The problem is that we don't have any real problems.

... However ignorance is only one half of the story. The other is that this perceived toxicity suits the political agenda of those that dominate media discourse.

Hardly anyone asks why it’s seen as good for the private sector to borrow to invest, but problematic for the public sector to do so, because those questions are not posed by journalists working for the right wing media.

City economists are viewed as experts when, on average, they clearly have a right wing bias, as well as an incentive to mystify rather than explain. It is not an exaggeration to say that government debt is viewed as toxic because it suits the media to give that impression.

It is very hard for an opposition party to fight against a media narrative. Been there, tried that. On the other hand a newly elected government, particularly in the early honeymoon period, has immensely more power to set the agenda and terms of reference.

The case for substantially more public investment is overwhelming. As John Burn-Murdoch shows here, investment in the NHS collapsed shortly after 2010, and has stayed at a level well below that in peer countries ever since. NHS capital budgets are currently being cut further still. That is almost fifteen years of chronic under-investment that needs to be reversed. As well as basics like new buildings and beds, we also need to invest in resources for more preventative care and preparation for the next pandemic. The NHS is not unusual in this respect, and you can tell similar stories about under-investment in education, where capital spending for the three-year average up to 2023–24 is due to be about 26% lower in real terms than the three-year average in the late 2000s up to 2008–09.

You can tell similar stories about the justice system, flood prevention, social housing and so on. The public sector as a whole has been starved of investment over the last fourteen years by design, and our economy has seriously suffered as a result.

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the whole point of investment is that it takes time before its benefits are perceived, so if a Labour government wants to get credit for additional investment by the time of the 2029 (or 2034) election they need to start increasing it immediately. Delaying that start for a few years in order to gain some media credibility will be pointless if voters don’t see a substantial improvement in public service provision and economic growth.

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Labour will inherit an economy and a public sector in a worse state than at any time since WWII. The task they will have to turn things around is immense.

It is therefore vital that Labour focus on these real problems, rather than imaginary worries that the media might throw at them. Probably the most effective way to start repairing the damage of the last 14 years is to substantially increase public investment, and the political longevity of the next Labour government may depend on how effectively they do that.
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Your health could soon be in the hands of Nvidia-powered AI nurses, and they cost your healthcare provider next to nothing.

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Nvidia announced a collaboration with Hippocratic AI on Monday, a healthcare company that offers generative AI nurses who work for just $9 an hour. Hippocratic promotes how it can undercut real human nurses, who can cost $90 an hour, with its cheap AI agents that offer medical advice to patients over video calls in real-time.

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