The Chancellor yesterday used a Goldmans forecast to propose the Bank cut interest rates six times by the summer of next year. She says she believes in Bank independence, so this was a silly thing to say. She will argue she was quoting someone else but she chose to quote one of the forecasts expecting more cuts because  she wanted to make it clear she wants rates down. She has been damaged by the surge in the ten tear rate to 4.9% recently, well above the short term one day spike in the ten year  at 4.38% which she said crashed the economy in 2022. The knock on to mortgages is not helpful for a  government wanting a 50% plus rise in housebuilding.

Too many MPs misunderstand Bank independence. It is only independent to fix the overnight base rate or MLR. It is otherwise wholly owned by the state, its Governor is appointed by the government and answers to them and to Parliament’s Treasury Committee, and it has a full indemnity against losses on its bonds. It needed Government approval for all its QE bond buying.

In recent years I have not called for it to lose its independence over rates, and I have not provided a running commentary on what rate it should set. I see the theory, that a panel of experts with a main task of keeping inflation  to 2% should be able to do a better job than elected politicians wanting lower rates to help win an election.

We need, however, to see that the practice has not followed the theory. The Bank took us on a wild ride, debauching our money with ultra low rates and massive bond buying, driving inflation up to 11% or 5.5 times target. It then crashed the economy, selling bonds at huge losses and driving rates up.  It blamed the inflation  on war and energy, ignoring the fact that inflation was 3 times target before the war, and ignoring the way Japan, China and Switzerland kept inflation near 2% despite war and dear energy.The Bank has proved hopeless at predicting the inflation  rate it is meant to  control because its economic model is poor.

If the Chancellor really wants growth she needs to change Bank  policy on bonds where they are not independent. The Bank has cut deep into fiscal policy with its losses . Meanwhile Mr Trump will try to lecture  the  Fed into lower rates, after they too have given the US a nasty inflation and are now restricting credit.

 

The public sector is around 10 % less productive than in 2019. There has been a big expansion of staffing in the civil service and public sector administration despite more spending on computerisation. The Treasury suggest this is a loss of around £24 bn.

I looked at ways of getting this loss back. The government suggests spending more on AI might help.  Getting back to 2019 levels of output does not need AI as there was no AI in 2019.

The government needs to introduce an immediate recruitment freeze. As people leave the service posts needs to be amalgamated or abolished. People should be promoted on merit to bigger roles.

The state where it is appointing people to highly paid roles like the Head of the Post Office, HS2 or the Bank of England should earn most of the high pay as bonus, only paid if they deliver. The Head of the Post Office should deliver profits,  it losses. HS2 should be on time and to budget. The Bank should deliver 2% inflation.

People in the civil service should stay to see projects through or to undertake a role  for long enough to do it well and repay the state for the training and experience.

The public sector should run quality systems, treat complaints seriously and manage out mistakes.

Today in my lecture at 11 am at All Souls  College and on zoom I will set out a range of policies that could boost growth in the UK. I will not have time to discuss the current conflict within the UK government.   between the pro growth Ministers and the Net  Zero Secretary.

The Bank of England response to the Chancellor’s call for Regulators to help with growth was interesting. The said if the government removed  the need for them to promote green investment and promote anti climate change policies and  loans the economy would grow faster. Through the PRA they regulate commercial banks and need currently to worry about the balances of lending vis a vis decarbonisation.

The PM and Chancellor have promised to speed up planning permissions for investments in everything from grid pylons to datacentres. Quite often delays and even refusals result from the ability  of environmental campaigners to object on net zero, wildlife and landscape grounds. They are thinking of limiting this.

Several airport expansion plans have been delayed or shelved under an environmental imperative. The Chancellor is reported as wishing to override these. The UK needs more international travel capacity to boost trade and investment as well as to grow the holiday business.

Will the government make these changes and tell Mr Miliband to live with that reality? Will President  Trump’s priority for growth over net zero have any influence?

It will be available on Zoom tomorrow. Details on www.asc.ox.ac.uk under events.

Tomorrow I give my lecture at All Souls Oxford on how to promote growth.

Chancellor Reeves would be well advised this week to be studying the US model. The US has outgrown Europe and the UK all thus century so far, and is forecast to grow more than twice as fast again this year. President Trump is determined to up their growth rate further.

Central to doing so, he has made his peace with the US tec giants. Regulations and taxes will be adjusted to assist their growth. The policy has got off to a great start with the announcement of a $500bn 4 year investment  by three of them. This compares with our Chancellor claiming a£600 m gain from her China visit spread over 5 years. The US announcement was 1000 times size of the UK!

The US will expend her oil and gas industry. We will close ours down. It will cut taxes. The UK has just put them up on business daring to employ people. The US welcomes billionaires and millionaires. The UK criticises them and taxes them out of the country.

It is going to take sone changes for the UK to grow faster than the US.

 

 

Several Executive Orders on Monday start to tackle  the high costs and overextension of US government. These are not getting the attention they deserve. Our Wastefinder General  Rachel could read and copy some of these.

1 Pause all overseas aid payments for up to 60 days, only allowing them to go ahead after review to see they are value for money and further sensible policy aims.

2. Freeze all hiring of administrative staff into government. Require Heads to draw up productivity raising plans using natural wastage to cut numbers. Prohibits use of outside contractors to get round ban.

3.  60 day ban on any new regulations, allowing review of whether anything is necessary in future.

4. Removal of barriers to increased oil, gas, minerals and coal production

5. Exit from Paris climate change Treaty to cut costs of net zero.

6. Establishment of Department Of Government Efficiency in White House reporting to Chief of Staff. Every department and governmental body to have a team of four senior people promoting greater efficiency.

7 Return to in person working

8 Recruitment and promotion to be based on merit only. DEI departments to be wound down.

This is a big agenda. It will be interesting to see if the senior managers can reflect these clear aims in workable plans to shrink the state.

 

 

Some of you have asked about this Bill. It is a private members Bill which is unlikely to pass unless the government backed it. There is no indication they are about to.

It is a Bill with huge financial, economic and social consequences. It instructs government to speed up the UK ‘s already rapid rundown of CO 2. It aims to make that much more difficult to do by requiring the UK to reduce not  just the CO 2 generated in the UK but also all the CO 2 produced abroad making and transporting imports into the UK.

I have been very critical of UK net zero policies which are based on shutting down UK oil, gas and industrial production to stop UK CO 2 generation, only to import products and energy from abroad ignoring the CO 2 produced there. It is absurd self harm resulting  in more world CO 2.

This Bill is even more harm, as the UK would have to make major cuts in consumption of energy and goods to comply. It would be a major hit to living standards. It is difficult to see how the UK could comply. Buying more Chinese battery cars would not help as plenty of CO 2 is spilled in their making, whilst we would need more  gas power stations when the wind is not blowing to recharge the cars.

The Bill also says it will end the nature crisis, the alleged run down of wild animals and plants. Wilding large extra areas of our country would force us to import more food with more CO 2 in its production and transport. There is no mention of the need to end migration of people to curb the erosion of nature by overdevelopment.

This so called CAN bill should be canned.

 

When I wrote a blog four years ago congratulating President Biden on his win and wishing him well I got some critical responses. I respect the democratic judgement of US voters, and the office of President . Today I offer my congratulations  to Donald Trump and wish him every success. I like his drive for peace in the world. I support his aim to lower taxes, reduce regulation and promote growth and greater prosperity.

Four years ago I was conscious I did not support some of Mr Biden’s   policies. I praised him for saying his aim was to unite a divided country, though said that would prove difficult. Unfortunately he did not carry it out.

 

It turned out he had as an aim preventing Mr Trump  from running again. He and his Administration tried all manner of allegations and lawfare tactics to stop him. The Democrats found it just made Mr Trump more popular with his followers. They failed in their self appointed main task, and deepened the divisions within the country by trying to say the main Opposition party’s views and policies were   unacceptable or illegal.

Today President Trump says  he will be a force for peace in Ukraine and Gaza. He will strengthen NATO, as the peace of the democracies  is secured by showing strong defence. He says he will lower taxes and cut the costs of government. That will reinforce faster US growth and should be an example to the UK and the  rest of Europe. He will liberate business sufficiently to boost jobs and investment. He will help the West by expanding output of gas, leaving us less dependent on Russia and the Middle East.

I wish him and the USA well. I urge the UK government to think again about how they work with our main ally. Keeping the Chagos and keeping our current Ambassador in post would start to correct the damage they have done to the relationship.

The UK government says it wants good relations with President Trump, yet many of their words and deeds set out to disagree with the new US Administration. They should next week change their tone and priorities, and seek to create more common cause and joint action with Washington.

They should abandon the costly and dangerous draft deal with Mauritius. They should tell the US their naval base will stay safe in our hands. They at the same time save UK taxpayers billions.

They should agree with President Trump that it is time to negotiate a peace in Ukraine. The Uk and EU do not have the money, military resource or will to replace the US in supporting the Ukraine war. The UK should be as keen on peace  there as President Trump instead of appearing to disagree and to prolong the  war and increase the deaths. Of course the UK and US must be strong for Ukraine to improve the terms.

The UK should back increasing NATO spending on defence and confirm its own increase to 2.5%. The UK should tell the President in private why 5% is not realistic.

Instead of threatening President Trump with the EU over trade, the UK should present the US with a draft Trade Treaty improving  mutual access and lower tariffs. The UK is well placed to avoid general US tariffs and to sidestep a possible EU/US trade war, as long as it shows it is willing to work with the new Administration.

 

Conservatives invented the triple lock and made it their policy in the 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 elections. I supported the idea, as the starting basic pension was low. As people were paying in for their pension  a percentage of their earnings it seemed fair they could receive  a pension based on growth in earnings,which was likely most of the time to give the higher uprating.

Labour were forced to match the triple lock pledge and did so in 2024.  The triple lock should therefore be safe until the next election. I expect all the main parties to pledge it again then. I did not read Kemi Badenoch’s remarks as meaning she had any wish or plan to remove it. She spoke about means testing pensioner fuel support,implying she would not restore fir very wealthy people whilst probably restoring it for most of the others that have lost it.

The obvious much delayed change government should make to pensions to tackle the rising bills is to remove the option of a very expensive index linked pension for the civil service for all new entrants and to consider reducing or limiting future contributions and accruals for existing members. I tried to get George Osborne to do this  in 2010. instead billions more liability has been heaped up with hundreds of thousands of new recruits and with fast inflation.