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2015 newsmaker: Murphy's law – meet theman behind CorbynomicsTax expert Richard Murphy, widely credited with inspiring Labour’s economic policy, explains whyhe’s not suited to being behind the scenes
Heather Stewart
Wednesday 30 December 2015 15.25 GMT
“I t was amazing how quickly the cold shoulder came on.” Richard Murphy, tax expertand father of Corbynomics, has heard nothing lately from Labour’s shadow chancellorand Jeremy Corbyn’s right-hand man, John McDonnell.
Back in the summer, when he was propelled into the political limelight by the Corbynleadership campaign, which was keen to show it had a coherent economic platform,Murphy began to assume he would take a senior role in Labour’s shadow Treasury team.
He addressed raucous campaign rallies, telling the assembled crowds that it was time toditch what he calls the economic doctrine of Tina – “there is no alternative”. “Theybasically withdrew from discussing economy policy: they let me do it,” he says. One friendinside Labour even began referring to him teasingly as Professor Lord Murphy, as thoughCorbyn might ennoble his economic guru.
But once Corbyn clinched the leadership, he handed the key role of shadow chancellor toMcDonnell, who quickly drafted in a seven-member panel of heavyweight economicadvisers, including the American Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, and the Frenchsuperstar Thomas Piketty – but not Murphy.
He says the idea of making him a special adviser was mooted, as Labour MPs gathered fortheir conference in Brighton in September. But nothing materialised. “There was no formaloffer,” he says. “What became fairly clear was that I would have been some form of specialadviser. That’s not a job for a 57-year-old. Am I temperamentally suited to being thebehind-the-scenes guy who isn’t noticed in public? Probably not.”
So as the year draws to a close, the author of The Joy of Tax has returned to doing what hehas done successfully for many years: campaigning for a fairer tax system, from his homein Downham Market, Norfolk. He has got another book in the works and recently took up aprofessorship at City University in London.
Asked to recall the heady days of last summer, when he suddenly became the impromptuspokesman for a political movement that was sweeping the country – or at least, the Labour
12/31/2015 2015 newsmaker: Murphy's law – meet the man behind Corbynomics | Business | The Guardian
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party – he sounds wistful. “If you’re a creator of ideas, you’re always delighted if someonewants to pick them up and use them,” he says.
“One day in July, I got a phone call saying, would I come and speak at the launch of JeremyCorbyn’s economic policy. I said: ‘Why me? You know I’m not a member of the Labourparty.’ They said: ‘Have you seen the document?’”
When he was sent a copy of The economy in 2020, the radical policy pamphlet that hadalready been sent off for publication, “I looked through it and I realised that 70% of it couldhave been cut and pasted off my blog.”
He was irritated – and remains so – about how his ideas were presented without nuance. Hespent a lot of time, for example, explaining that only a proportion of the £120bn “tax gap”,between what companies owe the tax authorities and what they actually pay, would berecoverable in practice, and doing so would necessitate considerable upfront investment inRevenue & Customs. He says: “I have always said there was no way you would be able toget it all: that point didn’t come over clearly.”
Instead, the pamphlet describes the £120bn as “enough to double the NHS budget; enoughto give every man, woman and child in this country £2,000”.
Another of Murphy’s central ideas – so-called people’s quantitative easing – became one ofthe most talked-about aspects of Corbyn’s leadership bid. Murphy now says this idea, offunding public investment through electronically created money, could be kept on theshelf for the next economic downturn.
People’s QE was a distinctively Corbynite twist on the idea of green QE, which wasconceived by Murphy together with a group of economists and environmentalcampaigners, the green new deal group, as a way of paying for the radical restructuringrequired to tackle climate change.
But during the leadership campaign, the idea sometimes appeared to lay Corbyn open tothe charge that he would be reckless with the public purse-strings; and it has been barelymentioned since.
“Jeremy’s very keen on investment, and seemed to think this would help fund it. Would Ihave put it in the document in the way it was in the summer? No,” Murphy says. “It neededto be made clear that this was a policy that would work best when there is no market for UKgilts [government bonds], and at the moment there is a very buoyant markets for UK gilts. Iwould have written a more balanced policy document.”
He stresses that he never became a fully paid-up member of Team Corbyn. “I didn’t join theLabour party; I didn’t even pay £3 to vote for Jeremy. I just talked about my ideas.”
But he remains proud of his role in opening the political space for a different conversationabout austerity and its consequences: “If I have done anything over the past few years, it isto create this alternative narrative.”
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TopicsEconomicsEconomic policyLabourJohn McDonnellJeremy CorbynThomas Piketty
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Since Labour gave him the “cold shoulder”, he has been talking to the Green party and theScottish National party. But he can’t help lamenting the fact that Labour appears to havegone quiet on economic policy, surrendering some of the ground he hoped had been wonover the summer.
“Labour doesn’t appear to be using Jeremy Corbyn’s election as the best chance to create areal narrative of its own,” Murphy says. “I am concerned, yes, but I have seen nothing sofar says that what I was suggesting, and what they borrowed from me, is not their policy.”
