Independent Financial Adviser Joe Jennings from Ashley Law Peterborough talks to Paul Stainton on the three main political parties and their policies on the economy. Broadcast at 07:10 on Thursday 29th April 2010 in the Paul Stainton Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Peterborough.
PAUL: Ten past seven. It’s been described as the issue that none of the Leaders have an answer for. Yes it’s also the subject of tonight’s third election debate as I mentioned earlier, of course, the economy, stupid, which could be the deciding factor in the race to number ten. I would just like to apologise for calling you stupid there. So which of the parties if any have the right strategy? Joe Jennings is from independent financial advisers Ashley Law in Peterborough. He’s got a nice cup of tea. Morning.
JOE: Good morning Paul.
PAUL: You look a right mess in that jacket.
JOE: (LAUGHS)
PAUL: Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I do apologise. (LAUGHS)
JOE: (LAUGHS) That sort of morning, is it?
PAUL: It’s a good excuse though, isn’t it? If our illustrious leader can call people bigots, you know. Do you know what a bigot is, by the way? It’s someone who’s strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race or politics, and is intolerant of those who differ. You muppet. Sorry. Do any of the main parties, Joe, in all seriousness, have the right answer to get us out of this economic mess and avoid us sliding down the slippery slope towards Greece-dom?
JOE: No. I look forward to tonight in the debate, because each party is supposed to be giving a strategy on how we’re going to get out of this mess. There’s not one. Pain is the only thing to get us out this strategy.
PAUL: Do you know what struck me last night, Joe? I was thinking about the economy, and I was thinking we’ve pumped, what, billions into quantitative easing, to help the banks …
JOE: Right. Yes.
PAUL: .. the banks who got us into this mess. We’ve pumped billions into the banks, to let them out of it. Why don’t we just introduce, worldwide, tomorrow, a fifty per cent tax on all bank profits, until they’ve paid every single darn penny back? And we then don’t have to pick up their tab.
JOE: Because the banks won’t let us do that, believe it or not.
PAUL: Are we not in charge?
JOE: Supposedly yes, but we’re not. No.
PAUL: No. Ok. So none of the parties is going to go that far and say the banks got us into this mess, they’re paying it all back.
JOE: No.
PAUL: Why should we have to suffer, Joe?
JOE: Paul, we’ve spoken over the last year and we saw Lloyds TSB being bailed out. They were right in the mess. Two days ago they announced they are back in profit.
PAUL: Well Goldman Sachs made three billion in three months.
JOE: Who brought them out of it? We did, our pain, our money. They’ve charged us for products they’ve introduced. They’ve charged high interest rates, and we’ve got the banks out of the mess again.
PAUL: And they won’t lend. they won’t.
JOE: No. Again. But unfortunately we’re going to be exactly the same with whoever becomes Prime Minister, whatever party comes in.
PAUL: Are they scared of the banks Joe?
JOE: They’re frightened. Yes they are. They will not try to take them on. The banks were given freedom by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the time it was Mister Gordon Brown. That freedom they took advantage of completely, and we let them go willy-nilly, making their own decisions, and we’ve lost. It’s a situation really where we can’t harness them in. We need a huge sheepdog to do that. Now is Cameron going to be the sheepdog, is Brown going to be, or Clegg?
PAUL: Well the Tories plan to cut the deficit within five years. Labour are warning that could damage the recovery. We’ve got to do something though. Greece are on the slippery slope to bankruptcy. Spain’s debt was downgraded to junk bonds yesterday. We’re not far away from Spain are we?
JOE: Not at all, no. We say we’re going to cut this, cut that, cut the other. We’re cutting things out, yes. But we’ve got to create money as well. And the only way we can do that, and I’ve said this all along, is direct taxation. Let people know we are going to put your taxes up. Unfortunately it’s going to be painful, but it’s going to bring us back out of a recession which is still here, I don’t care what they say. They say we’re climbing out of it. Direct taxation, tangibility, let them see what they’re doing with it. They say they’re going to cut this. The Government are in charge of health, education. The private sector, they’re the ones that are going to start feeling the pain. If we cut the money going into the health service, that’s disastrous. We’re going to cut money from the armed forces. The armed forces are trimmed right down now anyway.
PAUL: How do we square this circle of cut and spend? Because we need to do both, don’t we?
JOE: We’ve got to say the only people who are going to get us out of it are again ourselves. Increase taxation, direct taxation. Let them know what we’re doing, and get us out of it quicker. That’s the only quick way of doing it.
PAUL: But if we’ve got less money to spend, how do we get out of this? It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?
JOE: It’s a creativity situation as well. Increase taxation yes, but there again, if we increase taxation, we release a bit more money to the Government to put back in.
PAUL: What are you looking for tonight, from the three leaders? Are you expecting anything?
JOE: No. I’m not expecting any one of them to say exactly what they’re thinking of, what I’ve just said then. They won’t go on a plinth and say right, the only way out of this now is we’re going to tax you all more. Because they want to become Prime Minister, each one of those guys.
PAUL: If they stood up and said we’re going to tax the banks fifty per cent on their profits they’d get votes, wouldn’t they?
JOE: Absolutely.
PAUL: And it would help solve the problem. And the money’s there. Let’s just take it. We gave it. Let’s take it back.
JOE: Yes but, the folk in the banks, they do make a lot of money but we need control of money as well.
PAUL: It’s an interesting … will you be watching tonight?
JOE: Liverpool are on television as well, don’t forget.
PAUL: Don’t worry about that. That’s worse than the debate, surely.
JOE: (LAUGHS)
PAUL: Is it the Milk Cup? Nineteen seventy four? He’s Joe Jennings, independent financial adviser from Ashley Law in Peterborough. He’s not got a lot of hope on the three leaders tonight in the debate, particularly regarding the economy.
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