Harriet Harman somehow blames piracy for the deficit

Harriet Harman has suggested that the government really should do more for the unicorn industry. Sorry, copyright industry:

"The Government's emphasis on cutting the deficit crushes out their ability to engage with innovation."

She said Britain needed an equivalent to Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama's tsar in charge of regulating the internet, in place of a plethora of UK agencies with overlapping responsibilities whose job is to protect copyright. Google and other providers should be involved in making sure music is free on the net only when artists want to give it away – as they sometimes do – and not because it has been stolen, she added.

"Young people are massively connected with music. They not only want to use the music but they want to actually work in the music industry, many of them. Many of them want a future in the industry. Therefore the industry must have a future. That means public policy action, not just standing back and saying 'we are too busy to do any of this; we're just going to cut the deficit and let the free market rip content off from creators'. Every day they don't act, money is haemorrhaging."

Naturally, the "money" that is "haemorrhaging" is a bit like all the money that just needs benefit fraud to be stopped to end to release. In other words, it doesn't really exist.

If Harman really wants to help create a new generation of musicians, she might want to argue for a benefits system that allows young artists to develop instead of forcing them to work for free for Tesco.

[Thanks to Michael M]