Douglas Carswell

Corbynomics is OsBrown's cousin

According to Bank of England chief Mark Carney, Jeremy Corbyn's plan for people's quantitative easing would "hurt the poor". Osborne and Cameron have called him a "threat to our economic security". They're right, of course. Trouble is, they're not much different.

Osborne and Carney have pioneered "print money and pray" economics. Between 2009 and 2012, the Bank of England made asset purchases (translation: printed) in the sum of £375 billion. At the same time, it has kept interest rates effectively negative since 2008. Since Mark Carney took over as Governor in 2013, the Bank has postponed raising the base rate every month for two years. Mark Carney may disingenuously claim prices have been stable, but price inflation outstripped wages – and decreased living standards – for six straight years.

Moreover, the newly printed money has flooded into assets and created new bubbles. Not only has the stock market seen enormous rises, out of all proportion to wider economic growth, but house prices nationwide have continued to rise in spite of the recession, and in London have outstripped wages by over 15%.

This is the single biggest driver of inequality in Britain today.

Osborne supported Gordon Brown's bank bailout, one of the largest transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich in human history. He has backed the Bank to the hilt – proudly describing himself as a "monetary activist." His Help to Buy mortgages incentivise young first-time buyers to take on unsustainable debt, and promote the same subprime lending that led to the crash in 2007. At the same time, he has almost doubled the national debt, leaving the UK catastrophically unprepared for the next crisis.

Young people in Britain who cannot afford to buy a home and will spend the rest of their lives paying off their parents' debt have Osborne and the Bank to thank.

Don't misunderstand me: Corbynomics are disastrous. But they are merely an extension of OsBrown economics: inflationary, corporatist 'Soak the Poor' policies that enrich the elites at the expense of the British people.

Britain needs a real alternative: sound money, sustainable public finances, fair taxation, and free enterprise. An economy run by the people, for the people – not by the Westminster elites for their cronies.

The alternative is UKIP.

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