Labour Press released this in September 2015:

• Labour announces new Economic Advisory Committee

  Labour has today unveiled its Economic Advisory Committee that will be convened by the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP, and will report directly to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP.

  Meeting quarterly, the purpose of the Committee will be to discuss and develop ideas around the official economic strategy that Labour will be advocating under the new leadership.

  The Committee, which contains a broad based group of world leading economists, includes:

  • Mariana Mazzucato, Professor, University of Sussex
  • Joseph Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics.
  • Thomas Piketty, Professor, Paris School of Economics
  • Anastasia Nesvetailova, Professor, City University London
  • Danny Blanchflower, Bruce V, Rauner Professor of Economics Dartmouth and Stirling, Ex-member of the MPC
  • Ann Pettifor, Director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Political Economy Research Centre of City University
  • Simon Wren-Lewis, Professor of Economic Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

  
  Speaking ahead of the announcement, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

  “I was elected on a clear mandate to oppose austerity and to set out an economic strategy based on investment in skills, jobs and infrastructure. Our economy must deliver security for all, not just riches for a few.

  “I am delighted that John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor has convened this group to advise the leadership as we set out our economic vision.”

  John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, added:

  “I am delighted to convene this Economic Advisory Committee that will assist in developing a radical but pragmatic and deliverable economic policy for our country.

  “Our Economic Advisory Committee will assist in developing a fairer and more prosperous economic alternative based upon investment and growth which reaches all sections of society.

  “Austerity is failing the people of this country. Working alongside world leading economists Labour will present the coherent alternative our country desperately needs.”

  Member of the new Committee, Professor Thomas Piketty, said:

  “I am very happy to take part in this Economic Advisory Committee and assist the Labour Party in constructing an economic policy that helps tackle some of the biggest issues facing people in the UK.

  “There is now a brilliant opportunity for the Labour party to construct a fresh and new political economy which will expose austerity for the failure it has been in the UK and Europe.”
  

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  Some thoughts

  This is an excellent team of experts on economics, globalisation, equality, inclusion and innovation, whose task is to develop and present the coherent alternative to austerity, social darwinist neoliberalism and small-state Conservatism, which our country desperately needs.

  Ann Pettifor is an excellent analyst of the global financial system, who also predicted the global crash as early as 2003 and published a 2006 monograph entitled The Coming First World Debt Crisis.

  Professor Mariana Mazzacuto is an economist at the University of Sussex whose work explores the relationship between “financial markets, innovation, and economic growth”. She sits on the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers, a group dedicated to growing the Scottish economy and combating inequality in Scotland. Last year, Mazzacuto won the New Statesman SPERI prize in political economy for her research which demonstrates how the state, like the private sector, can encourage innovation.

  Professor Danny Blanchflower is widely known, has served on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, has written extensively for The Guardian, and regularly spoken on Radio 4.

  Professor Simon Wren-Lewis is also widely known, extensively published, an Oxford University professor of economics, teaching undergraduate and Masters of Philosophy students. He conducts research in economic methodology, macroeconomic theory and policy, and international macroeconomics. He runs an excellent blog site called mainly macro.
  

  Additional information about the well-known Professor Joseph Stiglitz includes that he has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities and been decorated by several governments including Korea, Colombia, Ecuador, and most recently France, where he was appointed a member of the Legion of Honor, order Officer.

  Based on academic citations, Stiglitz is the 5th most influential economist in the world today, and in 2011 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

  Professor Thomas Piketty is also well-known, he’s a directeur d’études at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Professor at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial professor at the London School of Economics new International Inequalities Institute.  Piketty specialises in studying economic inequality, taking a historic, comparative and statistical approach.
  

  In stark contrast, a hundred vulture venture capitalists and business leaders, many of whom are Conservative donors, signed an open letter warning of the “perils” of a change in economic policy and urging UK voters to vote Conservative, published in the Telegraph last year. The Conservative Party has close links with the hedge fund industry, too, as research showed that around half of the wealthiest fund managers in Britain have given money to the Tories.

  The Labour Party is funded largely by unions, which makes it the cleanest money in politics – from the likes of you and I.  Trade unionists are at the forefront of the struggle for human rights; they are committed to social justice and international solidarity, and typically have strong community roots, and therefore will ensure our interests are reflected in policy-making, rather than just those of big business tax-avoiding Tory donors.

  It’s very worrying that vulture capitalists like Adrian Beecroft, a longstanding Conservative donor, have been permitted to re-write our employment laws as part of the government’s wider “labor market “reform.” Amongst Beecroft’s known personal investments are Gnodal, a computer networking company, and Wonga.com, an eye-wateringly high interest, opportunist loan company, that commodifies the poorest people with low credit ratings for massive profits. Beecroft has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006.

  The Beecroft Report caused considerable controversy because it recommended that the government should cut “red tape” in order to make the hiring and firing of employees much easier. In the report, Beecroft claimed this would help to “boost the economy” although no evidence for this was provided. It was alleged that significant sections of the report had been doctored. It was also reported that some recommendations had been removed from the original draft of the report.

  The (then) Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, condemned the report, saying it was unnecessary for the government to scare workers. Beecroft responded by accusing Cable of being “a socialist who does little to help business” and cited his own personal experience of “having to pay out” £150,000 for unfairly dismissing an HR employee as one of the reasons he included the idea in the report. In an excellent article, James Moore, writing for the Independent, said that the Beecroft report contained “the seeds of the ruthless social Darwinism” and he connected the recommendation to Beecroft’s career of cutting jobs, and highlighted Beecroft’s long history of “wholesale attacks on workers’ terms and conditions.”

  The Conservatives will always put big business profits before ordinary people’s welfare; where employees are regarded as a disposable cost and not an asset to employers; where noone but the powerful have rights; where wages are kept to the bare minimum, there can be no economic growth. Instead we are witnessing increasing economic enclosure and widespread exclusion – small pockets of privilege characterised by stagnant, accumulated wealth and increasingly widespread poverty elsewhere. With little public spending to stimulate small business and general growth, there can be no economic security.

  My point is that there is a link between Party financing and reflected interests in political policies. I wonder who knows what is best for the UK. Qualified and specialist economists or Tory donors, driven entirely by a profit motive and a vested interest in maintaining the status quo?
  

  Gosh, that’s tricky …

  
  Pictures courtesy of Robert Livingstone

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