

Funding the Future
Richard Murphy
Richard Murphy and occasional friends talking about everything you need to know to understand the economy, tax, finance and how we fund our future.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 1, 2025 • 13min
Should rents be controlled?
We talk about food poverty and fuel poverty, but almost never about rent poverty. Yet rent is now the biggest driver of inequality in Britain. Thatcher’s deregulation turned homes into speculative assets, and tenants into disposable people. It’s time for a change. In this video, I explain why rent poverty is central to our inequality crisis — and why Britain urgently needs a new Rent Act.

Aug 31, 2025 • 11min
People, planet, or profit?
The UK doesn’t just have one economy: it has three. They are the real economy, the sustainable economy, and the monetary economy. However, the government is fixated on the wrong one. In this video, I explain why the real economy matters more than the monetary economy, why sustainability needs to get a look in, and why Rachel Reeves seems to have no clue about almost any of this, at cost to us all.

Aug 30, 2025 • 11min
The British Bill of NO rights
Nigel Farage says he wants to replace the UK Human Rights Act with a so-called “British Bill of Rights.”
But let’s be clear: this is not about protecting freedoms. It’s about removing them.
The Human Rights Act brings into UK law the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty drafted after the Second World War with strong UK backing, led by Winston Churchill, and based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It exists to stop governments abusing their citizens.
Farage’s plan would:
Cut the link to international oversight in Strasbourg
Narrow rights, especially for migrants and asylum seekers, but also for anyone who might have the right to live in another country, however long they have lived here
Give Parliament, not independent courts, control over rights
Undermine the UK's peace agreements, the government of Northern Ireland, and international treaties
This is not about rights. It’s about power — the power to control, divide, and expel. It risks taking Britain down a path towards authoritarianism.

Aug 29, 2025 • 10min
Bond yields are in a bubble
The media claims UK government borrowing costs have soared to 5.6%, spelling financial crisis for Rachel Reeves. But that’s nonsense. Bond yields are being distorted by a stock market bubble, not by government risk. Reeves shouldn’t issue bonds at these rates — she should wait for the crash that’s coming. In this video, I explain how bond yields really work, why the markets have it wrong, and what a wise chancellor should do now.

Aug 28, 2025 • 15min
Farage is coming for you
Nigel Farage says he wants to abolish the Human Rights Act — the law that guarantees 16 fundamental protections in the UK. From the right to life to freedom of speech, from fair trials to free elections, he wants them gone. This isn’t just about deportations. It’s about stripping away the freedoms that protect us all from the potential tyrannies of government - including one that he might lead.

Aug 27, 2025 • 38min
Capital, Capitalism, and the Capture of Democracy
Capital might be a hopeful human achievement, but capitalism has captured democracy for the few: a conversation with John Christensen

Aug 26, 2025 • 7min
MMT won’t crash the pound
The story goes: if Britain used modern monetary theory, the bond market would revolt. The truth is the opposite. In this video, I explain why the UK government’s ability to create money, to invest in real assets, and to build a stronger economy, all of which would be enabled by modern monetary theory thinking, would make British investors in the UK more secure, not less.

Aug 25, 2025 • 6min
Is Labour throwing 2029?
Is Labour trying to lose the 2029 election? That’s what it looks like. Growth has stalled, the NHS is failing, housing promises are broken, and the public feels ignored. In this video, I explain how Rachel Reeves, Morgan McSweeney, and Keir Starmer’s Labour are pursuing a strategy that could end in political disaster.

Aug 24, 2025 • 9min
Tax avoidance is destructive
Sociocide and pleonexia are not just words. They describe what’s happening in plain sight: the destruction of society by those who refuse responsibility for the common good. This video asks whether tax avoidance is sociocidal — and what we should do about it.

Aug 23, 2025 • 10min
How fascists win – and why
Fascists and far-right politicians define an 'other' group in society and then blame them for all its problems. I explain why this tactic is so effective – and so dangerous.


