Government actions designed to limit the spread of the virus and reduce the burden on the NHS have done great damage to jobs, business and output. Knowing they would the government rightly made generous provision to subsidise employment, offer grants and loans to businesses, and increased benefits to people to sustain demand. This naturally led to colossal borrowing by the state and to the effective nationalisation of large parts of the economy from private hospitals to the railways.
The Treasury now rightly says we cannot go on with the excessive borrowing and very high levels of state spending needed during lock down. They should add that state borrowing will fall rapidly as soon as lock down is removed and a decent economic recovery is allowed and encouraged. A large number of people who have kept their better paidĀ jobs and been on full pay throughout the last year have money to spend as soon as they are allowed to buy services that entail face to face encounters. Many businesses will soon be back with revenue in the tills and staff on overtime again. As this happens so the amount the state spends on benefits, grants, loans and cushioning of the lockdown diminishes. So also tax revenue soars as people pay VAT on services again, income tax on earnings and transaction taxes.
The last thing we need is new taxes or rises in tax rates. InĀ order to promote recovery the Treasury should be thinking about lower rates and fewer taxes. We need a big expansion of business capacity. The danger is we lose a generation of entrepreneurs, of people working for themselves or running small businesses, as a result of the lockdowns. TheĀ most energetic will of course flourish again, but we need to create conditions where the average, the not so highly motivated, those worried about risk taking are persuaded enterprise is for them and the odds are favourable to setting up and running a successful business.
The only way to get the deficit down to sensible levels and to slash additional borrowing is to promote a strong and rapid recovery. We need to be doing that from early in the new financial year, so that we just put behind us one year of huge state borrowings. Tax rises will delay and impede recovery, and will put off that new generation of businesses and self employed we will badly need to lead us out of additional debt.
January 24, 2021
Lower taxes on spending (VAT) and lower taxes on jobs (employer National Insurance) should do the trick.
January 24, 2021
Boris Johnson is like Inspector Clouseau. He has no idea what he is doing. He gets everything wrong.
Therefore our only hope is that, like Inspector Clouseau, there are a large number of miraculous flukes everything works out in the end.
January 24, 2021
Clearly mistakes have been made- but “everything wrong”?
I would say that the Vaccine programme in this country has been tremendous success and Boris should be congratulated for it. You cannot blame him for all the failures and then not praise him for the successes.
I don’t think Boris is the perfect Leader for our country by any means but I prefer him to his Europhile predecessor and (horrors) just imagine having Corbyn and this Momentum crew in charge at the moment!
January 25, 2021
Ian
That is exactly what they want you to think. They have royalty screwed up and whilst this virus has waned looked for a way out that leaves them looking good. Hence the miracle vaccine that has suddenly appeared but won’t stop you from getting it. Funny vaccine that š
January 25, 2021
+1
Quite so
January 24, 2021
Dear Sir John
Please ask the council to declare all businesses essential to save the economy.
Boris Johnson clearly wants lockdown forever to destroy our lives
When does the Queen step in?
January 24, 2021
JR, are being serious? Your govt is responsible for the highest taxation in fifty years before the Chinese virus! Johnson 11th March budget went on a spending spree two weeks before locking down the country!
He has since spent our taxes, our money, like a drunk in a pub! He rewarded WHO with hundreds of millions for concealing China’s role in this disaster! Worse still he gave Haewei the keys to access to our critical infrastructure!
Look at how much your govt has given the EU that it is not legally obliged to do under the so called divorce settlement. Johnson then gave them hundreds of millions more for finding a vaccine! He has also signed up to pay for Horizon Europe to pay for EU military.
Track and trace in the tens of billions and still does not work! Illegal immigrants put up in four star hotels whereas PM of Denmark says no more asylum applications because it is failing community cohesion where cultural practices have led to a serious increase in crime- sound familiar?
Is this propaganda today, wishful thinking or are you living in a parallel universe?
Sarah Vine, Gove’s wife, highlights BBC education program indoctrinating nine year old children there are over a 100 genders! This is not science, it is absolutely untrue and false. Your govt educating Act promoting this extreme left wing garbage. Again, a paralel Universe.
Presumably to follow idiotic extreme left wing Biden’s executive order, yes order, men can be women and use their toilets, compete in their sports and undoubtedly get college sports scholarships! No equality for women, quote the opposite!
January 24, 2021
Great post Hope. The everyday person on the street is sick of all the virtue signalling making our lives crap.
January 24, 2021
Very well said, Hope! Both here and in the States we are ruled by ghastly leftists, determined to destroy our countries, and I do not see how we can get rid of them.
January 24, 2021
IMF has told them to spend.
It will leave no option but Reset.
Drop in benefit payments already planned!
January 24, 2021
Correct.
Now look as why? 14 trillion pounds of socialist pension debts hidden off the books. 30% of taxes goes on the debts.
Annual rate of increase in the debts, over 10% per year.
So what’s it going to be? Taxes, hit the workers hard. Axe pensions, hit the pensioners hard.
PS Formatting is much better than the old style
January 24, 2021
Oldwulf, Lower taxes?? So who is going to pay for the government’s irresponsible and selfish national, non-targetted lockdowns? Will that be the same people who wail that it is impossible to lockdown the vulnerable and elderly, even though that is being done during the national lockdowns anyway?
And who will be paying for the Ā£trillions to convert UK energy to electricity, with electric cars, homes, commerce and industry? Builders beware – who will want a new house without cheap, clean, natural gas? Not me; and not a lot of people when it finally dawns on them what Boris is doing (or imagines he’s doing).
Boris to lower taxes? Hahaha . . . we’d have been better off with Corbyn.
January 25, 2021
@NickC
The aim is for lower VAT and NIC rates to lead to increased economic activity and to a higher tax take and a reduced benefits payout.
January 24, 2021
It’s not a question of “tricks”.
This pandemic could be repeated at any time, maybe with a far worse virus – or there could be some other serious problem.
People in all walks of life are going to have to think very carefully about what a “proper country” is, in terms of its contingency facilities, self-sufficiency in terms of staff and materiel, and all the rest which will be needed – and they will – to meet such challenges.
A responsible analysis of those needs is not compatible with the fragmented, deregulated, short-term, bottom-line-ruled Tufton Street economic model, to which the Tories are at present wedded.
There is no law of nature which says that things have to be as they are.
If the country can snap out of its hitherto neoliberal trance – intentionally induced – then demand will materialise for exactly the things that I mention, and that in itself will be a great stimulus.
January 25, 2021
Martin, The Moon could crash into the Atlantic. Where is your plan for that?
January 24, 2021
Exactly and I hope Sunak is listening ?
January 24, 2021
āA large number of people who have kept their better paid jobs and been on full pay throughout the last year have money to spend as soon as they are allowed to buy services that entail face to face encounters. Many businesses will soon be back with revenue in the tills and staff on overtime again.ā
And we all live happily ever after? Sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Alternatively:-
Many smaller businesses will be crippled. People will be wary about discretionary spending and risk averse.
January 24, 2021
most small businesses are gone for good. Probably another million unemployed when Sunak’s handouts have to stop.
January 24, 2021
Peter, +1 it is propaganda at best.
JR obviously has not been watching the unemployment rise. A deliberate choice made by his party and govt. they voted for it. Swayne is right in the papers today.
January 24, 2021
Don’t think he is. A wealth tax of 1% on all our houses is being floated. There are many millions of us who have had diddly squat from this incompetent Government. Have received no health care for 10 months or routine checkups, paid our taxes and additional taxation on account, for nothing. So we will be his target. Ā£ 15 billion over the next 7 years for the EU’s Horizon projects. For what? Disgusting waste. Where is the bonfire of quangos? Cutting HS2, thin down the public sector in Government and Council’s. No one has missed them.
January 24, 2021
A wealth tax of 1% on the value of our houses!!!! Whose valuation? On the value of the house or the equity? If I have a 80% mortgage, do I pay 20% of the wealth tax and the lender pays 80%? Who would work out your equity on a repayment mortgage? It changes from day to day. Would lenders charge the savers whose money they lent out?
I would happily pay my 1% as it would mean we will never, ever have another aaTory government. It would be the biggest clusterf**k yet.
January 24, 2021
Correct. We are owed a refund. The opposite of a tax increase.
Government has banned us from the services.
January 25, 2021
1% of my house value would take the whole of my state pension, add in council tax and I would be in debt each week having to borrow (who from) to pay Council tax, food, heat, light, power, water, thats without all of the other costs of living and house maintenance.
Another socialist dream to re distribute so called wealth, which is really simply theft.
January 24, 2021
Good morning
The Chancellor will do what the First Lord of the Treasury tells him or, he will go the same way his predecessor went.
We have someone in #10 who cannot manage his own money, so what chances do we have of him managing the countries. The Legislature and HM Official Opposition do not do their respective jobs. We have an Executive that is out of control spending borrowed money on things no one voted for and for which Parliament has not voted on. e.g Extra money to the WHO.
So I do not hold any hope. What I do think will happen is more companies and investments will go elsewhere and we will find ourselves even poorer. A government that has massively increased the population should not be borrowing, and it should also not be spending on things we do not need. We need to make serious cuts.
January 24, 2021
+ Well said Mark
Not sure investments have another place to go, which means more UK companies and opportunities will be lost forever.
January 24, 2021
What do you say ānot sure investments have another place to goā. A global investment trust registered on the London Stock Exchange with āScottishā in its name and with the UK NOT appearing within its first ten countries for investment has seen its value going from 350p/share in mid-2016 to Ā£1260+p/share in mid-January 2021. Interestingly it was around 600p/share in January 2020 so most of its increased value came over the last year. Given the usual perspicacity of your comments Iāll let you decide who the investors might be …
January 24, 2021
Hefner, If you mean Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust its current price is 1280p not Ā£1260 per share. Moreover I think Bryan Harris was talking about (UK) businesses’ own investments in their own businesses, not financiers’ investments in the shares of businesses.
January 25, 2021
Well, Iāll let you go with the idea that the money going to UK businessesā own investments is totally decoupled from the financiersā investments in businessesā shares, a very interesting idea given that a number of investment āproductsā can have a non-negligible part of their money in non-quoted companies, or are of the private equity type.
January 24, 2021
Mark B
The spectre of immigration is there all the time and it is akin to fighting a fire in an enclosed area but leaving a window ajar. But with the the present psyche of nearly all our members of parliament it is too contentious a problem to be addressed. Sooner or later politicians have got to stand up and be counted. It is the one thing that would bring this country together as across the nation nobody is happy with the status quo. The existing process of trying to deal with the problem reeks of incompetence.
January 24, 2021
Turbo, I have no problem with immigration if those coming here are filling vacancies for jobs that are needed and can stand on their own two feet and offer something to the country. What I do have a problem with is all those coming here illegally who have no means of support and expect the taxpayer to fund their lifestyles. It seems to me that far from being vetted like most people would be before granted immigrant status, these boat people entering illegally are not vetted and in fact nobody knows a damn thing about them. Making matters worse is that they are mainly young fit men. Once they get a British woman pregnant that’s it. No deportation. It doesn’t matter if they are criminals, they get to stay.
January 24, 2021
Cheer up.
We will soon have to make room for 500,000 HongKongers
January 25, 2021
Bob
I wouldn’t mind if even a fraction of those were millionaire, but I doubt it, do you?
January 25, 2021
I agree, 100%
January 24, 2021
I’m interested to know whether the 2021 census will count everybody here, or just those that wish to be counted. An accurate headcount would do a lot to open up this debate, as well as causing GDP per capita to be recalculated.
January 24, 2021
Don’t forget to subtract the trillion pound BOE QE fake GDP money first.
January 24, 2021
So true, and the Government use the census numbers to programme spending and tax income even more worrying.
January 24, 2021
It is actually worse now in relative terms than East Germany was, and definitely worse than Czechoslovakia (before you ask, I did drop into those places at the time). Even though there was political repression, at least you could love, meet with family, work and play instead of this miserable unending existence we currently have…..
zorro
January 24, 2021
+1
January 24, 2021
+1
January 24, 2021
Can we have your thoughts John on the facts that businesses are being advised by the DTI to set up bases in the EU because of extra charges etc when exporting their goods? It seems business owners are actually moving out of the UK as their profit margins are being hit hard. This was not the Brexit we voted for.
January 24, 2021
Businesses will righty do what they have to do to get round the inconveniences that all governments create for them. They have to compete or die or get bought out after all.
January 24, 2021
EU businesses also need to set up here to import directly from 3rd countries.
January 24, 2021
It is indeed sound advice for a UK based SME looking to continue to export B2B to the EU while seeking to mitigate the complications, cost and bureaucracy of navigating through or around separate country’s EU VAT registration, Importer of Record, rules of origin, Groupage, etc. Far from perfect and still much more costly and burdensome than pre-Brexit, but probably the least bad option, and of course part of the trade off is fewer jobs in the UK and more in the EU. Helps with importing too if part of ones supply chain is in the EU. The reality is that regardless of whether export customers are in the EU or ROW, they take years to cultivate and in most sectors cannot simply be turned on a dime. While Brexit may indeed mean greater opportunities to grow exports to non-EU markets in due course, these nonetheless take time and access (difficult with Covid). Why would they simply drop their existing customers in the meantime -that also means fewer jobs in the UK.
January 24, 2021
Realisation finally kicking in that Brexit was not about taking back control, but more about having to invest in the EU to keep businesses afloat.
January 24, 2021
RichardM, UK exports to the EU amount to only about 12% UK GDP. Domestic and RoW trade is vastly more important. It never made even economic sense for us to be subjected to EU empire control. And why should it? – the EU makes rules that are supposed to suit economies as diverse as Belgium, Spain, Germany, etc. But actually “one size fits all” doesn’t work efficiently.
January 24, 2021
NickC “subjected to EU empire control” – a very silly remark which shows the brexiters poor understanding of our relationship with the EU. The reality is that Britain exploited its EU membership to enhance its capacity for control.
January 25, 2021
Control? Control of what or whom? You are talking of benefits for the political and administrator classes, not for the plebs. And how was this ever worth the evisceration of our industries.
January 24, 2021
12% of UK GDP is a large number by any measure. For many SME’s the % is much higher, the rug has been pulled from under their feet, and the guidance from government has been late, inadequate, incomplete at best and often incomprehensible. And if what Acorn below says is correct, egregiously so.
January 25, 2021
BritishSME, 12% of UK GDP is a large number, but not as large as 88%. Which is the point.
January 25, 2021
Only for those that trade with the EU. Those that trade exclusively in the UK and / or the ROtW will notice no change.
January 25, 2021
I donāt know why, but this type of comments reminds me of Harold Wilsonās āthe pound in your pocketā.
January 24, 2021
This information was coming out of government last February. Those “in the corporate club” who needed to know were told. They then started, quietly, shifting operations into the EU; mostly to the Benelux countries with Casino Banking shifting mostly to Paris and Frankfurt. Not that the EU is keen on “Derivative’s Casino Banking”, spiv City-of-London pure gambling style. Knowing that it generates little if any, socio-economic value added.
JR says: “Yesterday in Parliament I called for Government urgency in giving us more of the Brexit wins. Bring on the policies to boost home grown food, increase our fishing fleet, set up freeports and Enterprise Zones, cut VAT.” More fantasy Brexit, it’s not going to happen. The UK post Brexit model is based on Singapore-on-Thames.
January 24, 2021
Less than 4 weeks, and you’ve already made up your mind, Acorn? Isn’t it a bit soon? I would wait a decade to get a reasonable picture, unless you’re just prejudiced of course.
January 25, 2021
A decade? I would put more trust in JR-Mās āThe overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 yearsā (22/07/2018).
January 25, 2021
Why do you say that the long term is unaffordable when comes to the public’s owning things like snowploughs or PPE manufacturing, but that there is no other way of analysing your brexit’s benefits?
Isn’t it simply because the short and medium terms can conclusively be shown to be disastrous?
January 24, 2021
Who in their right mind will start a business the hospitality. Government has arbitrarily ruined their livelihoods and will do it again at the drop of a hat.
Every winter we will be told to stay home and save the NHS, the NHS is there to save us. God forbid it takes up enough resources.
Your Government won’t be trusted again.
January 24, 2021
Absolutely. The Socialist Tories have targeted the private because they can and the private can’t fight back. To see Mr Redwood backing this attack on our nation’s private businesses is utterly unprecedented. It shows just how far left he and his party have drifted.
The private isn’t organised in the way the public sector is so we have zero political power. If we could organise we’d be able to confront the out of control, sinister Tory-Labour public sector machine that now controls our lives to the point of total immersion
Reply I do not support hitting the private sector and regularly speak out for it
January 24, 2021
We know YOU donāt support it John but as weāve seen with the Conservatives in the last ten years you are in what seems like a serious minority in the party and your voice is lost on the backbench. We may not be able to āorganiseā as DOM alludes to above but you could āorganiseā if you believe weāre wrong and there is a collective of conservative MPs who think like you.
You are in real danger of losing the 1980s entrepreneurs with these extended lockdowns I hear they wonāt prop up closed down companies from their pension pots for much longer. One year not much choice, two years and never ending covid lockdowns threatened – get out!
January 24, 2021
The stats don’t add up. I was reading yesterday the numbers of people under 60 without pre existing condition dying from this disease is tiny. So the cost benefit analysis should be to protect the over 60’s and those with underlying conditions and the rest should get on with it.
January 25, 2021
Timeaction: “I was reading yesterday the numbers of people under 60 without pre existing condition dying from this disease is tiny.”
We’ve know that since February last year.
Somebody kindly posted the ONS own figures for mortality since 1834
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12735annualdeathsandmortalityrates1938to2020provisional
The period 2004 – 2019 is the anomaly, 2020 the UK mortality rate reverted to it’s historical norm.
January 24, 2021
The private sector needs to set up an organisation to represent all private business and legally challenge this government and lockdown and all open up at the end of the month. They can’t fine all of you, it is the only thing that will work now – mass civil disobedience. You have absolutely nothing to lose because all the SME sector will be on UBI….
zorro
January 25, 2021
There are supposed to be these organisations zorro. SME’s pay subscriptions to organisations such as the FSB, FPB, CoC. We all know that we aren’t represented by the CBI and the IOD haven’t been very informative on for example export paperwork to Ireland. They’re on the back foot because they seem to know nothing. It’s a shame someone like DOM doesn’t head up one of these organisations.
January 24, 2021
I am sorry JR, but your party voting for this unnecessary lock down is just that. Sitting on the fence is equally as bad.
12 MPs in your party voted against that is a fact JR not spin or wishful thinking. Your govt and party are deliberately destroying businesses and jobs. Accept the big corporates and corrupt big tech. Have a look at the governor of South Dakota, she has provided support in isolating the elderly and vulnerable but crucially kept the state businesses and economy going. She also has a very strict no tax policy! She is a conservative believing in low state interference!
January 25, 2021
By being silent in govt actions you are. Sitting on the fence does not cut it. You said at the beginning three weeks. Now what? Stay silent and cross your fingers?
January 24, 2021
Ian Wragg: “Government has arbitrarily ruined their livelihoods and will do it again at the drop of a hat.”
New Pub, down the road from me, had just converted their new asset to a pub at some expense, and had opened for Christmas and the New Year 2019/20, and BAM!! Government lock-down in April 2020. They go to some additional expense to put up a Marquee and individual pods in the car-park , BAM!! Second lock-down.
Now after the considerable expense of re-purposing the building and buying extra equipment all they can do under this regeime is sell hot dogs at a road side stand outside.
Ian Wragg: “the NHS is there to save us. ”
Exactly, and an utter failure it’s been. As the youth like to say, ‘NHS, you only had one job!’
January 24, 2021
How many have taken loans risked their homes,etc for a small business for this useless left wing govt to trash itmwithout a moments thought!
Johnson driftingmlikema spinless jelly fish in themoscean hoping a,global current will help him! He flip flops, changes his mind on a daily basis. How can anyone or business make any land. Get him out! He gave away N.Ireland and Gibralta to the EU and now appears to be getting ready for Scotland to go!
January 25, 2021
Do you think Scotland will want a hard border because they will have to have one because of Schengen and the EU rules? No common travel area and Ireland’s should disappear too, we could just have reciprocal quotas on numbers. What will their bill be for their initial bailout + interest and all of the infrastructure and investment made (such as the bill the EU have given to the UK)? How much more do the Scots pay to the UK budget than they take out?
January 25, 2021
Hope: “Johnson drifting like a spinless jelly fish in the ocean (?) .. ”
A jelly fish has an ecological purpose.
January 24, 2021
The amount of interest that government pays on long term loans is I believe negligable. There is no great need to get that money ,which government has borrowed to cover the crisis, repaid with any sense of urgency. It is a 25 year plus mortgage at almost no interest.
The aim should be to create a tax regime that positively encourages the creation of wealth, investment from home and overseas, and ultimately an industrious/ industrial base the like of which we have not seen since WW2. It is this heightened commercial activity that will repay the governments sensible actions that mitigated Covid19.
If it has not yet been done, we have around six months to rewrite the enormous tax book that has been strangling the enterprise of the nation for as long as I can remember. My timescale is based on the effectiveness of the various vaccines and the time required to return to normal commercial activity.
Lastly government must learn to apply the stringent criteria of profitability to its own spending activities. Education is profitable, HS2 and All Dome tendencies are inexcusable political indulgencies by people who have never had to sell oranges from a barrow on a wet afternoon.
January 24, 2021
Just dig up the tax book from 1987 and use that.
January 24, 2021
That may be a start, but we need a seed change in thinking and in principal. I have no idea what the Tax Book said on anything in 1987, I left it to my accountant. However I am sure I felt I was paying too much, and what I did pay could be better spent from my hands rather than governments.
January 24, 2021
Interest on national debt isn’t negligible. It’s more than is spent on defence.
January 24, 2021
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I meant negligable in percentage terms, not as a finite amount.
January 24, 2021
Just like the left’s constant cries for additional ‘small’ amounts of spending or that foreign aid and the EU tribute were ‘negligible’ it all adds up and costs money.
If the banks can print it to charge interest on it why doesn’t the Bank of England just print it all instead?
January 24, 2021
Precisely and when as it most certainly will, start to rise the government will become bankrupt and people will stop lending to them.
January 24, 2021
A voice of reason again Agricola – thank you.
January 24, 2021
‘The only way to get the deficit down to sensible levels and to slash additional borrowing is to promote a strong and rapid recovery.’ Wrong. There is also a need to stop wasteful spending. This week saw the announcement of a couple of modest schemes to expand the railway network. My guess is that the public will value those more than the HS2 vanity project.
January 24, 2021
cost less than 1% of HS2 – and linking the University tech centres of England.
The other 99% ‘might’ save 15 minutes on a 100 mile journey from 1 specific station to another …utter madness.
January 24, 2021
Indeed even before Covid the UK was hugely overtaxed and over regulated too. Post Covid companies have taken on large Covid loans, have deferred VAT and other payment and confidence is lacking. Many businesses will struggle even to repay these loan let alone pay more tax. Plus the financially solid ones will end up picking up the bills for those defaulting. Plus now the foolish government want to ram expensive energy down peopleās throats and zero carbon their throats too to further put the country at a competitive disadvantage. Then we have all the largely pointless and expensive degree subsidised by soft tax payer funded loans. Let people pay for their own hobbies or do them on line.
We need lower simpler taxes, far less government, real and fair competition in healthcare, education, broadcasting, housing etc, real competition in banking, less government waste (like most student loans, HS2 and the green lunacy) and cheap reliable energy. Government is a huge creator or parasitic jobs both state and private sector) and of largely worthless/pointless degree.
January 24, 2021
Increasing taxes (from the current hugely overtaxed position) will raise less tax, chase people and industries overseas and kill many jobs. There is talk of wealth taxes. All taxes are wealth taxes. If you pay 20% corporation tax or income tax you have less wealth to invest next year and thus less profit the year after. UK taxes (CT, IT, SDLT, NI, VAP, IPT, IT, fuels and other duties, IHT, CGT, energy market rigging) can easily take 90% of your wealth off you over say 20 years. Just do the maths.
January 24, 2021
This is certainly correct, and it would be good to hear more Conservative MPs making these points. That is after all why people elect Conservative MPs.
Another point worth making is it seems the govt are going to tread very cautiously in diverging from EU regulations – we hear rather more about new regulations than getting rid of or changing existing ones. Presumably this is so as to avoid more squabbling with the EU and ālosing accessā to the single market. If there is not to be divergence on laws and regulations, then there needs to be divergence on tax. Otherwise what was the point of Brexit?
January 24, 2021
You only have to look on the Taxpayers Alliance web site for examples of government waste. Some of them make your blood boil. They piss money away and then demand tax rises. Just a few examples.
Arts Council: Gave a Ā£95,000 grant to artists in Brighton for āSkipā, a rubbish dumpster outlined with yellow lights
Crawley Council: Spent Ā£5,070 on 12,200 hot drinks from vending machines for council employees, when the equivalent number of tea bags would have cost just Ā£200
Department for International Development: Spent Ā£21.2 million on a road maintenance project in Bangladesh, later pulled due to āfiduciary irregularitiesā after it emerged that less than 10% had actually been spent on roads
Durham Council: Funded a Ā£12,000 clothing allowance to allow councillors to wear āGeordie Armaniā
Hull Council: Spent Ā£40,000 on a concert in honour of the councillor who is Lord Mayor this year
Ministry of Defence: Paid Ā£22 for light bulbs that are normally 65p
Prison Service: Paid Ā£720,000 to professional actors for role playing that is aimed at helping inmates become employed
Scottish Government: Signed a Ā£1.4 million 4-year contract for taxis for civil servants in Edinburgh ā despite staff being told to use buses
Stoke-on-Trent Council: Spent Ā£330,000 to pay for redundancy packages and subsequently rehiring 25 members of staff
Spending on ādosā by public bodies should be made illegal with costs recoverable from those responsible. āPissing taxpayersā money awayā should be made illegal.
January 24, 2021
You state the obvious. Presumably this is necessary in the world of blinkered politicians that you inhabit. Some of them even appear to be ignorant of what it takes to run let alone set up a successful business. That ignorance appears even more prevalent among those on the vast state payroll, whose incomes are unaffected by the pandemic (including those advising more and more lockdown).
January 24, 2021
The irony is that perhaps the best solution to push people into entrepreneurialism is large scale redundancies from “dead” sectors as happened in the 80s. The fact that these businesses and their employees have been preserved in aspic instead during this crisis doesn’t augur well for your call for small businesses.
January 24, 2021
Sir John very good post.
Surely one of the easiest methods of raising money is to cut out the waste real and perceived by the country.
One easy way to bring home the waste is when loans and bail outs are requested the term funded by the government should be banned and replaced by funded by the UK taxpayers. Especially when extra funding is being given to devolved parliaments. We the people are entitled to how and where the money is being spent/wasted.
January 24, 2021
A strong piece, rightly in favour of a better taxation situation.
Why is it the ordinary man in the street that has to pick up the tab for blundering governments that cannot spend wisely and borrow too much.
Before we get hit with any new taxes, I demand that the government does something about the huge amounts of waste we have to support. All expensive projects should be put on hold unless they will help our economic recovery.
Salaries and benefits should be cut for all those in high profile but inefficient government roles — We should stop sending vast amounts of money abroad, especially to the WHO and UN.
Burn all the quangos that cost so much and deliver nothing but dogma.
In other words do what every normal family in the land has had to do – REDUCE OUTGOING COSTS TO THE BONE.
The loss of lives and livelihoods due to the restrictions is going to be a far worse impact than any virus ever could – Government needs to wake up to this fact..
January 24, 2021
Bryan Harris
Brilliant entry Bryan and oh so true.
Sad thing is that the majority of our politician ignore the waste side of government. It is not that they have never been told by the people who are paying for it.
January 24, 2021
Turbo, My (Tory) MP thinks HS2 is wonderful. Mind you, he also thinks lockdowns are wonderful. The one thing you know is he won’t accept responsibility for the downsides – he refuses to even acknowledge there are any! He’s a nice chap, but politically I can’t tell the difference between him and the adjacent Labour MP.
January 25, 2021
@NickC
It seems that far too many MPs are there to support the party machine, rather than make an original effect on policy — With some very notable exceptions.
Parliament is not working effectively for us that have to pay for the decisions made there – We need a new contract.
January 24, 2021
I thought the IMF told every country to spend, spend, spend.
To stimulate the economy or finish us all off?
If higher taxes are the last thing we need then higher taxes are what weāll get!
January 24, 2021
Th elephant in the room continues to be Net Zero which is the real hammer blow to enterprise and new employment, whether through small businesses or large corporates who are turning their back on the UK as a possible new location for manufacturing (as opposed to lower employment) distribution.
January 24, 2021
+1
January 24, 2021
We can expect inappropriate tax rises from this Government – but never fear, changes will be made as Marcus Rashford saves us!
January 24, 2021
Tens of thousands more might find they need the likes of Rashford to survive! Just hope your comfortable life continues.
January 24, 2021
The gist of this piece is an SGO āa shattering glimpse of the obviousā
As such you should not have to bother to write such an article.
That you do shows how socialist the Government now is .
January 24, 2021
A new law should be introduced especially for Civil Servants to uphold the bona fide interests of working for Britain and penalties on pensions of those who fall foul of this either by incompetence or otherwise.
Whilst difficult to do in practice there should be a new Mission Statement focussed on Britain first. This MS should also be given to all taxpayer funded organisations starting with the BBC who basically collect a mandatory tax.
After that public bodies should have good smarter British procurement policy. We need to get smart all round.
These publicly funded bodies can’t be fired up they should be fired and replaced by folks who have proven professional skills in the Private Sector. Revolution is on the cards!
January 24, 2021
Agricola and Sea_Warrior make good points. We could turn our existing borrowing into very long-term conventional gilts at ultra-low rates of interest. We need investors to trust us to repay, so we need a reputation for honouring our debts, not weaseling out of them. Re the latter, we should reverse the shameful change of formula of the RPI (replacing Carli with Jevons) authorised by Chancellors Javid and Sunak; it devalues our index-linked gilts and it defrauds those who bought index-linked annuities.
Reply The state has bought up a large proportion of the debts so it does not have to repay those.
January 24, 2021
Print it all. The money already exists so it is not inflationary for anyone but those investing in assets (which will eventually feed through so counter inflationary measures will need to be taken).
Prevent the banks creating money to lend for interest, make them work for their bonuses. Without the security of government debts they will have to carry greater tier one capital anyway.
Taxpayers, many of whom have seen no benefit from this spending splurge, who have seen services reduced during the pandemic response should not have to pay for it. After all whom will they come after? PAYE serfs that is who. Your government and its machinations already get too much of my meagre, London cost of living covering, earnings for very little benefit to me.
Your government needs to start being Conservative (and I don’t mean one nation Conservative).
January 25, 2021
And what of those who bought index-linked annuities? The ONS’s own figures accept that the change in formula will lower RPI increases by c. 1% p.a. The effect is to deny annuitants that for which they paid in an open market contract.
January 24, 2021
I agree with you entirely, and all you have said should go without saying for a Conservative Government. However, it depends on the economy being allowed to recover. The message we are now getting is that the lockdown is going to continue for ever, in case a variant virus emerges that is not susceptible to a vaccine, and travel to or from the UK is to be banned unless we are prepared to undergo ten days imprisonment.
January 24, 2021
Quite, saving our tax payer funded NHS is going to be never ending
January 24, 2021
How long will borrowing remain at historic lows, if it creeps up what will happen to Govt ability to rollover debt, if it stays at historic lows what does it fundamentally say about the economy?
The Govt needs to stick with projects like HS2, the public use of these resources is not stopping their use in the private sector, they are not demanded there.
The structure of tax and benefits is probably wrong not simply the level.
Why be an entrepreneur when the precedent has been set that a UK Govt will just stop you trading and rip society’s structure from around you. Sunak, Johnson, all the Govt and many advisers need to be removed and held to account for what they (not the virus) have done, there can be no confidence with power, stupidity and propaganda hanging over people. Individuals need their freedom back now, whilst some of the above – I apologise for this sounding extreme – need to lose theirs.
January 24, 2021
The State payroll and their pension liability are the biggest drag on our recovery, perfectly illustrated by the endless academics, professors and experts advising the “Government”.
January 24, 2021
Yes the state sector is far too large and too cushioned against the vaguaries of life that the private sector suffers. However though your argument could be levelled at modern day comedians, I am sure you would avoid your holiday in Benidorm were you to learn that your flight would be piloted by you local traffic warden.
January 24, 2021
Notice that they all seem to have a link with either ICL or UCL?
January 25, 2021
ICL? the company disappeared decades ago, do you mean Imperial College?
January 24, 2021
Read this and see just how the extremist establishment slime are using CV19 to reorganise our nation, our culture and our ability to protect ourselves from these sociopaths –
‘Cut juries from 12 to seven to ease Covid courts backlog, senior judge suggests’ ā Telegraph. Fascism is just around the corner. Abolishing the Jury system will be next and then freedom is lost forever
AND –
Government quietly changes law to give councils lockdown powers until July 17 this year ā
No local elections again this year. Those councillors have jobs for life now. No chance for anyone to register displeasure either ( local elections being one way the government get the wake up call).
Also since July 17th notes the end of the school year, I guess schools are closed until then too?
January 24, 2021
It’s disgusting – I fear for the future of this country with the current government. They must cease to exist and soon….
zorro
January 24, 2021
Stop Foreign Aid, HS2, Barnett handouts, reduce 650 MPs to 100, replace Hof L with 100 mixed professionals. Stop funding Council cycle lanes, reduce VAT to 10% now!
January 24, 2021
I agree with you Fred and so should every Tory MP
January 24, 2021
More talk of QE and negative interest rates from the B.O.E , as usual following the same old script. If QE and low interest rates had worked last time we would need them this time. Low interest rates will be a vote loser for the conservatives , as those old people who rely on some income from the savings that they had worked for are now gone, this will cost conservatives many votes from the older generation who have worked hard for a decent retirement only to find that they had the rug pulled from underneath them .
Sunak is just a figurehead for the treasury. Sir John is correct, lower tax’s increase demand , employ more people to meet the demand, more people in work pay more tax’s, it seems very simple , but not for the treasury they’ll follow the same old routine to increase tax’s for people who don’t have the means to pay.
January 24, 2021
Just because you have some money in the bank does not entitle you to a certain rate of (risk free!) interest. Why should it? With house prices so absurdly high, 2% interest on a mortgage seems right to me.
January 24, 2021
By your government not enabling people to āsimplyā create their own paperwork docs for exports into the EU on a [KISS] basis you are the ones creating an unnecessary problem. Why should it be so difficult? There should be absolutely no reason to have to pay specialists customs agents to cut documents – to do this they are ripping the heart out of it on purpose (theyāre making a fortune you donāt hear the Guardian and BBC reporting on the gainers from leaving do you – not at all). They are quoting astronomic rates for single item paperwork.
If your government donāt apply this exact same paperwork requirement on the EU imports into the UK you will give European competitors to British manufacturers an advantage on UK soil. Quid pro quo. Get the Department of Trade to sort this out quickly! SMEs can quickly send PAYE digitally on line, they can all send their accounts, VAT digitally and regularly. The export docs should be as simple, as quick and free to create if you want to set British entrepreneurs free. You can do it fast enough to benefit your own tax collection. Software already exists in customs for other Countries, just buy it up, make it applicable for the EU and open access – stop this rip off.
January 24, 2021
John, ask why they have done this? It is set to fail from the start!
January 24, 2021
+1000
January 24, 2021
An Off Piste Idea post Covid 19
As sure as “Sod’s Law of the Sea” Covid19 will not be the last pandemic to hit the NHS. Covid has hampered normal NHS activity to the point where we could have an increase in mortality from rectifiable conditions.
The creation of Nightingale idolation hospitals would have bee a good idea had we had the staff to man them. We started from a point of supposedly being around 40,000 nurses short plus no doubt all the other services less obvious to identify. Educating many more of our own rather than poaching from a needy third world is the ultimate answer. However how about creating a Territorial Nursing Service.
The military have done this why not the NHS. A nucleous of those that have left nursing, training volunteers at weekends. Not to a degree level SRN, but to a level that could man a Nightingale hospital under their tutors management. Base it on hospitals just like the military base it on regiments.
It is a military solution to a periodic military scale medical challenge. Think it over, I would like to read some professional thought on the subject.
January 24, 2021
Nightingale hospitals are no solution to the majority of Covid sufferers, being elderly and with many other things wrong with them. Thus, they need the full suite of facilities found in a general hospital, not the restricted capabilities of an isolation hospital.
January 24, 2021
The Nightingales were meant to have been dying rooms for a disease that has turned out to be less deadly than we thought it would be. Bad though it is.
January 24, 2021
Does the UK government actually have any powers at all to decide on taxation etc?
According to The Times…
āThe technology, the third of five stages leading to cars that have no driver, was approved in United Nations regulations that came into force in Britain on Fridayā.
January 24, 2021
So the party that privatised the railways claiming it would remove the industry from the dead hand of the government and set the taxpayer free is now supporting that industry to the tune of 100 pound subsidy per journey. The party that privatised energy is now driving energy companies into bankruptcy by controlling the price of energy and growing reliance on China to build power stations hardly what was promised. If Mr Redwood is now saying the Conservative government should lower taxes going on past record prepare for the biggest tax rises in history
January 24, 2021
You mean the Tories can’t be trusted?
Who knew?
January 24, 2021
Your save my name has ceased to function.
January 24, 2021
Its back
January 24, 2021
Agree, not worked for me for a couple of months now, no change to my computer settings and yes I do click the box each time I make a comment.
Not working on this post again either.
January 24, 2021
Clear your cookie cache Alan and then accept cookies on this site.
January 24, 2021
Reducing taxation has been the mainstay of conversative politics for decades – however I don’t believe its the current policy under this leadership…….Boris and his team are new Labour
January 24, 2021
Simply calling for lower taxes in general on businesses is far too vague and wishy-washy. You need to give the Chancellor a specific set of demands and say ‘either you deliver those or I will vote against the budget (Finance Bill)’. Better still, a group of Conservative MPs should do this, to maximise your power.
The tax change which I think is most important is ‘full expensing’ for ALL investment in capital (buildings and/or machinery) and R&D, so this can be set, in full and in the first year, against taxation. This needs to apply to all companies and be a PERMANENT change, so as to encourage businesses to plan for long-term investment in the UK.
Do you agree?
January 24, 2021
Cut Government spending waste rather than taking the lazy route of raising taxes.
If thereās one thing this lockdown has taught business owners itās that they can work from home and that home doesnāt have to be in this country. Take as an example the Governmentās Communications Director who has been working from Canada. Many ex-pats in Spain have had to apply for residency and will have to switch paying their taxes from the UK to Spain. So expect tax receipts to fall.
We hear plans for a wealth tax being introduced. This will hit the asset rich but cash poor and particularly those who have invested in rental properties. Some people will have to sell up thereby evicting their tenants and reducing the number of properties in the private rental sector.
We also hear talk of giving Ā£500 to anyone who tests positive to Covid. This is a mad idea and will lead to massive fraud or people deliberately trying to catch the virus. I sometimes wonder if this Government is deliberately trying to bankrupt the country to instigate the Great Reset. After reading Borisās call with Biden Iām even more convinced.
Boris needs to go and go quickly before he causes even more damage with his expensive Green agenda that nobody voted for.
January 24, 2021
The UK needs to shield the vulnerable as much as humanly possible – and then open up everything and get back to normal – and never ever lockdown again!
This must be done before lockdowns become endemic!
January 24, 2021
Release new asset classes and you could boost the economy quite easily.
Solve the issue with identity regulations: try to do an online transaction and your name and real address is revealed (this includes Paypal). Not great for writers with pennames, people with stalkers, small businesses where the owner wants privacy or needs to protect client identities, or even clubs which don’t have a stand-alone business identity. While the payment manager and bank might need the real identity, no one else does – just the identity or pseudo-identity of who they are paying or taking payment from.
Cryptocurrencies: getting them regulated by the FCA is a step forward but when we contacted Barclays earlier this month about accepting them as payment we were told that if our company registered (to make sure all transactions were legally accountable) we would have our accounts closed – despite Barclays providing the banking for Coinbase… If banks are going to use the FCA registration list as an excuse to close accounts, it rather defeats the point of regulation.
There are many others.
January 24, 2021
What interesting reading.
There is no chance of changing the Countries course for at least 5-10-15 years.
For 40 years those in charge have been implementing orders from Brussels.
They need to either adapt or move over for the next movers and shakers to grab the opportunities.
January 24, 2021
We are told Covid state borrowing is on a par with that incurred by the 39/45 war and those debts were not settled finally until 2006. Why not extend the repayments for Covid over two generations in the same way?
January 24, 2021
Dear Mr. Redwood,
If it’s not rises in tax it certainly won’t be spending cuts like HS2 now that Amtrak Joe has had a word with Bo-Bo Boris.
January 24, 2021
JR, can you explain why Russia and Belarus are freer than the UK at the moment?
zorro
January 24, 2021
More sublime brilliance from our Most Feared and Dreaded Health Commissar, Mat Hang Kok’s interview this morning….. ‘The new variant I really worry about is the one that is out there that hasn’t been spotted’
JR, this man has serious issues and should be an ex-government minister as soon as possible!
zorro
January 24, 2021
Not sure. A big rise in tax rate at the higher level for the duration of the lockdown might concentrate the minds of the wealthy middle class who are happy for lockdown to last forever.
January 24, 2021
(:
January 24, 2021
Is there any plan to get us out of lockdown. We were told to wait patiently for a vaccine and now it is here. Alas we are being told that this is NOT the panacea to get us out of lockdown. So how long do we carry on like this for ? Four years ? Five ??? How long ?
January 24, 2021
Yes I would like to know if other countries are having eternal lockdowns even with the vaccine. Is it just the UK?
January 24, 2021
Reducing tax is for traditional older Conservatives. However this comes at the price of reducing public expenditure, and this is great for the older traditionalists, but the working class and new generation of voters don’t like cuts to public expenditure.
Try cutting expenditure to the NHS – that would be a Conservative manifesto broken promise.
You can only get away with Tax cuts and public expenditure cuts until the next election when a new generation will sweep you away.
I don’t live in the 20th century and have no interest in what used to happen, I live for now and the future and that to me means: Raise direct taxation from 45% to 60% for top incomes and an annual asset wealth tax on property and personal finance of 2%. This will not hit the vast majority of people only the top 1% who are not significant investors in this country.
January 28, 2021
“Reducing tax is for traditional older Conservatives. However this comes at the price of reducing public expenditure, ”
Not necessarily. There is only really one purpose to tax, and that is to free up physical resources for the public use. Taxation needs to be targeted at doing that, and nothing else.
Government needs to get across to the people that increased private sector saving (which is what Gilts are) has the same economic effect as taxation. Not spending is essentially voluntary taxation. And we’ve seen a lot of not spending over the last year.
If there is a lot of not spending in the economy then that creates space for government to fill the gap with its own spending – as long as it automatically backs off when the private sector recovers its spending mojo.
January 24, 2021
JR. What was wrong with my reply that failed moderation; that detailed how a young lady, post your ERG 62 designed Brexit, ended up paying Ā£282 to import a Ā£200 Coat from the EU? Surely, we should be told!
January 24, 2021
Boris’s brainless and gutless surrender to the EU is appalling in many, many ways (and means I won’t vote Conservative again next time) – but making EU companies pay their UK VAT is not one of them!
Prices of imports from the EU have gone up, and that’s a GOOD thing. People must STOP importing things from our EU ENEMIES. People must start being patriotic and buying BRITISH-made goods. Nobody needs to buy EU goods. If they do then they deserve to be penalised.
January 24, 2021
Friend in Brizbane playing football in local park . Virus under control. What a mess we are in because we didn’t shut our borders. The horse has bolted. Now we are playing catch up. What an expensive mistake to make.
January 25, 2021
It was not a mistake. It was ineptitude. Many here, including me, were screaming to close the borders. I even linked to a post I made here. Needless to say, it was deleted.
January 24, 2021
Dishy Rishi has to pay for all this b******s somehow.
UK National Debt is now approaching Ā£2.5 trillion. There are reduced receipts coming in from VAT, Corporation Tax on reduced profits, and income tax from lack of earnings. The only people benefiting are the likes of Jeff Bezos and the heads of other organisations who neither personally, nor commercially pay large sums of tax in the UK.
Closing shops won’t help anything except drive custom onto the internet……. and the tax will be paid in R.O.I or elsewhere.
So where are we going to get it all from?
Lots of Ā£200 / Ā£400 / Ā£800 ~ Ā£6400 fines from people who refuse to engage with all of this ?
Ā£10,000 fines for talking to more than one friend in your own house will also help I suppose.
And perhaps a cut from Local Councils’ parking fines?
I keep wondering when the Cyprus-Stylie raid on personal bank accounts is going to happen?
January 24, 2021
You are mad
End the lockdown now
January 24, 2021
I am afraid that JR is showing his weakness for popular slogans, and “low taxes” is very popular among unthinking voters. Now that we have left the EU, we need to correct serious problems in the UK that were masked by EU membership. One of those problems is poor secondary education, and another is lack of investment leading to poor productivity, a third is poor labour pool skills leading to low quality jobs. The Government is going to need a sound financial position in order to confront these problems and raising taxes will lower borrowing, slow down consumer spending so as to close the trade gap a bit, and improve the Treasury position in advance of the next election.
Just to oppose “new taxes or rises in tax rates” is not a policy. It is merely a slogan.
January 28, 2021
Government always has a sound financial position. It owns and controls the currency we use, and nobody can stop it using it – as the last year has shown.
If there are resources available in Sterling at a price worth paying, and nobody else is using them then not only is it sensible for the British government to bring them into use, but imperative that it does so.
The cost of government finance is net zero because we own and control the Bank of England. It is time to stop pretending that we don’t and instead put in place the necessary controls in Parliament to better scrutinise the Appropriation and Supply Bills and the Supply Estimates to ensure that departments are only purchasing what is available and not overpaying.
January 24, 2021
I would find a moment to quietly tell Ed Miliband he was right during long periods that your were arguing for austerity at vastly lower levels of debt with similarly low debt interest . In fact … why not Jeremy Corbyn while you are at it . Twas he who first grew the magic money tree , otherwise known as borrowing now to dump on my children later .
Of course taxes have to go up , its not Covid which , as you rightly say should be shaken quickly once we can go out , its Long Brexit . That slow but sure impoverishment of the country you inflicted on us has to be paid for .So its cuts or taxes …. what shall we cut then . How about the NHS ?
January 24, 2021
Bad luck.
Four years of buggering us around left us stranded by this black swan event.
Your fault.
January 24, 2021
@New – Magic Money Tree and Ed Milliband plus Jezza.
The difference at this time is demand. There is none.
January 24, 2021
What shall we cut then? WHAT SHALL WE CUT THEN?
The stupendous, insulting, frivolous and frankly piss taking waste of so much of the tax we pay!!
The arts council paying someone 95 THOUSAND POUNDS to decorate a bloody skip. Sorry, but people like you make my blood boil. Ooh, what shall we cut? Ooh, the NHS. Ooh, you wouldnāt like that.
NO! Cut the bloody waste. Cancel HS2. Make it illegal for councils to pay for parties to ācelebrate the mayorā. Cut the useless House of Lords. Cut the money paid to the royals. Cut the exorbitant pay and pensions of senior public sector workers. Stop councils paying for the drinks from vending machines for their staff. Buy a kettle instead. Have a look at the waste identified by the Taxpayersā Alliance. Billions and billions of waste. So donāt offer up your pathetic ācut the NHSā scaremongering rubbish. Cut the waste and the flagrant misspending of OUR money.
January 24, 2021
Bryan Harris
Brilliant entry Bryan and oh so true.
Sad thing is that the majority of our politician ignore the waste side of government. It is not that they have never been told by the people who are paying for it.
January 26, 2021
The BBC is awash with stories about extra vat, “Since 1 January the UK is no longer part of the EU VAT regime, so the UK government is applying VAT (sales tax) at 20% on goods from the EU” a girl imported boots and got an extra unexpected bill “The documentation said it was ā¬43 for VAT, ā¬30 for customs tariffs, and ā¬15 handling fees.”
So does the German seller still pay the local VAT that was calculated in the original price on exports? Or have they just put the price up, why aren’t the BBC getting to the bottom of this I thought they were balanced news creators. Sounds like a double dip on VAT to me.
These extra customs tariff 30 euros to create a travel document for one item and I guess 15 euros for handling collecting the vat this is what I meant about making customs documents easy to create.