Yanis Varoufakis in London

HARRINGTON ran into the energetic Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, who always seems to have an engaging counterpoint to consider. last week.

He was at a gathering of people concerned that the right to protest is being eroded in the UK, explaining that this was not something that could be handed out like a gift by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Much food for thought there, but it felt like the perfect moment to pick his brains about another charismatic face of left-wing politics.

Gary Stevenson is the pin-up for the slogan ‘tax wealth, not work’.

A city trader turned YouTuber, he gets millions of views on his channel ­– the kitchen table explainers Gary’s Economics– and earned himself a seat on the Question Time panel.

You may have seen the well-paid presenter Fiona Bruce gasping at his suggestion that people like her had good wage rises compared to those working hard but never really earning enough to cover their bills and live rather than exist.

Stevenson has an enraptured audience, and here was a moment where he got to talk like few others get to do on a mainstream channel.

So what does Mr Varoufakis think?

He said he was “all for” a wealth tax, but there was more that needed to be done beyond the soundbites.

Gary Stevenson

“I’m all for something much more fundamental,” he said.

“We live in an era of technofeudalism, you can think of it as an AI driven technological change. Take any business: AI comes in and can replace half of the workers. It can do the same work with half of the labour force.

“If it is privately-owned, it will do it, and half the workers will lose their jobs. You will have to increase universal credit and then the government won’t have the money to pay it. There will be austerity, cruelty to the many.

“What is the alternative? Imagine if the company was owned by the workers. Then they would still employ the AI, but instead of firing half the workers, they would work half of the time and the rest of the time they could look after their kids, the elderly, they could learn languages, do art… so the solution in the long run must be socialism.”

That’s quite a different outlook to the general ‘WE’RE ALL GOING TO LOSE OUR JOBS’ vibe that surrounds the tech revolution.

But what about Gary, the man of the moment? Mr Varoufakis said he was aware of his work: “I don’t believe in the great men of history, but we do need communicators. I’m all for a wealth tax, but again I’m far more interested in how the wealth accumulates.”

Stevenson has been accused in some quarters as being too simplistic in his outlook, and his book has lots of accounts of how great he is at trading while insisting all the time he is caring ­– not boastful.

But you get the impression his heart is in the right place and he is a welcome voice in a world which never seems to really want to address the weird gap between the very, very, very richest and those struggling to keep the lights on.

It would be interesting to see them debate it.

The Extra’s own political Youtube channel ­– plug, plug ­– Peeps Online would be happy to host.