The free-spending policies that will never leave the virtual world

Our politicians are all promising voters the world. But mostly, it is just pointless showing off, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Liberal Democrats Launch Their Election Manifesto

Jo Swinson: her policies are never leaving the virtual world
(Image credit: 2019 Getty Images)

You can now buy a digital dress. You send a picture of yourself to a designer. He dresses you virtually, "digitally rendering" the clothes onto your body, says The Times. You can then stick pictures of the digitally-done you all over Instagram and Facebook. You'll get lots of likes. You will also never wear or touch the dress. It will never actually leave social media. That makes it just like a modern political manifesto.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.