John Healey began his first speech as Chancellor by making four big claims.

He said:

- fiscal control is the first duty of any Chancellor,
- fiscal credibility delivers economic stability,
- fiscal credibility creates growth, and
- growth delivers national security.
Those ideas sound reassuring, but what if every one of them is wrong?

In this video, I explain why those four assumptions have already failed Britain before and why, if John Healey governs on the basis of them, he is likely to fail as Chancellor as well.

I argue that:

- Putting fiscal control ahead of outcomes means confusing accounting with economic management.
- Stability depends on far more than government finances.
- Growth comes from investment, innovation and confidence, not from - shrinking the state in pursuit of Treasury orthodoxy.
- And national security is created by real capabilities around energy security, infrastructure, education, research, and resilience, and not by assuming defence spending should simply rise with GDP.

Healey did not put forward new ideas. He repeated the same Treasury thinking that has dominated British economic policy for decades. His claims represent the thinking that has delivered weak growth, crumbling public services, underinvestment and stagnant living standards. Repeating those ideas, yet again, will not produce a different result.

If Britain is to prosper, we need a Chancellor who measures success by the outcomes government delivers, not by applying arbitrary fiscal targets. Until that changes, we risk repeating the same mistakes while expecting different results, and Einstein quite correctly once called that a definition of madness.

Take a look at our poll: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxrJ2ChvbK96vyKCDre_ISiTDekuJZuUMs

00:00 Healey’s Four Assumptions
01:18 Fiscal Control Is Not the Goal
02:55 Does Restraint Create Stability?
04:05 The Failed Treasury View
05:44 Government Spending and Growth
07:11 Does Growth Create Security?
08:50 What National Security Requires
10:05 What Real Credibility Means
11:15 Britain’s Treasury Problem
12:00 Questions Healey Must Answer

TRANSCRIPT
A transcript for this video is available at: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE TO YOUR MP ABOUT ISSUES IN THIS VIDEO
If you want to write a letter to your MP on the issues raised in this blog post, there is a ChatGPT prompt to assist you in doing so, with full instructions, here. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/06/20/chatgpt-prompt-for-a-letter-to-your-mp/

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ABOUT RICHARD MURPHY
Richard Murphy is Emeritus Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School. He is director of Tax Research LLP and the author of the Funding the Future blog. His best-known book is ‘The Joy of Tax’.

This video was edited by Thomas Murphy.

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