “victory” for campaigners, but at what cost? It would be foolhardy, petulant and dangerous — both for the vulnerable people who will inevitably die as a result of the legislation, and for the state of our politics.

The assisted suicide Bill would remain unsuitable and fundamentally flawed regardless of whether proponents seek to ram it through under the Parliament Acts. Lawmakers must consider whether that cost is justified. Since the price is the lives of the vulnerable and the forfeit of trust in British parliamentary democracy, in this case, the cost is too great, whatever one’s view on the underlying issue.

How much better it would be if they used their time and energy to campaign for comprehensive palliative care throughout the UK — and tackled the scandalous hospice funding crisis. The priority should be assisting and caring for the living, not assisting suicide.

Food For Thought

Lower inflation does not mean that prices are going down. It means only that they are going up by less than the last time that anyone officially checked, and in this case only by very, very slightly less. Today's inflation rate comes straight after yesterday's unemployment figures, so whatever happened to the impossibility of mass unemployment and galloping inflation at the same time?

Heaven help us all if the price of our staple foods were ever to be set by Rachel Reeves, but if that really were a competitive market, then no such intervention would have occurred to anyone. Rishi Sunak wanted to do it in May 2023, when the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party was Lee Anderson. And now, this. Does Yvette Cooper agree with Ed Balls that Reeves was comparable to Stalin?

Nothing would be done about any of this by Wes Streeting, whose resignation statement was heard by a half-empty chamber, with Streeting himself flanked by Jess Phillips but otherwise surrounded by interning nephews, nieces and godchildren who had been granted special dispensation to sit on the green benches. 

Yet as for Andy Burnham, he cleaves to the position of the last Conservative Government that male bodies should be allowed in the ladies' if their owners felt like it, and he therefore has no reason to oppose the continuation of that Government's austerity programme, either. These things are all of a piece, along with the ban on British oil and gas while buying it from Russia, just as we have spent 40 years importing coal from child and slave labour at the ends of the Earth while sitting on a thousand years' worth of our own.