Michael Meacher died five years ago today. He was not always right, but he earned the badge of honour of being the only Shadow Cabinet member whom Tony Blair refused to appoint to the Cabinet. It was a great pity that what Westminster already knew to be his final illness precluded his appointment to Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
There, he would have made the case for Glass-Steagall, the strict statutory division between investment banking and retail banking, with large amounts of central government credit, at low interest rates and over a long term, to be used for public works that would then pay for themselves many times over.
Ably assisted by pro-business tariffs and subsidies, by a pro-business National Bank to promote the growth of productive enterprises rather than speculation, by collective bargaining and trade union representation, by cooperative and mutual ownership, and by reconceived models of public ownership, all in a context of economic realignment with the BRICS and with other emerging economies.
Given the opportunity, some of us still would make that case. Please give generously.
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