Must watch speech by @GreenJennyJones on the state of our economy and society 👏 If you watch one thing today, make it this ⬇️ "I think we are in a terrible mess in this country. And this budget, actually, it doesn't do anything for it "And it's not really even a debate at all, because we've got two parties arguing over the same set of policies, while the general public see their taxes misspent on a mix of corrupt contracts and privatized services" "It doesn't seem very fair, really" "The reality of the UK today is that a lot of hardworking people get paid less than they were a decade ago, while the very richest get even richer" "There's been no austerity for conservative party donors and the friends of cabinet ministers. They came out of COVID richer as a result of fast track PPE contracts. And now, of course, they're paying less tax with fewer regulations" "And the ability to stir away their money in offshore trusts and Brexit has failed to benefit Cornish fishermen or voters in Sedgefield, Rexamore Lee" "And levelling up is an excuse that enables the government to channel public money to marginal conservative seats" "The whole Thatcher project has failed, yet politicians of both the two major parties treat it as sacred texts" "For example, North Sea oil and gas has made Norway one of the richest countries in Europe from the 1980s onwards, with an oil fund worth approximately $1.4 trillion. Revenue from this fund accounts for a fifth of government spending. And the UK should be even better off. But we handed it all over to the private sector" "So the result is energy customers being ripped off in the last two years with record high energy bills and record high profits for the oil and gas industries, instead of coming out of the last 50 years with a thriving economy, we live in a country where things are falling apart and nothing works" "Anyone who walks around towns will see the lack of investment because councils are struggling. They're going bust up and down the country" "The NHS waits are getting longer, dentists can't be found" "And these headline tax cuts will do nothing to reverse the decades long real terms wage freeze that most workers have faced under successive conservative governments" "And you have to ask, where did all the money that we had when Margaret Thatcher took power, where did all the money go?" "And of course, we have 171 billionaires now, which we didn't have before, which is obviously something we should all be proud of" "But you have to ask, why isn't a wealth tax the number one priority for both parties, especially the Labour party, at the next election?" "It would enable this country to finally invest in large scale renewables and the insulation of homes" "And a wealth tax, of course, could deliver cheaper energy and lower bills, which is exactly what the majority of us need" "Rail privatization has led to far higher fares at a time when the climate crisis dictates that we need lower fares, more trains, fewer cars and water privatization has given us sewage in our rivers, higher bills and a collapsing infrastructure" "Plus, water bills are due to go up another 125 pounds on average this year to generate the 56 billion needed to fix our leaky pipes and overloaded sewage system" "And oddly, that's a very similar amount to what the water companies have paid out in dividends. They took the money and they didn't do the work and I don't see any sort of penalty from that, from the government. There's been a few fines, but they pay those really happily. And what we should be doing is actually, instead of asking for fines, we should be taking shares" "The solution to our economic decline is not privatisation of the NHS or anything else" "It's public ownership of railways and water and the NHS and an end to taxpayers being ripped off by dodgy contracts" "The Green Party wants this country to have its future back, and that means really change the way that we manage our economy and the environment that we live in" "And it means clean water, clean air and clean politics" "We are in trouble as a human race and somehow nobody seems to get this. They just don't understand the urgency, see, of what we have to do" "And so I would argue that this budget, I mean, fairly useless, really, and I look forward to sharing the Green party budget with everybody so you can see what good ideas look like"