MAGIC money tree became a popular phrase both during and after a bitterly-fought General Election campaign.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was accused of promising money that didn’t exist for a wide range of noble causes including cancelling student tuition fees and building much needed affordable homes.

Then the boot was on the other foot when the Tories suddenly pulled £1 billion from thin air to secure their face-saving alliance with Ulster.

In both instances, the criticism was that money is hard earned and always must be accounted for – you can’t just snap your fingers and produce it at will.

If only that were true, the ordinary folk in this country would be a great deal better off.

For there is a magic money tree that does invent money where there is none – it is called the Bank of England.

There was a time when money did mean something – it was backed up officially by gold.

That, as we all know, is no longer the case.

Now money is only worth anything because you and I have confidence in it.

That’s the only difference between me producing a Brindley bank note and one from the Bank of England.

We choose to believe them even though banks have been proven to be far from the perfect guardians of money

If you approach a bank successfully for a £40m loan that doesn’t mean the bank has that amount of money on deposit.

Far from it.

We operate a system of fractional lending in this country that enables banks to lend ten times more than they have – and that’s a conservative estimate.

The only way in which much of this money exists is numbers on a computer screen.

But, worse than that, having pulled it out of thin air, they charge you interest on it as you then start a chain of transactions by spending the non-existent cash.

This is all perfectly legal and above board – and just the type of system that is sure to crash from time to time.

Then the Government will merely allow them to print more money and call it quits – except, of course, it’s the ordinary person’s standard of living that suffers.

Is there a rational alternative to this madness?

The answer is that the Government rather than private banks should produce the nation’s currency – and not produce it as debt as in the current system.

It’s happened before – and it could happen again, if they were so inclined.

During the First World War, this nation was refinanced by the Bradbury pound, a new Government-backed currency.

Suddenly we had a major boost to our resources at a time of major crisis,

And that dastardly Adolf Hitler did much the same thing to turn around the excesses of the Weimar Republic and ensure happy Germans supported his war machine.

The problem, of course, is the system in this country.

We think the elected Government are in charge – but power always lies with the money makers in this world of upside down values.

Because the Government borrows huge amounts of thin air from the banks – incurring large interest repayments of course – they have a big say in how this country is run.

We can elect any politician we wish, protest on the streets – it will make little difference unless the financial system in Britain, one of the most corrupt on the planet, is taken apart and redressed.