As expected the U.K. state borrowings for February and for the year to date came in well below the official forecasts of the OPBR in November, and probably below the sharply revised down Budget forecast. The Budget said Ā£354bn for the year. The first eleven months totalled Ā£278bn. Even allowing for some possible losses on government loans to business it seems unlikely they will borrow Ā£76bn in March. Tax revenues were little down despite the obvious hit to VAT, Business rates and other activity related taxes thanks to CV 19 restrictions. Spending was well up, but much of that was the extra costs of CV 19 tests and vaccines, furlough and the large losses on a little used public transport system. Practically all the extra borrowing was matched by Bank of England buying of government debt, leaving the state without an unmanageable interest burden or repayment schedule. Indeed, interest charges as a percentage of spending and of GDP went down last year. Rolling over debt as governments do is serving to lower the average interest rate on the debt as today’s rates are below the historic rates incurred on earlier borrowing.
This all means I stick by my view that a one off surge in borrowing to carry the special costs of the pandemic and the economic damage lock down brings is affordable. I also stick to my view that we need to get back to work soon. Recovery will bring the deficit tumbling down as pandemic related spending falls away as tax revenues on business and VAT on consumer services pick up. The government does need to review its spending priorities and avoid wasteful spending. Any sense that there is plenty of money and that borrowing is almost without cost is an unhealthy one ,encouraging bad or needless spending and removing pressures to improve efficiency and quality and to root out unnecessary costs.
The review of spending should encompass an early set of decisions over how large a railway and bus service network we need post pandemic. How will patterns of travel demand shift? Will the post pandemic world solve the expensive peaking problem for buses and trains by removing much of the bulge in demand at peaks which requires much more expensive capacity than a more balanced pattern of travel demand? As the government seeks its infrastructure revolution it should look for more private finance both to cut public borrowing needs and to provide a stronger market test on the wisdom of each investment. I remember as Margaret Thatcher’s adviser facing strong lobbies within and outside government for the taxpayer to pay for the Uk share of the Channel tunnel. The PM agreed we should insist on private capital which we did. This turned out to be a wise move as the project did go bankrupt and needed refinancing, but the taxpayer was spared the costs. The proposals I have put forward to make more use of government purchasing to buy products and services made in the Uk will also cut the deficit. Of course there must be competition with a choice of suppliers wherever possible to ensure a fair price for the taxpayer. Everything bought by the government which is made in the UK means more tax revenue from the incomes and profits made on the work, and less public spending as more people will have decent jobs.
March 20, 2021
I would still be concerned about the 400 and 50 billion pounds of index linked gilts in issuance.
March 20, 2021
What a delicate path to tread!
To point out the disasters of a terrible plague through the prism of joyful reorganisation.
Never have so many been let down by so insignificant a handful of bragadochios.
Even the cynical must surely have expected more protection from their representatives.
The great must be WEEPING in their graves at the ruination of all they built.
And why the forward planning?
Is it over yet?
Who will come to meet us at the prison gates with clean clothes and sandwiches?
March 20, 2021
I don’t find anything to disagree with here. I would emphasise that Parliament must control the ribbon cutting desires of senior politicians. As I said yesterday, politicians should be nothing more than facilitators for the private sector to do what they can see as profitable and I do not mean hoovering up taxpayers money on no brainers such as HS2 or the Boris Burrow.
Parliament must exercise control of who owns our manufacturing, service and other facilities. Power generation needs to be British. As do most of our strategic industries. Witness the political control the EU have and will continue to use over the pharmaceutical industry. And they are deemed friendly, while our enemies prefer cyber attack and financial control. The latter they try to achieve through paid lobbyists in opaque view. I hope our security services have a better view.
Professional politicians are the death of control, they are the party controlled lobby fodder. Our host understands finance we need many more who understand the technical aspects of life from positions of success in those disciplines. The damp hand of the civil service needs to be prised from the tiller and confined to the deck to take and execute orders. It is only when there is dramatic positive change to the structure of government that we will see the great leap forward post covid and the EU.
March 20, 2021
I suppose that if a country is horribly in debt, that country and its overseers have to do as they are told by the lender.
Debt is a terrible thing.
March 20, 2021
It is, but you cannot deny that it – notably private debt – was promoted and popularised as a general idea by Thatcher’s Tories, can you?
March 20, 2021
No I canāt.
And I have no intention of trying to do so.
March 20, 2021
Under Labour, mortgage lending expanded from Ā£417bn in 1997 to Ā£1,234bn when the financial crisis broke just over 10 years later. The difference is about the same as the cumulative balance of payments deficit over the same period, with overseas borrowing dominating mortgage finance.
March 21, 2021
Thank you Mark very useful, do you have the general loan figures from 1997 compared to 2008 too?
March 20, 2021
Well no debt is not in general a terrible thing. Sensible lending from A to B should benefit both A and B. If you want a home for example (and have no funds) you either have to rent the house or you ārentā the money to buy the house. Similarly to provide pensions. Borrowing to piss money down the drain (a government speciality) is not so good. Borrowing at 3% to buy something returning 10% is great for you and the economy.
March 20, 2021
They donāt go in for āsensibleā (moderate) lending now.
We are still paying for 2008.
And LOOK at the price!
March 20, 2021
The country is not “horribly in debt” because financial institutions in the same country own most of that debt and use it to generate stable income. Your insurance, pension funds and annuities are funded by financial companies, including banks, that hold Government debt. We are basically recycling money from one set of taxpayers to another. And we have been doing this, without fail,since the seventeenth century. The last guy who had serious problems paying Government debt was Charles II.
The real issue, from the point of investors and taxpayers, is stability. Does the Government have a viable plan to keep borrowing and repayment under control, so as to preserve the stability of the system? The long-term financial history of the country says they do.
March 20, 2021
I have never thought The Great Stop sounded much like fun.
Any more than 2008.
Both were caused by debt.
Both broke the banks.
In 2008 the taxpayer saved them and ( see our present situation), received very little thanks!
March 21, 2021
We bailed out the heavily indebted Dutch bank customersā when the RBS didn’t do proper diligence of the purchase of ABN Amro and then the UK government had to bail them out. We bailed out Iceland, many of our Councils lost stacks of our investments and topped up their lost pension investments with rate-payers monies nearly half a million pounds my local council Iceland and the Council investors just walked away clean and kept their jobs. These bad debt mortgage loaners who reneged on payments on loans seem to just blame the bank that borrowed them the money, there were people at the bottom of that chain of debt and if all the people with money in the banks had taken on the full loss then individuals with savings would have lost a lifetimeās savings and banks would have been not existent now. For me this was Blair and Brown following the Clintons American easy money with few checks on lenders to blame and who are the ones sat on piles of cash now in their retirement smuggly still trying to tell the UK how we should be performing.
March 20, 2021
The government had just cancelled an 8 year programme re digital identification. As usual over complex and poor project management. Another failed IT project and this time a mere 200 million down the drain.
Resignation/sackings? Of course not. Please stop mentioning government waste. We donāt believe you.
March 20, 2021
Is that PropertyMark passport related?
O/T, I am looking forward to the success of the mainly digital Census 2021 survey …. (not really).
March 20, 2021
@Nig l; “Another failed IT project and this time a mere 200 million down the drain. Resignation/sackings? Of course not.”
You protest to much. No doubt this was a project entrusted to a private company to facilitate, rather than being run directly by the govt department or at arms length via a state-owned entity or corporation of old [1]. Government’s may well draw up a specification wish list for such projects but it was then up to the delivery agent to either deliver or walk, doing the latter as early as possible, and certainly well before Ā£200m had been spent by the govt department. Not so much project managers than gravy chefs…
[1] at least in those days the money was circular!
March 20, 2021
Nig1,
This government works on the principle that private = good and public = bad.
So they are very happy to employee unsatisfactory consultants at huge daily rates rather than employ civil servants on low salaries.
Failure makes no difference. There are a band of preferred suppliers who land all the plum contracts regardless of performance. Look at The Post Office and NHS for examples. I hesitate to name names as the post would be deleted – but many are already aware of these names anyway.
March 20, 2021
‘The government does need to … avoid wasteful spending’ – like the various support schemes for house-buying. The housing market is in rude health; does the government really need to be stoking up demand?
March 20, 2021
Sea Warrior,
+1
Yes support of the housing market that is in rude health and already overly distorted by monetary policy appears to be no more than bribing.
March 20, 2021
Good morning.
Why do some feel it is OK for government and the nation to be in debt ?
On a personal level I am uncomfortable with any debt but, I accept that one at some point in life has to make borrowings in order to get on. So long as those borrowings produce either some return or, are for a beneficial use (eg a home). I see no need for government to borrow money. Just like the Chunnel, HS2 and other projects should be left to the market. If the market deems them worthless then they will not be built. This is another example of ‘Government displacement’, damaging a perfectly good and functioning market where business either thrive or go bust.
March 20, 2021
Good post. The UK-NI tunnel, that wasteful glint in Johnson’s eye, should be offered up to the private sector, to build, to operate and to keep the revenues. My guess is that there would be no bidders – at which point the laughable project should be binned.
March 20, 2021
Sea Warrior
Johnson is a highly dangerous mop-headed buffoon who keeps coming up with equally dangerous fantasies, like electric cars and green crap.
Laughably the idiot actually thinks he’ll get his party through the next election. He’s also John Redwoods boss, by they way.
March 20, 2021
Steve, I share your assessment. Ideally, he would be toppled now – but I fear that his position is secure until the next general election. Fiscally doomed! We’re all fiscally doomed!
March 20, 2021
And if there was a commercial need for HS2, private capital would have been all over it like a rash!
March 20, 2021
Wise words
March 20, 2021
Wise words
I’m surprised they got through moderation, you’re not supposed to tell it like it is.
March 20, 2021
Indeed: it might be instructive to recall that Keynes himself favoured a balanced budget for government although only over time, seeing it as helpful to run deficits during recessions to substitute for lost private sector demand and thence surpluses when an economy was booming.
March 20, 2021
@Mark B; Except you forget the roll govt spending plays in proving commercial opportunity (via tendering etc) for otherwise important but otherwise high cost, low-return projects, nuclear power is an obvious example, motorways another, it wasn’t the State who built them, the State just financed them, much profit was made and has continued to be made by the “perfectly good and functioning market” by way of construction and on-going maintenance contracts.
March 20, 2021
Mark B
“Why do some feel it is OK for government and the nation to be in debt ?”
Right now the only ones who advocate that are John Redwood and his party.
They favour this approach because they dont have the spine to make the real culprit for covid, China, pay. Easier for them to hide in their ivory towers like the cowards they are and pass the cost onto the taxpayer.
March 20, 2021
“They favour this approach because they dont have the spine to make the real culprit for covid, China, pay.”
Would you care to suggest a *mechanism* to make China pay anything for anything at any time in any way? Once you have developed that mechanism that, we can discuss whether the Government has the spine to use it.
March 21, 2021
May I suggest a travel ban too and from their country and, anyone who has visited their country in the last 30 days.
Let them and the world know that we consider them ‘unclean’. Losing face in Asian countries is seen as a very bad thing.
March 20, 2021
JR
“This all means I stick by my view that a one off surge in borrowing to carry the special costs of the pandemic and the economic damage lock down brings is affordable.”
Normally I would respect your view, JR, what with you being more astute than I with economics etc. However my opinion is that China should be paying us, not us borrowing to pay for what they did.
Put as politely as I can but to the point – I don’t think it wise assume on tax payer’s behalf that borrowing to pay for covid is affordable. Millions of UK tax payers are already living on the bread line, they might find it a tad cheeky that you expect them to be tipped over the edge by having to pay for covid.
In my opinion you’re booting the ball in the wrong direction, and should be campaigning for China to be held to finacial account.
Consider this: if we were still in the EU and had, by filthy environmental practice, filthy food standards, or botched bio-weapon research released a virus that infected and killed hundreds of thousands of people here and on the continent, the EU would have fined us big time.
No Sir….China should be paying for this, and I won’t be voting for any party that thinks I should just because businessmen like to send our jobs there because they resent paying us a fair wage.
This is a storm brewing JR.
March 20, 2021
What a brilliant idea. Get the EU to fine China and then distribute the money to the rest of us. Why didn’t I think of such an obvious idea first?
March 20, 2021
The covid bill is small beer compared with the costs of net zero as being planned by the government. We have got as far as an official estimate of Ā£1.3 trillion, but that excludes many cost items and is based on very optimistic assumptions on the costed elements. GWPF reckon at least Ā£3 trillion of spending. The economic damage will be extra on top, with real risks that international creditors will no longer be prepared to finance our balance of payments deficit.
March 21, 2021
Um.
That’s a bit rich. China has been supporting our unsustainable way of life for around 20 years now. Without them western inflation would have gone through the roof and we would have been a lot poorer.
They have already paid their dues. This is the reckoning.
How do you make them pay, exactly ?
Alas this is the situation some of us warned about. We are so dependent upon them that we are now hostages.
March 20, 2021
“I also stick to my view that we need to get back to work soon. “
A figure I have not seen published, but it must be available via HMRC income tax data etc, just what is the percentage of people not working due to the pandemic during Lockdown #3 and how does that compare to 12 months ago during the first LD. I can only speak of what I see and hear but around here, apart from tourism, hospitality and those retailers who have not transitioned to online, judged by the traffic etc. it would suggest most people have worked thought out LD3, unlike LD1.
March 20, 2021
+1
March 20, 2021
Printing money, accumulating debt are lazy solutions for “here today, gone tomorrow” politicians. It makes it easy to promise what they think will be vote winning schemes, projects, handouts and other assorted goodies with no real accountability for their delivery or success or failure. That is why the less the state does the better and its actions should be confined to what only the state can do (defence, law, order, basic services that cannot be provided otherwise). Otherwise grandiose projects will be, and are, inflicted on long suffering taxpayers.
As for the speed of recovery, it appears it is likely to be slowed by supply train disruptions. This is already evident with semi conductors. It it reported that tight supplies of glass vials could hamper the global vaccine rollout.
March 21, 2021
I agree.
The problem with government getting involved in most things is, it creates a form of dependencey. Look at the Furlough Scheme. Once independent proud people are now dependent on government handouts to survive. Take that away and they will lose everything.
As President Ronald Reagan once said. “The most frightening words in the English language are : I am from the government, and I am here to help.
March 20, 2021
On reducing peak time travel, could we have some strong guidance from government that large (say 50+) offices (and shops?) should arrange for at most 50% of their staff to arrive between 8am and 10am, with the implied threat of naming and shaming and/or legislation?
An amendment to The Working Time Regulations 1998 should suffice. Which needs amending anyway to remove EU references.
Of course the Government should lead by example.
Even if it led to two mini peak hours that would be a huge reduction of the peak capacity required.
March 20, 2021
Printing the money for one-off spending when there is little demand will not in itself be inflationary but as soon as demand picks up anti-inflationary measures need to be used to reduce the money in circulation and slow the increase in asset and housing prices (I saw recently that house prices rose 8.5% across the country last year).
Help to buy has to be stopped, stamp duty needs to be reintroduced, interest rates need to rise and banks must be stopped from printing more cash until the Ā£250 billion government has printed becomes absorbed.
This will inevitably slow the recovery but we will still recover and without having the value of our earnings stolen through inflation and fiscal creep from the unhelpful freezing of the tax free allowances.
The lack of supply in many areas devastated by government action in shutting them down will already create inflationary pressures so raising interest rates to decent levels will encourage those middle classes who have saved during the lockdown to keep the money in the bank rather than splurge it on an overpriced, limited availability holiday.
March 20, 2021
Cut pensions immediately. Everyone else has had to live on 80% of their wage. Why are old people (who vote Tory in large numbers) still getting 100% of their handouts from this Tory government. Oh.
March 20, 2021
Not everybody is living on 80% of their wage Andy.
All the public sector are still getting 100% as are those who work in warehouses, factories, supermarkets, banking, construction, health care, transport, farming and IT sectors.
To name just a few.
March 20, 2021
For most people, pensions aren’t ‘handouts’ – they are deferred pay. You hatred for the old does you know credit.
March 20, 2021
Rubbish again Andy. The private sector might have been forced to exist on 80% or less, but the largely none productive public sector, who via salary and pension exceed in absolute amount that which the private sector earn, have sailed through this pandemic totally unfettered by limits. Before you choke on your lunch I do not include the NHS, fire service or military in this comment.
March 20, 2021
Can you prove that “everyone else has had to live on 80% of their wage” or will you admit, here and now, that it’s absolute piffle?
March 21, 2021
You sound like a bum lawyer for the prosecution. I will admit nothing, prefering to rest on the facts.
March 20, 2021
Still here?
Have you, sticky Andy?
March 20, 2021
And people on benefits have had 100% plus Ā£20 extra on universal credit. Tut tut. Those naughty pensioners. Fancy expecting something they’ve paid on for.
March 20, 2021
You just don’t get it, do you? Pensions are paid to those who have paid for them over a lifetime of work, in the main. I doubt that you would be able to survive very well, if all that you had to relay on was the miserable State pension, one of the worst in Europe. You continued contempt of the elderly borders on being a hate crime (ageism) and I suspect that it is only because of respect for our host that some have not gone down that road. By all means comment on your love of the EU and what you think has gone wrong with Brexit but do leave the elderly out of you twisted thinking.
March 21, 2021
Agreed.
Everybody should be out working on 100% wage.
Those vulnerable to Covid are invariably in retirement.
Why did this ever happen ?
Obesity ?
Well lose weight. Save the NHS. Save Lives. (and save the planet too.)
March 21, 2021
Cut all public sector wages by 20% and I would agree with you.
March 20, 2021
āAny sense that there is plenty of money and that borrowing is almost without cost is an unhealthy oneā
Requires a deep explanation when held against the comment
āPractically all the extra borrowing was matched by Bank of England buying of government debtā
What are the plans for the debt held by the Bank of England, and what are the consequences of having / not having these? How much have interest rates been distorted away from a ānaturalā rate and what are the consequences of this (regressive redistribution, asset price distortion, inefficient allocation of resources)?
The assumption that there is āa one off surge in borrowing to carry the special costs of the pandemicā seems particularly bizarre. This Govt. has demonstrated that the bar for a surge in borrowing costs is very, very low indeed e.g. as Alan Holmes (https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/03/02/reduction-in-nhs-beds-to-control-innfection/#comment-1213573) suggested covid has a 99.8% survival rate (aside ā there is a way of looking at survival that would give an even higher value). Mr Sunak has indicated that borrowing (printing) to the value of 3 or 4 totally completed HS2 projects in just a single year is fine; a new healthy sense has now been well set ā there is infinite money, borrowing is without cost – Johnson & Sunak have demonstrated this to be so.
March 20, 2021
“The review of spending should encompass an early set of decisions over how large a railway and bus service network we need post pandemic.”
To read Sir John supporting the use of a supposed pandemic for a reset, to me, is another demonstration of how far the country has fallen during this ongoing period of authoritarian rule.
March 20, 2021
+1
Yes!!
So distressing and disappointing!!
March 20, 2021
Wake up, many people now work from and therefore have a lesser need for trains, buses, or their cars.
March 21, 2021
Unfortunately the railways are going to have to be paid for even if they are torn up tomorrow. The huge investment that has been put into them in recent decades on the silly forecasts of ever increasing passenger growth – the huge Reading station development serving about 5 passengers at a time now. Fleets of spanking new intercity trains carrying county lines drug dealers and the Ā£3bn in electrification for their speed and comfort.
March 20, 2021
Before anyone had heard of covid, many people were advocating that the government should increase its borrowing. If it had, we should now be in an even greater mess than we are.
March 20, 2021
Apparently Ā£92 billion spent so far on all aspects of covid.
Probably including the proposed ID app for alcohol purchase ( which will be one of the foundations of the vaccine passport).
Or as the globalists decreed…access to alcohol should be limited!
Yet so many ask why the hospitality industry has been allowed to go to the wall.
Get brewing!
March 21, 2021
What we need to ask Everhopeful is why the ban on alcohol, what is the government saving with this?
To stop people meeting up in public places and chatting whilst the reset goes on?
Is it less pressure on A&E departments from drunken revellers every night?
Alcohol hasnāt been limited in the home so itās not to save on long term health issues and alcoholism problems one of the first places they re-opened were off-licences.
March 20, 2021
I don’t subscribe to the view that where we are is manageable. Government was too optimistic and too generous with money, splashed around as if all would be over quickly. Forgiveable at first but not later. There’s no certainty we will get back to what we think of as normal and productive but even assuming the vaccine is effective it looks like it will take some years.
Government must stop splashing money. There are many businesses which will have go broke. We don’t need many of the those being propped up, bad as it is for those employed in them. Only strategic industries should be protected from now.
March 20, 2021
I still stick with my view that there are overwhelming advantages to home working which are far more beneficial than the loss of lots of a few thousand unskilled jobs making takeaway coffees and sandwiches for commuters.
You mention the size of the transport network which for decades has been blighted by the cost to the public purse of providing the cash to fund the infrastructure necessary to transport huge numbers of commuters while the network then remains largely unused during the working day.
Then there is the gross inefficiency of highly skilled employees wasting up to four hours a day commuting, especially when it is by car.
I have spent most of my career working from home and have a far better equipped and furnished home office than I would probably be allocated in an office block. Having no travelling time or expenses makes for huge efficiency savings and my business is much more profitable as a result. Also, you cannot put a price on spending more time with your wife and being able to see your kids grow up.
The only thing that companies need to do is adopt a more flexible attitude towards working from home. Many workers I have spoken to are being treated just like they are in the office, slavishly tied to the telephone and screens for an eight-hour shift. That is both undesirable and unnecessary. The opening hours of most companies are now longer than the working day. Allowing some flexibility so workers can take an hour or two off during the day would be very beneficial. Technology not only makes it easy to monitor the actual hours worked but employees will remain fresher and more engaged when at their desks.
The last thing we want is to go back to the old ways of working. You never know, common sense may prevail and the government may cancel HS2 as a result.
March 21, 2021
You’re simply going to have to work longer and harder to pay for the legions of newly unemployed you are going to have to carry.
March 20, 2021
Dear Sir John Redwood
The British Government is still on- course to borrow more than twice what it did during the Financial Crisis – i.e.well over Ā£300 billion- and with bond yields rising (they hit 1.65% yesterday) the cost of servicing that very debt is increasing by Ā£ billions. Inflation is soon to make a come-back so, with a recovery in economic output now in sight the Bank of England should not print any more money but should start selling its stock of Government bonds (slowly) to build up a small reserve – in case the Bank of England needs to have Ā£50 billion or more to buy more bonds- should bond yields surge alarmingly in coming years. This can now be done without printing money.
The Government also needs to cast around for other policies to raise the Ā£Ā£ billions needed without harming the Economy and without enraging the electorate with “Austerity”- so that it can fund Levelling Up, regenerate run-down communities, spend more on the NHS, much more on the Police and the Armed Forces. Certain strategic industries like Steel, vital for infrastructure and new homes, need tax-payer support and modern Conservatives should not shy away from supporting such vital industries.
Additional revenue- raising measures that would do less harm to the economy than the Ā£Ā£ billions used to invest in infrastructure- include slashing Foreign Aid (all Conservatives need to be encouraged firmly to get on- board with this), making China pay or the some of the costs of allowing Covid-19 to spread across the World and covering it up- by imposing 25% Tariffs on all Chinese imports and- if they retaliate- upping the Tariffs to 50% (this would raise money in Britain and be economically beneficial given Britain buys so much more from China than is exported to that country). A Luxury Levy of 20% on consumption of luxury items (fine art, expensive jewellery, yachts, etc.) would do less economic harm than raising the top rate of Income Tax or raising Corporation Tax, but would not be unpopular like raising VAT (or freezing Nurses’ pay!)- and it would raise Ā£30 billion a year.
Provided the benefits of increased investment (and less borrowing) outweigh the harm of the higher taxes- Conservatives should not baulk at higher taxes on Wealth. The Bond Markets are starting to get jittery and Inflation will rise. The Party has to get back to funding its policies- like Levelling Up- through sound money whilst avoiding political pratfalls like “1% increase for Nurses Pay” or “Cutting Universal Credit in September”- it’s still possible to find the money to make the Conservatives electorally- appealing and to protect the Economy without committing electoral howlers. Perhaps you could inform your colleagues- and Rishi Sunak of some of these ideas.
Ian Pennell
March 20, 2021
How pleased we should be compared to France Italy & Spain!
March 20, 2021
Kevin Stanley
Oh but we’ll be helping them out, they’re our ‘friends’ in the EU you know.
March 20, 2021
Why would a govt pay Ā£2m for a COVID19 information campaign which is to run for two years.
From 2021 to 2023?
Govts seem very happy to get into huge debt for Covid but so unwilling to pay for decent health services.
Most odd!
March 20, 2021
Ā£2m? That much? Clearly we are doomed.
March 20, 2021
O/t For goodness sake sort out the N.I. Protocol situation. We should not have to read reports of such things as a consignment of cheese needing to have a veterinary inspection before it can be shipped from England to N.I. Why on earth are we putting up with such nonsense?
March 20, 2021
There is one aspect of our divorce from the EU that really puzzles me. It is the NI Protocol. I do not know what it is, what it aims to achieve, or whether it is necessary.
I first look at trade between NI/UK/NI. I fail to see why the EU should have any say in it whatever. I find the fact that NI is physically part of a larger island totally irrelevant as long as it remains part of the UK. Its status is the same as Kent or Cumbria.
If any UK company wishes to buy from or sell to the EU it has obligations , but those should be the same wherever it is in the UK.
If the goods travel from NI to Eire or beyond to Europe , or the reverse they normally leave or arrive in the UK by truck. Exactly the same pertains if they go from Kent to France or the reverse. They are in a sealed truck on a boat or in a tunnel.
For the sake of arguement, if the goods are the same, lets say a pot of paint, the accompanying paperwork is the same whatever route it takes. I would also argue that paperwork is not necessary, it can all be done electronically.
I can see that there maybe smuggling concerns on a land border, especially if the border divides a farm, but we have the Garda and the RUC who I am sure between them can sort it.
The trade, though important to the traders, is no more than pocket change in the scheme of things so I just fail to see the problem, unless of course it is a manufactured problem to serve a totally unrelated purpose. Tell me I am wrong. I cannot see how trade across the internal Irish border conflicts with the Good Friday Agreement unless the EU or UK wish it to. Is all the fuss a malign device to re-trigger the old conflict or to drive a wedge between component parts of the UK. Enlightenment would be appreciated Sir John.
March 20, 2021
Quite – contraband goods from the EU to the UK and the UK to the EU should be the domain of local trading standards and not checks between the mainland and the island..
March 20, 2021
You have just explained why the EU had to invoke the GFA in order to drive through the NIP. In reality, the NIP has nothing to do with the GFA, as you explain, but the GFA has such a powerful “electric third rail” quality that you can invoke it to justify more or less anything you like. Even more than more or less anything if the Americans get involved.
March 21, 2021
There had to be a price for daring to Leave the EU. This was done so as to deter others. If the UK made a success of Leaving others, as we can see from the EU’s CV19 Vaccine debacle, would begin to question their own membership. And we can’t have that as that would mean a lot of EU Bureaucrats who get paid more than our PM would be out of a very nice tax free job !
March 21, 2021
Agricola
It seems just another spiteful attack to strangle our economy into submission on top of the ruinous shellfish issue with the WA/NIP etc to further the thoughts in the minds of voters that NI would be better off together. Maybe this is part of the plan. Heard say on TV this might well be be the case by the end of the decade. There would appear to be be no going back anyway with all the customs infrastructure being installed.
As said on here previously Martin Selmayr is reported to have said āThe price the UK would have to pay would be the loss of Northern Irelandā.
Would the NIP be an issue now had the Irish not voted for a second time in 2009 to approve the treaty of Lisbon having failed in 2008. (āIrish European Constitution referendumā) along with other referenda either cancelled or ignored. The EU will ādo what it takesā- as they say. Divide and conquer comes to mind.
We also need not to be so reliant on having a majority of our eggs in the ‘services’ basket. A large EU country makes many products things people want to buy and can be found almost anywhere abroad. Hence their industrial success. We need to do likewise or suffer the consequences. Production is preferable to consumption which needs to be paid for somehow without selling off the family silver and all that goes with it.
March 20, 2021
Does anyone know what’s happened to Life Logic?
March 21, 2021
Good question. Hope he is OK.
March 20, 2021
Generally a fair evaluation, I do like Rishi Sunak because he appears to get on with the job and is not irritating when he speaks.
In my view borrowing is not such a bad thing.
In terms of “Tax Payers” – well you only pay tax if you are earning money and I pay tax and many others like me I’m happy to pay more if it protects public services. (no I don’t work directly for the public sector) As an Architect I do get some commissions from the public sector.
I do like a subsidized (tax payers) public transport although we are yet to see if there is any longer term reduction in traveling public, although arguably trains were over crowded at peak times (and tickets too expensive)so now may be the level is more manageable.
I guess the big unknown right now is the overall impact on the vaccine program mitigating any serious effects of a potential 3rd Corona wave, that has the risk of invoking a 3rd lock down. WE can all moan and speculate about the effects of lock downs however if there is another round of serious infections even with vaccine as some experts suggest, then a 3rd lock down may be sadly inevitable.
March 20, 2021
And council tax goes up 5% EVERY YEAR. How long before council tax brings in more than income tax? It is an outrage. I donāt get 5% more services each year.
March 20, 2021
It seems just another spiteful attack to strangle our economy into submission on top of the ruinous shellfish issue with the WA/NIP etc to further the thoughts in the minds of voters that NI would be better off together. Maybe this is part of the plan. Heard say on TV this might well be be the case by the end of the decade. There would appear to be be no going back anyway with all the customs infrastructure being installed.
As said on here previously Martin Selmayr is reported to have said āThe price the UK would have to pay would be the loss of Northern Irelandā.
Would the NIP be an issue now had the Irish not voted for a second time in 2009 to approve the treaty of Lisbon having failed in 2008. (āIrish European Constitution referendumā) along with other referenda either cancelled or ignored. The EU will ādo what it takesā- as they say. Divide and conquer comes to mind.
March 20, 2021
When being released from lockdown and our freedoms returned is called a ‘reward’ – our pubs and leisure utterly destroyed…
We never – in most of our lifetimes – started with such debts AND such devastation. Not even 1998 looked like this.
Not even the 1980s looked like this.
We were promised that we would be celebrating Christmas at Easter. I’ve just taken a load of shit in my arm that I personally didn’t need to get us out of lockdown.
The uprising has already started.
This will not be tolerated much longer.
March 20, 2021
*correction* “Not even 2008 looked like this.”
March 21, 2021
I have yet to see any plan from the Chancellor, set out in detail in a meaningful multi-year budget, demonstrating how and when State debt will be reduced as a percentage of GDP. It’s necessary to ask because his Prime Minister is charging resolutely in the wrong direction. He plans to run lots of loss making and half empty buses and trains, even when the pandemic is over. When is the Prime Minister going to get it into his head that half empty buses and trains are neither environmentally friendly (full ones are) nor financially viable? Transport is an industry that should be helping to boost Government revenue, not be a basket case.
Sometimes, more sense is talked about USA and UK fiscal and monetary policies by Max Keiser on RT’s Keiser Report than by all the fashionable western economists put together. However, his advocacy of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency open to fraudulent manipulation and hysterical price fluctuations, is not the solution. Sound, fiscally prudent Government is.
Reply The Red Book and OBR show the next five years figures and point to state debt as a percentage of GDP turning down before the end of the forecast period.