During the last two Parliaments I pressed the Treasury to make it more difficult for Councils to borrow large sums of money. As so often it took time to persuade Ministers and their department that waste was afoot and spending was too lax. I watched as various Councils went on a buying spree for commercial property, and renewable  energy projects.

Prior to 2020 some Councils were buying up shops as they thought with rents  exceeding the low interest rate charged on government loans they could gain more income to spend. They did not realise the private sector and the property agents were thrilled to sell out to them as many in the private market thought shops overvalued and thought rents would fall  as online shopping reduced shop turnover. Covid lockdowns came along and accelerated that trend leading  to large capital losses on the shops Councils had bought.  Rents fell. When interest rates rose the disaster was complete with heavy losses.

Nottingham invested in its own energy company. It ran up large losses and put itself into Section 114 bankruptcy.  Woking made too many bad property investments whilst Thurrock came a cropper with buying solar farms. They too went into Section 114. Birmingham underpaid its female staff and faced large back pay whilst also losing on its investments which took it to Section 114.

The government has undertaken a round of expensive bail outs. Birmingham was granted £1255 m, Woking £331 m, Bradford £220 m and Southampton £122 m with others getting multiple millions. Far from Councils being starved of money some have lobbied for huge sums to dig them out of financial difficulty or bankruptcy of their own making.

Taxpayers do not want Councillors and their officers playing at being investors in real estate and energy only to lose them a fortune. A well run Council keeps Council tax down and concentrates on providing good service in core areas. Too many bad Councils grandstand, over reach, add services they should stay out of and land up in a financial mess. Too many want to wreck our roads at great cost and dabble in business in ways that prove costly.

It is rumoured the government decided to renegotiate the Scunthorpe deal they inherited to close the blast furnaces and subsidise an electric arc furnace to make recycled steel. It would clearly  be better to keep  the blast furnaces. Instead we read they may lose everything as the Chinese owners have rejected their  revised deal as inadequate.

The UK needs basic steel making, and the nearby rolling mill. The PM recently initiated  the  construction of a new naval submarine, but we hear we will need to import French steel to build it. In 1940 we did not have that opportunity when we needed plenty of steel to defend ourselves.

The main reason we are losing our steel industry is the crippling price  of energy here. Start getting more of our own gas out and we could build high energy using industries on that supply.

Car output in the UK has halved since 2017. Government and the industry has largely ignored this, as the main reason is the government policy to ban the manufacture and sale of all the popular diesel and petrol cars the industry has been making by 2030, with aggressive phase out and factory closure from last year.

You read it here first. It is official government policy to close all petrol and diesel car factories and sack all their workers over the next five years. They would like to open new battery car factories with new jobs instead, but have reported little progress in doing this. To replace what they are definitely closing would take many more approved projects with contracts underway to build the factories and new production lines it would take. Like most UK net zero policies it looks like a policy of close our factories and import the new cars from China.

Honda  has left the UK and the EU altogether as it could not  sell enough cars. Mini plans to switch most of its production to battery models made abroad, and is delaying an investment in production of two dearer low volume battery variants here.  The  Jaguar brand is losing market share fast and is planning a small battery range of very dear cars that will likely mean a tiny market share. It wants to lose most of its past customers who want a more traditional Jaguar. Ford no longer makes cars here. Stellantis ( includes Vauxhall) is negative on investing here. It has decided to close its Luton  works. It is making electric vans at Ellesmere Port but no cars. Even Nissan is concerned about volumes as it seeks to roll over a large loan it borrowed and considers the pace and scale of its commitment to new battery car capacity.

To save the car industry the government must stop the £15,000 a car tax on “excess” petrols and diesels. It must relax its electric timetable, allowing the industry to carry on making petrol and diesel cars people want to buy.

The UK government found out the hard way that raising taxes on businesses for daring to employ people  leads to fewer vacancies and more job losses. Still it refuses to cancel the damaging tax. It does not seem to have learnt that increasing the already high taxes on people with savings and investments drives millionaires as well as billionaires abroad and will result in less  tax revenue, not more. Under the 1970 s Labour government it became a damaging brain drain as it was called. Our pop stars joined entrepreneurs in the rush for the exit. When the following Conservative government made major cuts in tax rates on the better off many rich people came back and revenues from the wealthier soared.

The government does understand extra taxes imposed on our exports to the US are damaging and like me would like to get these  taxes called tariffs down. It could start by offering to take our tariffs off US exports in return for the US cancelling tariffs. Played right Trump’s tariffs could be an opportunity for freer trade from lower taxes through a deal.As the government  knows US tariffs are wrong it should  see UK tariffs would be even worse. They are a direct hit on UK consumers.

The last few months have shown just how much economic damage higher taxes by the UK government can do with growth extinguished, inflation up and new jobs cancelled. The US tariffs have led to a big market sell off as investors fear reduced growth and disrupted trade. The Uk government needs to use the excuse of the Trump tariffs to reboot its own approach to growth. As it knows US taxes on our exports are harmful and need reversing it needs to see its taxes on jobs and wealth have already proved to be destructive. Remove these taxes.Take up ideas for saving wasteful public spending from this site and elsewhere without robbing from pensioners and people on disability benefits.

The adoption of lawfare  by the US Democrats backfired badly in the US election. Instead of getting Donald Trump banned as a candidate they boosted the support for him and made it a more divisive  contest.

All democracies have some agreed rules over who can stand and how elections are to be conducted. There can be rules on age, past conduct, nationality, residence and other relevant matters. It is important that all parties that can win seats agree these rules are fair. The rules should  not be changed in order to disadvantage one party.

Judges when asked  to judge cases  should be careful not to debar popular  candidates that significant numbers want to vote for. Of course if a would be candidate commits a serious crime like murder or rape and is found guilty they  should like anyone else have to serve a prison sentence which would stop them being an elected  official. If the crime is related to their conduct as a politician the punishment should not normally prevent  them standing again to let the electorate judge them.Rules on campaign funds and office expenses need enforcing and conduct should be exposed, but they also need to be enforced on all parties. One party’s idea of abuse is another’s flexibility. Public debate and transparency are the best limiters of bad conduct.

We now have a situation where Romania, Germany and France are taking action to prevent two popular candidates for President and one popular party from standing. This looks bad,with an establishment running scared. The whole point of democracy is  to give people the option to change government. Many people  in Europe dislike the prevailing orthodoxies on net zero, austerity, migration and other matters. They need to be able to vote for candidates and parties who want to change these matters.

The UK needs to close a deal with President Trump now he has given the UK an opening with talks and the lowest rate of tariff. He recognises that UK trade with the US is a lot fairer than EU trade and judges it on tariffs, bans, regulations and taxes imposed.  He  also sees it in the wider context of the overall US/UK relationship.

President Biden always made clear he did not want a trade  deal with the UK. Donald Trump would be happy  to have one. Biden’s people imposed maximum pressure on PM Sunak to sign up to the bad Windsor Agreement, a one sided deal wanted by the EU and the Republic of Ireland. President Trump is extremely critical of the EU and welcomes being able to deal direct with an independent UK. The UK has already taken EU style tariffs off one fifth of product lines and should remove more.

PM Starmer should keep the Chagos islands, saving us money and reassuring the US about their crucial naval base, He should not impose any  retaliatory tariffs. These are taxes on overtaxed UK consumers. The US would retaliate and hike their tariffs against us . That would lose us the advantage we currently have that our goods into the US will be 10% cheaper than EU goods and 14% cheaper than Japanese on proposed tariff levels.

The UK should remove the digital tax which does hit mainly US companies. We should let in US beef and chicken with suitable  labels and let consumers decide. We should offer a zero tariff trade deal.

I read that the triple lock is not affordable, and see people supporting the idea of cutting Personal Independence payments. Of all the things the government spends money on these should not be on  the list for removal or reduction.

This government is discovering to its cost that cutting pensioner fuel grant was not the change people wanted. They could have saved much more by keeping their promise to smash the gangs and stop the illegal migrants needing free hotels.

It did decide to cut overseas aid. That was fine for the conservative half of the country  as long as they eliminate all those politically correct grants. The remaining spend  needs to be concentrated on the poorest countries and on disaster relief.

The issue to concentrate on in welfare reform is not the level of benefits those who have qualified get. They are not too high. It is how easy it is to get a sick note for life, and why the government does not put  in place help to people in need to get into a job, or good  healthcare to get them better.

The state pension is not generous for all that National insurance  people have paid. A pensioner needs a private pension or benefit top up to meet the  bills.

So how can that be paid for? By tackling easier targets and more wasteful spending. I come back to my big four. There are the nationalised losses led by the Bank of England where we could easily save £10 bn a year. There is  the £10 bn a year on the self defeating net zero policies. There is a chunk of the £40 bn of lost public sector productivity to reclaim.There are the billions on subsidised homes and extra public service provision for low income and no income migrants.

No  need to cut pensions and benefits. Every need to run a less wasteful public sector.

The US has done plenty of homework to prepare for “Liberation Day”. Their doomsday book of tariffs and trade frictions produces long lists of extra costs and charges imposed on US exports. The EU has a particularly long list. With foods it combines high tariffs with bans and elaborate regulations to make it more difficult for US farmers and food companies.

The UK still has a lot of these barriers from its EU days, though it has sensibly taken tariffs off 20% of all product lines into UK to give our consumers more choice and lower prices. The UK could and should go further.

The UK imposes a digital tax on US digital companies. It bans some US food products altogether. It charges four times as much on a US car import than they charge on our car exports. The UK is wrongly planning the big carbon border tax or tariff.

We still do not know if President Trump just plans to use tariffs to arm wrestle our trade barriers down to a fair and lower level. That makes sense and if well executed reductions by both sides are achieved ,  boosting  prosperity and lower prices.The UK government was wrong not to table an early tariff free draft Agreement with the US.  Sometimes President Trump says he wants to impose high general tariffs as a source of revenue. That hits both the exporters and the US consumers facing higher prices for imports. He would need to cut other taxes to offset the impact  of a high tariff tax rise on US households.

Retaliating by imposing high tariffs ourselves would  increase the damage. It would be yet another tax on UK consumers. The EU threats of retaliation is not going to stop the US imposing tariffs on them.

The new government said they had the answer to illegal migration. They would smash the people smuggling gangs. 9 months on we have record levels of small boat arrivals.

They ditched the Rwanda scheme just as it was beginning to work. Ireland had started to complain they were getting too many migrants as new arrivals did not want to be transferred to Rwanda. Other European countries are now deciding they need an offshore centre to send people to as they seek to cut numbers.

Both the last government and this one have been giving large  sums to France to enforce their laws against illegal and dangerous boat trips. We are told this has stopped about half the attempted crossings. As they usually let the illegals stay where they were to make another attempt on another day it does not deter. Belgium does a much better job stopping illegal crossings from their beaches.

So the UK government needs to tell France we are not going to carry on paying for such a poor result. With drones, cameras, tip offs and the rest more boats can be stopped. More police work across Europe could prevent the movement and storage of boats for illegal use.

It would also help if any migrants that were smuggled through were immediately sent somewhere else. Offering them free hotel accommodation and likely eventual permission to stay is a big draw. France, a safe country, does not make  such an offer when these  migrants cross the border  into that country.

Time for the government to change policy to one which works, as they agree people should not come illegally, get a  free hotel and send large bills to UK taxpayers.

After exchanges between the government and OBR they settled for a compromise. The government was credited with an expansion of housebuilding up to 2029 adding 0.2% to growth, whilst accepting they would not build 1.5 million homes this Parliament as promised.

All the debate has been about solving a housing shortage and dear housing by building more, not by reducing demand. If the government carries on with an additional 750,000 legal and illegal migrants a year or anything like that they will need most or all the new homes just to house the new arrivals.The last  government did tighten conditions for legals before leaving office so that  should have some effect, but the new government is putting up the numbers of  illegals and not  showing signs yet of wanting to clamp legal numbers or make sure legal entrants leave when a limited time visa expires.

The government wrongly thinks the shortfall in build rate compared to migrant rate is about planning permissions. There are plenty of unused permits to build homes available. The  shortfall  in build rates is because homes are too dear and mortgage rates and rents too high, limiting  effective demand. The construction sector lacks sufficient trained staff and sufficient plant to build many more. Housing Associations have limited money to invest in additional homes

The OBR thinks house prices will go up over the next few years, keeping them too dear for many people who would like a home of their own, The government needs to reduce the large movement of people  wanting subsidised or free accommodation from the state so we can price young people back into the market to buy their first home.