An article in the Sunday Telegraph argued this week-end that the most important achievement of Ursula von der Leyen in her first year as Head of the EU Commission has been to force the creation of a UK vaccine industry. In its usual pro EU way the officials of the UK government had been happy to organise vaccine supply and purchasing on a cross EU Basis. The increasingly threatening noises of the EU about vaccine distribution allied to Ministers grasping the need to control production and deliveries here at home in default of free trade with the EU changed this approach. It led to deals where a business agreed to make and pack in the UK to get the launch aid and the orders they needed to make a viable business. That has to become a more generally accepted model in the many other areas where the EU is out to take our business.
I have long been arguing that the UK needs to use its extensive public purchasing intelligently to promote competitive production and supply here at home on a wider front. It’s what the French and Germans have been doing for years. You do not see their Ministers and business leaders travelling around in top end cars made in the UK, or pressing for pipes and interconnectors to buy in UK energy. The economic nationalism of the leading continental countries have long been assisted by EU rules they help design and enact. In sector after sector where the UK had a good position prior to joining the EEC in 1972 we have seen loss of market share and increasing dependence on EU imports as result of their protectionist and nationalist strategies. They have been delivered through a willing EU that has its own reasons to make the UK more dependent on continental goods. We ended up importing energy whilst we are an energy rich country that always used to supply its own needs for coal, electricity and more recently oil. We were largely self sufficient in temperate foods, only to see heavily promoted and subsidised supplies from the Netherlands and elsewhere on the continent displace a significant amount of home production. The EU sent grants to get the UK to grub up orchards at home to rely on imported fruit. Falling short of the provocative idea of integrating defence, the EU moved to encourage and require plenty of joint procurement and the provision of weapons with complex multi country supply chains, limiting our scope to defend ourselves and removing important jobs from home so the wider EU could benefit from the UK’s larger defence budget.
The USA under its new President who adopts a lot of socialist proposals is keen to build Fortress America. The US is not exporting vaccines all the time they need them at home, and is busily building its own expanded vaccine industry on the back of public sector orders. The supply chain initiative I have commented on here is designed to onshore much more industry to the USA after they too have drifted to reliance on huge imports. Biden will use trade policy, tariffs, competition policy, public procurement and public subsidy to recreate more industry and technology in the USA.
Government directed business is not usually a good idea. Nationalised industries usually fall behind in innovation and competitiveness and come to rely more and more on state power to enforce their will and perpetuate an out of date business model. They end up sacking workers and raising prices to pay for inefficiencies. Biden has to avoid taking the USA down the path of too much government intervention at a time when that is the preferred route of the Chinese and of the EU.
The UK now needs to use its potential freedoms out of the EU to find that magic spot which allows the state to buy, source and assist in a positive way whilst ensuring most is done by competitive private sector businesses striving for those contracts and grants by innovating, changing and controlling costs well. The state will of course continue to provide the Free NHS and free schooling.
With advanced country governments spending around half their national incomes you cannot ignore the impact of the state on economic activity. Only if you make intelligent use of that spending power without seeking to control everything can you hope to grow faster. You also need to be aware of just how rigged markets now are in so many important places in the world. The EU above all places regulation and EU champions well above free trade or competitive forces. The winners in terms of greater prosperity and faster growth will be those who allow a larger private sector to survive and thrive, without being naive about the nature of some international methods to gain unfair advantage.
April 5, 2021
The EU in seeking to marginalise the UK as a nation and England within its national borders ,while feeding off its collective endeavours, was a very strong argument to be rid of them. That they subourned the majority of the establishment in industry, politics and media to this plan speaks volumes. They made said establishment ashamed of being British, a view they spread like a contageon. It was a left wing plot to create collective guilt for what we were and are as a nation. It infected all political parties as you well know, and it continues today. It was only slowed by the gut instinct of the British people, and ably articulated by Nigel Farage, the ERG, and a few others.
Do not any of you sigh with relief thinking the fight is over. It is not, we are only shaking the sand from ourselves after Alamain. The campaign still has some years to run. The fifth column, even in this diary, is beavering away at us trying to sustain that collective guilt for dismissing EU grey socialism. I accept that their presence and warped propaganda is only there to remind us of how dire they are. Give them the rope to continue hanging themselves.
Biden will persue Trump policy but with better articulation.
Continue the fight for our self sufficiency in respect of EU agression, but do not let it result in looking inward, we are a nation with our eyes on the horrizon by instinct. Pray it continues.
April 5, 2021
THE EU have not made good advertising for themselves lately and they deserve to be cirticised. But to go back to 1972, where our economy and competiviness was in pretty bad shape and we a few years later had to go to the IMF and therefore blaming the EU for our lack of competitivenss is really a historical distortion Sir JR.
Both our steel, car and coal industry had gradually lost competiveness both before and after 1972, so yes a lot of industry had to cose but very little had to do with the Eu where we actually for many years subsequenly grew faster the tne larger EU nations . (after 1979).
So, let us blame the EU where it is justified but not through historical distortions.
April 5, 2021
the post-war years of socialism and nationalisation were hugely damaging. the recovery of the UK and its relative prosperity was due to the reforms of the great Thatcher govt (as you say, after 1979). probably freer trade with the EEC helped at the margin. unfortunately, post-Maastricht, that project has morphed into the political-federalist EU.
April 5, 2021
Growth was all services not manufacturing as our energy and other costs were undermined by a high Ā£, created by the growth of those services. Great until you need a vaccine, piece of armour, tractor etc. to be produced and your productive capacity has all gone. Probably more the fault of successive governments hammering productive space with business rates, investment with high interest rates, no real encouragement for kids to study science and engineering in the colleges and so on. Instead they just relied on the Lehmans and RBS s of this world which then go up in a puff of smoke.
April 5, 2021
Hear hear.
Britain has always looked to the sea and new horizons and found better than anything we have had from the continent. Europe has been nothing short of a nuisance to us for centuries. The future is the Far East and South America. We have old colonial ties and friends there.
April 5, 2021
Interesting perspective but most likely out of date
April 5, 2021
The EU is not seeking to marginalise the UK. You voted to marginalise the UK. That is what leaving the biggest, most successful and most powerful trade bloc in the world meant.
But – insert something about fish and foreigners.
April 5, 2021
Black propaganda, what about China, the USA, India. Power does not come from numbers. In entrepreneurial activity I would back Israel and in banking the Brits, and USA. The EU has a hobbled Germany, how long before germans realise it, and the rest is back of an envelope dealing.
April 5, 2021
A trade bloc whose aim was to become an “ever closer union”, which is precisely what the majority of UK voters patently did not want.
Remoaners always bleat on about trade; but that was not the ultimate goal of the EU, or it would have stayed as the EEC.
April 5, 2021
Remainers said the UK would collapse because of Brexit. We’ve had a 1 in 100 year pandemic AND Brexit and still not collapsed.
I remember Greenists stating that Fukushima was proof that nuclear should be scrapped – having been hit by an earthquake and a tsunami its safety systems worked.
April 5, 2021
Andy – keep up the good messages, I am in total agreement with you. Always remember the Brexiteers are of the older generation and the EU will be there long after they are gone, then we can return to our rightful place in the family of European Union and salute the flag and I feel this time will come soon especially when Scotland becomes independent and its the end of the UK.
April 5, 2021
DB
Yet since the referendum polls show no increase in favour of rejoining.
If you were right the trend ought to be the other way.
PS
Salute the flag….isn’t that a quote from Orwell’s 1984?
April 5, 2021
The EU never sought to marginalise the UK – in reality the UK was one of the three big players in the EU, and EU membership magnified the UK’s voice and global clout. The establishment was never ashamed of being British, a slur for which you have no evidence. There is no collective guilt for what we were and are as a nation, again a silly comment by you with no supporting evidence.
It’s all in your own head, mate. You’re an angry man and you are desperately looking for a scapegoat. Still, thanks for one thing. We were told that leaving the EU would mean that Brits would have to take responsibility and stop blaming the EU for everything. It’s never going to happen, is it. You’ll always blame the EU for something, however imaginary
April 5, 2021
I assume you have evidence for your version of events.
April 5, 2021
It looks to be much evidence as Sir JR
April 5, 2021
Agreed. The point of Brexit was to make our own politicians and civil servants accountable.
It’s certainly shown who was to blame all along.
April 5, 2021
This is very sensible, but it’s what the man in the street was saying 10 or 20 years ago. What does it always take so long for the penny to drop?
No doubt the war on carbon dioxide will become a scandal in about 10 years’ time.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
The pointless and vastly expensive religion & war on CO2 plant food is a scandal now. It is a ruse to control the people more and tax them even more, nothing whatever to do with controlling climate.
April 5, 2021
It is a scandal – to us, or the man in the street. But not to the powers that be. Eventually, faced with the catastrophe that must come, they will announce new concepts and plans, to a fanfare of self-applause. By then the cost will be billions.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
@john C.; +1 Except it’s what the average man in the street has been saying for 48 years, not just the last 20!
Had Ted Heath, with his industrial relations policies, been the PM who put the 1975 EEC referendum question I do wonder if there would have been a large majority to leave back then, was it Wilson’s industrial interventionists policies (similar to those found at the time in Europe) that gave apparent security to the UK economy and workplace?
April 5, 2021
I was for leaving in 1975 but too young to vote, my parents and elder sister for remain. The arguments from Peter Shore, Tony Benn and Enoch Powell types seemed far more sensible than the irrational emotional arguments of the remainers.
Heath was a disaster (āhas the RH gentleman taken leave of his sensesā as Powell put it) though Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May did their very best to be appalling too, they succeeded. Boris too now seems to be against personal freedoms and essentially another tax, borrow and piss down the drain green crap socialist. Has the government got billions of rapid tests left over due to over buying? Why else are they pushing them so hard it is totally insane?
Is it corruption perhaps, or just moronic stupidity?
April 5, 2021
@LL; Nice rant… Only trouble, had Callaghan gone to the country in 1978, as many predicted (perhaps you were to young to be interested in his “Waiting at the Church” TUC moment?), even the Tories were uncertain if they could win given the economic data at the time – my point, the electorate in May 1979 were not so much against what you might call lefty tax-n-spend policies, just industrial strikes.
April 5, 2021
I tend to agree, but I do not think Callaghan would have won had gone early. As the dire T May discovered it is not always as easy as reading the polls and going for it when ahead. 1978 was the year I went up to Cambridge. I then voted Tory in May in Cambridge 1979, Robert Rhodes James won comfortably if I remember correctly. Now the Tories struggle to get 15% and third in Cambridge, so socialist is the city nowadays. They do not want lefty Tory socialists it seems but real ones.
April 6, 2021
@LL; “I do not think Callaghan would have won had gone early.”
I think your comment might be more in hope than thought, given the economic data for 1978 [1], which was the seed for the following Winter of Discontent, due to Callaghan’s wages policy, whilst not booming by today’s standards the economy was in good shape and by the Autumn wage rounds trade union members wanted an increased slice of it!
[1] inflation down to single figures, unemployment had been declining though-out the year & (perceived, partially due to price controls?) living standards were reported to have increased by 8%.
April 5, 2021
Interesting article in todays Telegraph about modifying houses for carbon zero. Heat pumps operate at about 50 degrees but not very efficient at extreme highor low temps.larger radiators needed and underfloor heating.
Units are large and noisy.
It seems that our masters would have us freeze to death in houses which can only manage 16 degrees centigrade.
Also they are electric driven whose price is 6 times that of gas.
We won’t be joining the stampede as we aim to replace our ageing gas boiler this year with one with a 10 year warranty. That should last us.
April 5, 2021
My thoughts are the same as yours, Ian.
I suspect that a future government will have to introduce draconian taxation on gas for domestic consumption and on the price on fuel for petrol and diesel cars, not to mention higher road tax.
That will be the only way they will be able to try and force us to give up the huge convenience to our lives of using these fuels. Heat pumps are certainly no answer, given the well-known disadvantages and the unaffordable cost of adapting the average home.
The fact that both main parties, plus, of course, the Greens and Lib Dims will adopt the same policies will leave us facing a choice of whether to vote for a new party (led by, guess who ?) , or meekly submit.
I cannot see how any of the green crap currently proposed will be affordable to at least half of the population and it will be deeply resented by most of the rest.
April 5, 2021
ChrisS
I suggest your first paragraph is very likely the action that will be taken.
They intend to price everything but electric off the road, then when they have done that, they will tax electric to make up the lost revenue.
Also agree with the rest of your post.
April 5, 2021
They make little sense especially as retrofit. You need larger uglier, more pricey radiators to make them efficient, they cannot heat the place up very quickly so need to be kept on when out, they cost a fortune to install and maintain, they use electricity that costs far more than gas anyway per KWH and much heat is thus wasted at the power station. No thanks and they do nothing very much for CO2 or climate anyway all things considered. If you get a power cut you have no gas cookers or gas or wood fires either to keep you warm.
April 5, 2021
Perhaps, Sir John, you might wish to re-examine the PPE and vaccine production situation a year after N0 10 declares the COVID battle won. It would be nice to think that we will have a robust PPE manufacturing capability ‘onshore’, able to cope with the next pandemic, and that we will be exporting vaccines, for profit, to much of the world. Something for your bring-up diary?
April 5, 2021
I doubt it.
People who have good jobs in manufacturing tend to vote Labour and for sound reasons.
So it won’t happen, I don’t think.
April 5, 2021
@MiCk
Thank you for that laugh out loud comment. Yes, people in our largely high-tech manufacturing industries who are highly skilled and well paid definitely vote Labour so they can pay even more tax.
April 5, 2021
Indeed the pandemic planning was appalling in failing to ensure that such vital and fairly simple items could not be manufactured locally, surely gross negligence while Jeremy Hunt was Health Sec. I assume. Why in 5 years did he do so little so sort out our dire incompetent & communist NHS? Rather like a defence force dependent on purchasing ammunition and weapons manufactured by countries that might well be the enemy. We do this too I suspect.
April 5, 2021
Dated 2014 there is a very comprehensive government Influenza Pandemic response plan.
Why was that abandoned?
April 5, 2021
The usual reason I find is that bureaucrats much prefer spending on their personal wages, pensions, bonuses, PR or office improvements. This rather than on providing any service actually useful or of much value to the public.
April 5, 2021
Yes, well theyāve certainly screwed us over with their āpandemic responseā.
And as you say…they like their little luxuries.
April 5, 2021
Operation Cygnus.
April 5, 2021
Yes, I see. The 2014 plan was perceived to have too many holes in it and was superseded by an extremely draconian one. They also had a simulation involving over 900 officials!
And then there was Event 201…..
And then they locked us in our houses!
April 5, 2021
It might take a while but I have little doubt that objectivity and good sense will show the obsession with PPE to be the ‘Theatre’ that only a few realise at present.
Amazing that the Green lobby are so sanguine about the vast increase in plastic throw-away waste of the PPE frenzy.
The vaccine epidemic will also have a sense of proportion and ‘the science’ reveal the fatuity of seeking to ‘control’ a world pervading virus which in reality was a hugely overblown opportunity for political hucksters to grab control of the agenda.
PPE might well reduce the tummy upsets from burger and hot-dog stands as will the increased obsession with Howard Hughes hand and brainwashing.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
It is a disgrace. This thieving government with no consideration for justifying its policies will be spending billions a week on ridiculous testing of the whole populace. Complete insanity! I see the government is doing it for free – they treat us like children. They are spending ruinously so that they can task us to death in the future.
This is to continually justify the lockdown. I see that Jenrick was squirming on Talk Radio when questioned 10 times about how many deaths the government would accept to get back to normal life. No answer – they are liars!
zorro
April 5, 2021
Agree.
They havenāt changed tack even to respond to changing circumstances.
This is just Operation Moonshot ( stupid name š¬) grinding on apparently.
They are soooo talented with their crystal ball arenāt they?
April 5, 2021
+1
April 6, 2021
Zoroastrian, It is not free, it is our taxes paying for it!
Test and trace still a complete mess after spending Ā£37 billion!!
April 5, 2021
Economically this is utterly illiterate. Not a word about our exports! The UK depends on export trade, and Brexit has put up huge red tape and blockages to our exports to by far our biggest market, the EU, while doing nothing at all to improve export trade with the rest of the world. It’s free access to a market of over 400 million consumers that you Brexiters have thrown away
April 5, 2021
That “free access” you mention melody, cost us over Ā£12 billion a year and gave us a trading deficit of about Ā£75 billion a year.
April 5, 2021
Ā£12 billion and Ā£75 billion. A lot more on both figures!
April 5, 2021
It wasnāt free access. We had to pay for it. We had, and have, a huge trade deficit with the EU. Once the penny finally drops with EU devotees that the EU is malevolent towards us, we will buy a lot less from them.
April 5, 2021
Mike Wilson
Once the penny drops.
I think it has for a hell of a lot of people.
April 5, 2021
The EU might be our biggest single export market, but our more diverse exports to the rest of the world have exceeded the EU market for many years. We also consume most of what we produce, domestically. The reality is that our exports to the EU are very low, considering we’ve had 50 years of “free” access to 400 million consumers. Access simply doesn’t equate buying power or a desire to purchase the product.
April 5, 2021
As ever you Brexiters make the mistake of thinking less trade with Europe means more with the rest of the world. It doesnāt – plenty of EU countries sell a lot more globally than we do. All Brexit has done is reduce our export trade – with absolutely no benefit at all
April 5, 2021
We will sell more to the rest of the world Len, now we are free to offer good trade deals.
April 5, 2021
But countries like Australia are far more interested in doing deals with the European Union than they are with the UK, aren’t they?
April 5, 2021
MiC
No I think like us Australia wants to trade freely with many international partners.
There is a strong historical link between Australia the UK.
However it is also a business relationship and a good deal when finalised will undoubtedly bring mutual benefits.
I presume you want that?
April 5, 2021
MiC
Countries such as Australia are far more worried about the CCP shafting them and the disease they brought them than they are with deals with the EU.
Curiously you are less worried about communist extremism and religious extremism (condemning a UK teacher to death) than you are about Brexit.
April 5, 2021
Nonsense. The freedoms we now have are worth far, far more than the minor addition obstacles to EU exports. These obstacles are not even in the EUās interests. Their are plenty of work arounds will be found where needed or alternative markets. The private sector is good at getting round often imbecilic obstacles that various deluded governments choose to inconvenience them with.
A shame we did not demand an even cleaner Brexit that included Northern Ireland.
As JR says āGovernment directed business is not usually a good idea. Nationalised industries usually fall behind in innovation and competitiveness and come to rely more and more on state power to enforce their willā.
Indeed in the UK we have this in energy, much of transport, healthcare, TV and radio Broadcasting, Education, much of housing (getting worse by the day with endless red tape and the taxation of non profits), pensions, much of banking, much of the green lunacy and building regs, OTT planning, attacks on the gig economy and self employed and endless other areas.
The NHS is a dire state monopoly that kills nearly all competition and innovation as is the state education system. The BBC is unfair competitions and a propaganda outfit. Social and state housing is blatantly unfair competition. Banks that pay 0.2% on deposits and charge 39.9% on overdrafts (same rate to all customers go or bad risk) are clearly not in a competitive market.
We have a competition authority yet grossly unfair state, BBC and other such competition is just fine it seems.
April 5, 2021
It was never ‘free access to a market of over 400 million’. It cost us dear in money (membership fees, import duty remittances, VAT plus being on the hook for anything else the EU decided) and our freedom to do deals with other countries outside the EU and of course 70 percent of lawmaking where we just gold plated anything the EU required. As for the 400 million myth, 19 of the 27 countries are on life support by way of subsidies and never had enough money to buy the kind of things the UK provides as is proved by the 90 billion deficit we have in trade with the EU. We can easily buy anything they produce, but it does not work the other way. If the only way to trade is to pay a premium to lose money, that is not a good business idea. Our exports to the EU are about 8 percent of GDP and only a small minority of businesses have anything to do with the EU. The rest of the world is bigger and profitable and our biggest market is the UK itself.
April 5, 2021
Graham 1946
Well said, absolutely correct.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
+1
April 6, 2021
Buying a new BMW is an unpatriotic act. And a slightly over-ripe English Brie makes a perfect rebochon substitute for tartflette.
JF
April 5, 2021
@Melody; Our RotW exports vastly exceed(ed) those to the EEC/EU, and our membership was stopping us from further RotW exports, such as to the USA. Nor could we restrict EU imports to protect an industry that might not be able to sell profitably within the EU but can -perhaps- to the RotW. Some of us are old enough to remember how our imports/exports changed upon joining the EEC and in the years that followed.
As for Red Tape, ask anyone in business who has to keep abreast of EU laws, regulations, directives etc, ask any business needlessly prevented from exporting/importing products because some eurocrat considers them problematic, or (my pet peeve) preventing the commercial use/sale of a re-manufactured product to original standards that would pass the relevant BS safety test in place at the time of original manufacture [1] but not the ‘new product’ CE certification, even though there are any number of the same product still in daily use!
[1] and would be still accepted had the product remained in production
April 5, 2021
Red tape? Let me tell you about red tape. Inside the EU – none. Put the fish on the truck, off it goes, Spain, France, wherever. Good money, jobs. Now ? Forget it. Massive Brexit red tape, paperwork, blockages, all because of the fantasy that Brexit would be easy. We are choking down here, but no one in London cares
April 5, 2021
@Mark in Brixham; “Red tape? Let me tell you about red tape. Inside the EU ā none Put the fish on the truck, off it goes”
Nonsense, to the point of being male bovine by-product! Such produce still has to comply with EU regulations, even to the type of truck permitted to be used for its delivery. Just because you personalty might never have had to go in search of the reams of EU Red Tape doesn’t mean non exists. I know, or have known, people who used to work in the food industry, some of them since before we joined the EEC, their days were being increasingly filled with EU Red Tape, to the detriment of their actually business.
What you seem to be complaining about is EU bulling, there being no need for UK producers/suppliers have masses of extra paperwork just four months into Brexit, clue, the UK is as compliant in EU regulation today as it was this time two years ago. So what’s changed, other than your beloved EU deciding to punish the UK. Open your eyes.
April 5, 2021
What are you talking about, thereās āno needā for UK producers to have masses of extra paperwork, that is EXACTLY what Brexit means – we have to fill in document after document, when we had to do none of this before Brexit. Brexit isnāt going to be reversed, I know that, but the very least you Brexiters can be is honest about what it means
April 5, 2021
@Mark in Brixham; “we have to fill in document after document”
So you admit the EU does have Red Tape now. So why do you find it so difficult to understand how the EU has chosen to use their Red Tape to punish the UK for leaving. Otherwise you’ll need to tell us exactly how the UK has diverged, in the relevant food or transport standards, since 23:00hrs on 31 December 2020?
“I know that, but the very least you Brexiters can be is honest about what it means”
LOL, it’s the europhiles like you who need to be honest, stop making things up, stop making excuses for the unacceptable actions of the EU.
If you accept “Brexit isnāt going to be reversed” why are you wasting your time on this website, surely you’re flogging a dead horse. If I were in your boots I’d be looking to spend the time on some e-learning -“How to successfully trade outside of the EU”, or “How to identify new markets”, perhaps š
April 5, 2021
Well said Jerry.
April 6, 2021
I second that. Great reply Jerry.
April 5, 2021
Melody, What’s the point of a 400m+ market if it means it is so rigged against us that we have a Ā£100bn/YEAR trading DEFICIT with the EU? And for which we pay a large membership fee and must accept all their directives, rules and regulations?
No doubt largely caused by our EU supporting Parliaments and civil servants not employing the nationalist non-tariff barrier tactics and tricks used by other EU countries.
I know because I worked for decades with French, German and Italian companies.
Leaving the EU gives us the possibility to influence those who decide upon our taxes, laws and policies through election and removal and therefore gives us a chance to reverse this totally unfair trading position.
April 5, 2021
How many local authorities still have an EU department.
State entities should be mandated to buy British. I’m sick of seeing police Chiefs and council mayor’s riding around in Mercs and BMWs.
Get some despatchable energy from CCGt plants.
Stop the French raping our waters.
Get a grip.
April 5, 2021
The UK has about the least local democracy among modern nations.
But you European Union haters want total centralisation.
Oh, the irony…
April 5, 2021
No we just want yo support our own jobs and industries. You know, a bit like they do in Europe.
April 5, 2021
But wait. You claimed we couldnāt do that while in the EU – and yet now you say European countries do it.
This is where you respond with unsubstantiated claims about everyone else breaking the rules. Genuinely. Your argument is barking.
April 5, 2021
There is nothing barking about it. The euro is an undervalued currency, and the UK was cut off from World markets by EU external tariffs. The EU had very little competition in its UK export market, and in addition could dictate product standards that favoured EU producers.
But what else would you expect when you have once allowed yourself to be regulated by your European competitors?
April 5, 2021
Oh yes, of course, I remember that oddly inward looking little backward place in Belgium holding up the EU-Canada deal for 7 years.
The triumph of local democracy over international progress.
April 5, 2021
Like your precious little referendum did, you mean?
April 5, 2021
Who on here is calling for more government or more centralisation of power?
Another made up fantasy from MiC
April 5, 2021
China is the least democratic of modern nations.
Wot say you ?
April 6, 2021
and in close 2nd place Russia, the whole of the Middle East and then North Korea (which isn’t really a democracy)
April 7, 2021
MiC – the least local democracy? In Scotland, they have far too many representatives.
The UK now have City Mayors – As of 2019 there are 24 directly elected mayors in England, Police commissioners – 41 police force areas with commissioners,
local councillors -11,930 local councils including town, parish, community, neighbourhood and village councils. Where can we see their blogs with what they have achieved each year.
2 tier
County councils 26
District councils 192
Single tier
Unitary authorities 55
Metropolitan districts 36
London boroughs 32
City of London 1
Isles of Scilly 1
Total 343
650 MPs + their constituency assistants, spads, The Senedd comprises 60 members who are known as Members of the Senedd, The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
April 5, 2021
@Ian Wragg; How many times, a bit difficult for the police etc. to buy British cars, unless you expect them to drive about in TVRs!
Ownership of a company or brand is as important as were the product is manufactured. The police could buy Cowley made Mini’s, LA’s could buy Luton made vans, but the profits do not remain in the UK, and there is no guarantee production will, come the next cycle of fleet renewals.
April 5, 2021
jerry
You seem to forget that all products that are built or even just assembled over here will still give taxes to the government. The companies, their suppliers, their work force and all the small businesses that create their own markets supplying the offices and workforce in cleaning, servicing plant and equipment down to sandwich services. All make a living support themselves and pay taxes. It is no different to operational MoD bases indirectly they employ hundreds all with the knock on effect of just being there.
April 5, 2021
@turboterrier; Well yes, but such advantages are here to day, possibly gone tomorrow. No govt can plan a countries economic or social polices when they have no idea what tax receipts, what level of employment etc, will exist in twelve months, never mind five or more years time, and if govt can’t plan how in hell can the supply side industries, does that small engineering company invest or not?
Of course there are no guarantees even with UK ownership but there is a little more stability and, politically, a govt can step up and help, if push really come to shove, a little more easily to keep production lines running, invoices or the wages paid.
April 5, 2021
Ian Wragg
Exactly. It cannot be outside the realms of good reason and planning to give all the police, NHS, city, local authorities, civil and public servants a straightforward mandate. UK FIRST.
Vehicles, plant machinery, office equipment, consumables everything they need to purchase to operate. We all know that companies are foreign owned but products built or assembled in the UK ensure jobs for British workers they pay taxes and the companies make more profit to be taxed. I would rather see British organisation paid for by the UK taxpayers using British made equipment. The more these companies can sell on the home market the more chance there owners will keep faith with them .
April 5, 2021
@turboterrier; All such a policy might be doing is guaranteeing work for a few UK employees at the manufactures UK assembly plants, when up to 80% of the value might well be shipped into the UK for assembly into finished products and that value has to be returned to originating suppler(s) before a single penny Sterling has been made. The economics of CKD production are quite complex.
April 5, 2021
Good morning
“Potential freedoms” What does that mean ? We are either in, or out ! We are either free, or in servitude. I think we all know where we stand thanks to the appualling WA and NIP.
There is no ‘magic spot’. Government needs to be kept out of most things as there is always mission creep. There is also a culture hear of getting the best deal for the taxpayer. In other words, the cheapest. But the best way is to get government out of the way and let private enterprise and capital do the work.
We need to go back to what worked so well in the past. The Victorian built many fine things, much of which stands today, and with little government involvement.
April 5, 2021
I spotted the word ‘potential’ too which clearly confirms we are still tied in to the EU. If we were not and ‘Boris’ was moving us on there would be no need for the piece that Sir John has had to write today.
Sir John wrote not long ago ago about what Ministers ought to be doing. It all confirms we have been betrayed by his party and ‘Boris’ in particular on Brexit which hasn’t really happened.
April 5, 2021
Yes, that phrase āpotential freedomsā made me wince.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
Dear Sir John
I completely agree with you, but expect to see the usual sour responses from the usual sour posters here.
Yours truly
“Selfish Tory Pensioner”
April 5, 2021
There are mixdd messages in this article.
āI have long been arguing that the UK needs to use its extensive public purchasing intelligently to promote competitive production and supply here at home on a wider front.ā
Yet you cannot abide nationalised industry. So much so, that for doctrinaire reasons, many public utilities have now been dismantled and are in the hands of foreign owners who use the profits in their own native countries.
So I am not sure exactly how you plan to enact a dirigiste model with a government that is so biddable and delighted to sell off the āfamily silverā to foreigners.
There used to be a public house called The Antigallican beside Charlton Athletic football club. The name was derived from a movement from Napoleonic times which was set up to reduce trade with France and replace French goods with British ones. Perhaps the government could revive Antigallicanism?
April 5, 2021
Indeed. One of the many disgusting, anti-British actions of the Tory Party in government.
April 5, 2021
@Mike Wilson; Indeed, but of course the error in the privatisation policy was surely thinking the British “share owning” public would not simply cash-in on those grossly under valued IPO’s – or was that the intent, if so it was the unacceptable face of capitalism.
April 5, 2021
Perhaps the privatisation error was to allow foreign companies, some of whom are even nationalised companies in their own home countries, to purchase the shares?
April 5, 2021
Likewise, I am thinking has JR has had a Road-to-Damascus conversion from laissez-faire, neoliberal, free market Conservatism. Surely not!!!
The problem with “on-shoring”; that is, policies for self sufficiency and import substitution lead to domestic monopolists, public or private, pushing politicians to erect more import barriers to raise profits. Pres’ Biden should look to India and see how that policy has failed and why. Good article at Bloomberg: “Autarky’s Lost Decades India’s living standards have reached just 10% of U.S. levels.* East Asia’s openness helped in faster catch-up, a strategy China emulated”
April 5, 2021
Acorn
What Western governments have a real laissez faire neo liberal approach?
Most governments you are thinking around 45% of GDP
April 5, 2021
No it wasn’t.
It – antigallicanism – was primarily a sectarian, anti-Catholic religious movement.
April 5, 2021
MiC,
Your historical knowledge is poor.
Antigallicanism was about trade and culture – not religion.
You will need to cross check your sources.
April 5, 2021
No, Gallicanism was a French branch of Catholicism, but which held that the pope’s authority was not absolute.
Papists as well as protestants here and elsewhere opposed them – the Antigallicans.
Simple French-haters may well have cloaked themselves in the term, as such types always will on the other hand.
April 5, 2021
MiC
I am not talking about Gallicanism – which is where I assumed you picked up the wrong end of the stick.
I am talking about a specifically British movement called AntiGallicanism. This was about stopping French imports and substituting British goods. I quote from one source which refers to yet another Antigallican pub this one near London Waterloo rather than Charlton.
āThe Antigallican (anti-French) movement has earlier origins, though. It began in opposition to a cultural invasion of Britain by French goods and fashions. Thus the Anti-Gallican Society was founded around 1745, meeting in London’s taverns (but not drinking claret!). Among its activities to stem the influx of French goods were prizes for local products. On its crest, St George was prominent – although his ‘dragon’ was a French flag.
In 1779, a privateer ship named the Antigallican sailed from Newcastle – and even had a song celebrating it. To the disappointment of its crew and investors, it returned after six months without having secured any prizes.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the whole Antigallican thing gradually went out of fashion and many of the wave of Antigallican pubs, inns and taverns quietly changed their name to something more in tune with the times. The name persisted on Tooley Street until a few years ago, but the pub facade (now nameless) has been incorporated into a modern building. One of the few survivors, though, still trades on the Woolwich Road at Charlton.ā
April 5, 2021
The European Union indeed places countries behaving in a civilised way towards their own peoples, their workers, above free trade, yes, but beyond that does all that it can to promulgate it.
John seems to suggest that this is a bad thing.
Those curtains just keep twitching, and I expect will continue to do so.
April 5, 2021
I am not sure its civilised to tell citizens the vaccine successfully given in about 20m doses in a neighbour, is dangerous and they should be prepared to be really ill for weeks, suffer lifelong damage from the virus, and accept tens of thousands of deaths while the millions of doses sit on the shelf becoming expired.
Oh well, one person’s view is civilised, another’s is a disgusting selfish pretence. Err – how are Macron and Merkel now that they have had the evil jab?
April 5, 2021
This is completely untrue but is the sort of dangerous lies Brexitists now resort to.
April 5, 2021
Nope
Yet more evidence that you will take every anti UK stance there is.
April 5, 2021
If you want dangerous lies about covid19 then it’s Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte etc. who you should quote instead of that utter rubbish, isn’t it Fred?
Yet your lot claimed that their mumbo-jumbo was “pure common sense” I seem to recall, didn’t you?
April 5, 2021
So they buy gas and Covid vaccines from Russia. The EU looks after number one, the EU. It cannot properly look after its own population in terms of vaccination or employment around the Med. Woolly nonesense.
April 5, 2021
Just when our government tells us we have to junk gas central heating and CCGT power plants, Germany gets Nordstream 2 cheap gas from Russia.
No headlong dash to decarbonise the industrial heartland of Europe.
Perhaps they have some science graduates in government.
April 5, 2021
@MiCk
I realise that, clearly, it is beyond your intellectual capacity to think contrary to your brainwashing but you really ought to go and ask the people of Greece how they feel about the way the EU forced their government to behave towards them. You really are priceless. It’s like you live in a little tunnel and can’t see the world outside.
April 5, 2021
The ultimate irony is that all the insults and vile epithets shouted by remainers for many years at Brexiteers could quite justifiably be directed at the EU masters. Insular, inept and incompetent, they have made utter fools of themselves on the world stage.
April 5, 2021
No, it was Balsanaro, Duterte, and Trump who did that, mate.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
My endorsement (+1) refers to John Miller, not to MiC.
April 5, 2021
We are where we are in such a weak position because of the motivations and decisions of the political class aided and abetted by the civil service. The notorious Chequers weekend, organised by Mrs May when she was PM, which caused the resignations of David David and Johnson revealed the depth and strength of the betrayal. Much of that thinking remains in place and, it seems, in control. It will not be overturned just by redirecting government spending, though that will help. It requires a new approach to regulation away from the stifling restrictions calculated to protect the interests of big EU businesses. The replacement of the rule of contract law by EU direction (as over the export of vaccines) could well inspire many EU based businesses to re-evaluate where they locate their operations. The UK government should encourage such thinking by asserting the primacy of the law over arbitrary government diktat in the UK.
April 5, 2021
We also have to rid ourselves of the Plethora of green, socialist, and anti capitalist left wing teachers and university lecturers that seem to have filled these establishments since the 1970’s, and who have been brainwashing our students for decades.
That damage can now be seen in politics, the civil service, local government, and the broadcasting media, where everything green and socialist is deemed to be good, and everything else bad.
Good grief they are even now trying to eliminate and rewrite our history !
April 5, 2021
Alan
Not so rife in the 70’s.
Blair is your culprit along with others who lacked the guts to stamp out his perversions.
April 5, 2021
@steve; Tony Bair simply carried on from John Major, who carried on from what Mrs Thatcher had started during the 1980s. She was, if not the first, one of the first world leaders to highlight modern environmental issues. At the time, Socialists were far more concerned with disarmament, not the environment.
April 5, 2021
Jerry : “At the time, Socialists were far more concerned with disarmament, not the environment.”
The UK communists have discovered that they can more easily and deceptively destroy our wealth and freedoms by pursuing a “green” agenda.
April 5, 2021
@OR; Indeed, I have long considered it strange how Green Issue (and Separatist) politics only really came to the fore post the fall of the Warsaw pact.
April 5, 2021
jerry I think you mean the Socialists were more concerned with UK disarmament certainly not Russia’s?
April 5, 2021
@Fred.H; Actually I disagree, I had an interesting hour or so stuck in a train carriage full of young CND ladies in the 1980s! š®
Much to my surprise we ended up having quite a deep, intelligent and friendly conversation about the issue, I can only speak as I found but, those I talked to were absolutely sure in their minds if only we (NATO) would disarm so would the Warsaw pact and they did want both sides to disarm. They did not change my mind, I don’t think I changed their minds, but both sides got off that train a little more thoughtful.
April 5, 2021
Steve
From my memory it started in the 60’s with the LSE, and has morphed into a giant monster since then.
April 5, 2021
@Alan Jutson; Well if you want to go back to an absolute ground zero point, I suspect it all started at Cambridge in the 1930s…
April 5, 2021
Alan
I suppose it all depends where you were and when.
In the 70’s I had just started a craft apprenticeship so didn’t have much time for any particular ‘scene’.
It was all work and bikes (real bikes) for me in those days.
April 5, 2021
I think you’ll find it’s the “motivations and decisions” of the civil service that are aided and abetted by the political class!
April 5, 2021
Game a probable scenario when another country abused us. Traditionally we would make threats, withdraw ambassadors or resort to sanctions. I suggest itās a far more probable a scenario than the pandemic.
However we have hundreds of thousands of their citizens living in our country. They are angry and start sabotaging critical infrastructure.
Do we intern them, let them bring the country to its knees or just shut out eyes and pretend the global supply chains for good services and people of multi nationals are more important?
April 5, 2021
So many opportunities have emerged due to EU behaving so spitefully towards us, it has been a kick start for British entrepreneurs to redouble efforts to create businesses replacing previous imports. Bring it on.
April 5, 2021
The EU isnāt being spiteful. You left. Not having the advantages of being in the EU is what you voted for. And, no, I know you have no idea what it meant.
April 5, 2021
Andy
“The EU isnāt being spiteful ”
Take those rose coloured specs off mate, the French – led EU has always been spiteful towards England. Why ? Because they fell and we didn’t. They don’t like a winner if it isn’t them.
April 5, 2021
āBrexit is about a confident forward-looking Britain, itās nothing to with misunderstood comic book stories about the Second World Warā … as no one said, ever
April 5, 2021
You must have that drivel going around your head in a loop. What Iād like to know is what you hope to achieve by posting it here every day. It matters not what the subject of the post is, you write the same predictable twaddle every day. You presumably have the comment saved so you can cut and paste it each day. Why not abbreviate it to:
EU good, UK bad.
April 5, 2021
or better still- content yourself with not bothering to try and convert this bunch of elderly idiots who strangely want to live in England, and give up writing the sermons?
April 5, 2021
Try as I might, I’ve never been able to think of any advantages of being in the EU.
April 5, 2021
Try as you might, you haven’t been able to think of much else either though, have you?
April 5, 2021
yes – I left. I don’t understand how you didn’t? Did you make it to your castle in France after all?
April 5, 2021
We also voted for not having the disadvantages of being in the EU. We Brexiteers are basically happy, we just find it tedious to have to deal with spoilt resentful children in Brussels, and a vocal, irrelevant, diminishing minority at home. Diminishing because an increasing number of remainers are begining to see the EU for what it really is, leaving the fanatics to get increasingly angry with their failure to convince. To steal a phrase, those who democracy would wish to destroy they first drive mad.
April 5, 2021
Opportunities not to export our shellfish, not to export our lamb, not to export our cheese, UK firms getting booted out of panEuropean supply chains on a daily basis. Economics of the madhouse, that’s Brexit.
April 5, 2021
As a vegan, that is just the icing on the cake. But, notwithstanding the desire of many people to consume flesh and the processed milk of another species, what would be so terrible if we consumed our own shellfish, lamb and cheese and the French consumed the runny muck that they call cheese?
April 5, 2021
Mike Wilson
“what would be so terrible if we consumed our own shellfish, lamb and cheese and the French consumed the runny muck that they call cheese? ”
Well said !
April 5, 2021
Melody, Since we import far more food than we export it will make commercial sense to simply eat the food we produce as well as cutting down on the cross channel “food miles”.
April 5, 2021
Some interesting facts for you here, Melody:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/04/01/dame-lucy-is-still-ensuring-continuity-of-government/#comment-1219537
The concluding sentence:
“I expect you have got used to the idea that the whole of the UK economy should be run for the convenience of the small minority of businesses which trade with the EU, but that may no longer be the case.”
April 5, 2021
You are out of tune.
April 5, 2021
If the EU are being deliberately awkward and spiteful then these things are of their making melody.
I see the huge queues predicted at Calais and Dover haven’t happened as you remain fans predicted.
April 5, 2021
Fred
“it has been a kick start for British entrepreneurs to redouble efforts to create businesses replacing previous imports”
Except that with manufacturing opportunities those ‘patriotic’ entrepreneurs will outsource to China and flobb us off with plastic fragile crap because they resent paying us a decent wage for quality work, and Johnson will let them get away with it. Don’t be fooled.
April 5, 2021
Only if you enjoy buying crap.
April 5, 2021
agricola
I don’t buy the crap, but the fact that it doesn’t last five minutes and ends up in land fill is a concern. Even the packaging is environmentally damaging. Go to any local tip and see for yourself, there’s mountains of it.
April 5, 2021
I agree with John’s article and especially with your point – competition never ceases and we must be constantly vigilant and assertive in maintaining and developing our independence and interests.
Any person in public office or employment who places the interests of the EU above ours or who undermines our independence needs to have their position assessed to determine if they are an appropriate choice.
April 5, 2021
Dixie
Position assessed?
No way. Immediate dismissal.
When you take the position you take the rules and regulations that go with it.
If you join and don’t like it tough. Resign or get fired.
April 5, 2021
Your read my mind … except that in the public sector wonderland it seems you cannot simply fire people.
April 5, 2021
Well composed and written item Mr Redwood.
Generally I agree with what you say, but, I think your analysis of the current US president is incorrect.
Mr Biden is not interested in building fortress America. He intends to do more business with China, thereby compounding climate change and helping the CCP become a major thtreat economically and militarily. He has not addressed the savaging of places like Detroit by US globalists and has no intention of doing so.
And, Like our Boris he’s foolishly buying into the green scam. It reminds me of the way soviet leaders fell for Reagan’s SDI deception and bankrupted their own economy chasing what they thought was a real technology.
I agree with what you say about EU protectionism and what it has done to our country over the decades, but you know the blame lays squarely at the feet of our governments. They are to blame.
……..we dont believe them anymore, we don’t trust them.
April 5, 2021
+ a huge amount.
April 5, 2021
+1
And to reference another comment, Donald Trump did succeed in getting his message over DESPITE almost total vocal opposition from the MSM, including the BBC, and to the extent of increasing his vote total and also making it imperative that Biden must pretend to follow some of the policies, even if he understands little.
April 5, 2021
Perhaps you can tell us which make and model ministers should be driven in so we can explain how they are not British or not suitable.
Even better, ministers should take public transport like everyone else.
April 5, 2021
I imagined you were chauffeured Andy!
April 5, 2021
No he sounds like Blott the chaufeur.
April 5, 2021
Nothing will get anywhere until the present government of occupation has been forced to pack its bags.
50 years to wake up from the EU nightmare yet always desperate to submit to the next patch of quicksand.
Mass testing…all adults twice a week. Vaccinated or not. Yes, those vaccinations that would set us free!!
So passports failed? Onto plan B in order to deliver a social credit system.
Shameful.
April 5, 2021
+1,
and the absurdity continues regardless of the fatuity demonstrated worldwide.
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
Hopefully, this will help people to see/evaluate the truth of anything this government of occupation says…
zorro
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
Also, the track and trace system is being tightened to every person visiting a pub now. the noose is tightening despite the ‘saviour’ vaccines…. Ask why….
zorro
April 5, 2021
Because the aim is to impose a social credit system.
On the pretext of covid?
April 5, 2021
Aw, missing your safe space for tetchy, mobbish loudmouths, are you?
April 5, 2021
The biggest issue currently concerning our ability to defend ourselves is the endless series of Conservative defence cuts, usualy sold to us as “Strategic Defence Reviews”
Notwithstanding the recent, enhanced MoD settlement of Ā£16.5 billion the government has just savaged the RAF again – the MoD has scrapped 25 Tranche 1 Air Defence Typhoons, the entire C130 Hercules troop transport fleet of 15 aircraft – an approximately 23% reduction in the UKās fixed-wing airlift capability – also the entire Hawk T1 “aggressor” trainer fleet of 81 aircraft. All to pay for additional, hugely expensive F35b VSOL aircraft that have many unsolved deployment issues
We are to loose another 10,000 troops, another 150 Challenger 2 main battle tanks, having spent ~Ā£450 billion the Warrior APC feet will not now be upgraded, the RN will also loose two more frigates.
It will not have escaped the attention of those interested in our defence capability that the MoD will suffer no reduction in staff, indeed additional specialist personnel will be recruited to manage the new space and cyber commands. The Russians will be rubbing their hands with glee at this serious and damaging reduction in our defence capabilities
April 5, 2021
Sakara, it’s frightening and I feel for those expected to serve and do their duty for queen and country under such dire circumstances. The great has surely been taken out of Britain.
April 5, 2021
As far as I can make out, they are in very deep with EU defence cooperations.
Never mind Brexit.
Not a modicum of sense!
April 5, 2021
They only need the army to have the tools to repress those at home henceforth.
zorro
April 5, 2021
At least if they get rid of the tanks they wonāt be available to be deployed here. Where else could they be deployed?
April 5, 2021
The question not addressed by your thought provoking article Sir John, is why we as a nation chose to import temperate goods from the Netherlands and Spain and why orchard owners were willing to accept the EU shilling (centime) to grub up their trees.
UK living and therefore production costs are too high. Wages, energy, raw materials, land and rental and construction all cost more here than on the continent. It is therefore cheaper to move goods here over vast distances than to make them here despite quality being (mostly) poorer than goods produced here.
Our housing costs are too high, driven by money printed by the banks for usury. This drives up all other costs. Solve this and we will become competitive. Until this is solved then government procurement will cost more and we will be taxed even more to pay for it.
April 5, 2021
Orchard owners had no choice.
After Britain joined the EEC, an early Brussels regulation was that apples from Britain were to comply with their strict size limit.
This meant that overnight eight tasty and smaller varieties of Kent-grown apples were too small for export to Europe and so fell out of the market. The EU paid France and Italy handsomely for their produce whilst our farmers were left with orchards that couldn’t compete on price meaning they were uneconomical. It was a crying shame that orchards hundreds of years old were dug up and burnt.
April 5, 2021
There is no way to solve the high cost of housing. It would take 50 years of stagnation for houses to be affordable for young people. The creation of money must be taken out of the hands of the banks and/or put into the hands of community banks. 80% of the money currently created (and for the last 5 decades) goes into the housing market to inflate prices. Prices cannot be allowed to fall or the banks liquidity ratio will fall and they will be broke.
We need more banks like āThe Bank of Daveā.
April 7, 2021
NS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_minimum_wage
average rent costs in the UK
https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average-cost-of-rent-by-region-uk/ and https://www.statista.com/statistics/1084608/average-rental-cost-apartment-europe-by-city/
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics
explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics#:~:text=Electricity%20prices%20for%20household%20consumers,-Highest%20electricity%20prices&text=The%20EU%2D27%20average%20price,was%20EUR%200.2126%20per%20kWh.
Same NMW/NLW but very different rental costs. Perhaps our government really should look at regional disparities on rents and costs of production and not just compare London and the SE.
April 5, 2021
I totally agree with where you want to get to, but the Government must be made aware that it is there to facilitate and not to control. Its function is to make the UK (with or without Scotland) the best possible place for businesses to function with the recognition that profits belong to business owners and not, as of right. to the State. It is not its place to dictae how businesses go about it.
The thing that really brought home to me how bad things had become, was when our main line railway passenger rolling stock was replaced, the new carriages were all made in Germay, and similarly on the London Underground.
Just one niggle with your post: I think it should at least be left open to question, whether some change in the provider or method of provision might benefit both health care and education.
April 5, 2021
Your party’s appeasement to and embrace of Socialism, Cultural Marxism and the entire panoply of fascist left theories regarding race and gender is a far greater threat to this nation’s people and our freedoms than the EU will ever be.
I genuinely don’t give a toss that the French State only buys French made cars to ferry around their dependent class or that the Germans embrace economic nationalism. I do give a toss about being exposed to fascist left racial indoctrination 24-7.
April 5, 2021
+1
Another pithy contribution which cuts to the fundamentals of the oppressions and false aggravations which won’t just go away because we chose to buy a British car.
April 5, 2021
Ackowledging that 126 ,000 have sadly died during this pandemic there are lessons and positives that have come out of the experience, if we care to notice.
Ministeries have show themselves to be inadequate in an emergency. Is it because they are programmed to take direction from the EU. Is it because most of the incumbents within them, expensively educated though they might be, all come from the same mould. Are they genetically risk averse, is that a basic qualification for entry to the civil service, whatever the recruiters may say. Undoubtedly the administrative side of the NHS failed in spades on PPE availability. I suspect that by the very nature of the animal, the civil service is prone to potential failure throughout. Question, has the PPE failure been sorted in anticipation of the next medical challenge.
Hot off the press the very latest government wheeze. We can all have, and are encouraged to have, free Covid19 tests at our local chemists, twice a week.
Wonderful largesse till you think about it. The tests apparently contain a high percentage of false positives and negatives. Were I to be positive, what provision is there to pay me the vast sum I used to earn per hour, were I still working if I had to isolate for two weeks. I learn that the tests are to come from China. Almost the perfect business model, give us the disease and charge us to detect it with an ineffective test. Can you imagine the queues outside Lloyds Chemists, all safely distanced and freezing to death. Which set of ace administrators dreamt that one up. The verdict of my ex secretary was stuff that. Madness on a stick at great expense to no effect. I can see Littlejohn sharpening his pencil as I write.
I have said it before, ministers are there to think about what may be required, and with concenus define what is required. At this point it should be handed to those who have some idea of how to achieve it or who are not afraid to correct the fantasy.
Around 1937 my father and a group of automotive engineers were sent down to Eastleigh to assess the Spitfire for mass production. It was not designed for it, only to be the best fighter going. They took it to Castle Bromwich and produced over 10,000 of them. Project Spitfire was under the direction of Lord Beaverbrook not the MOD. The rest is history, but the lesson is just as pertinent today.
April 5, 2021
Most of the “potential freedoms out of the EU ” will not be available in Northern Ireland, which remains in the EU Single Market.
Here is a BBC reporter crossing the new divide, at 01:22 minutes in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-56606751
“We’ve just arrived in Belfast, we’re still in the UK, but this is where we now effectively enter the EU’s single market”
Which of course comes with the full plethora of EU Single Market laws present and future.
So in many places throughout this article “UK” should be replaced by “GB”.
The reporter goes on:
“and we’re just about to go through one of the new border control posts”
despite previous objections that there cannot be any border checks anywhere on the island of Ireland, eg:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0930/1079268-reaction-non-paper/
“Fianna FĆ”il’s deputy leader, Dara Calleary …. said … “A hard border, with its infrastructure, is something which we cannot tolerate on our island.” …. “Labour leader Brendan Howlin described the plan as “entirely unacceptable” … No matter where you locate check sites – they amount to a hard border.””
So there you go, our brave leader Boris Johnson has defied all that and gone ahead and created a hard border on the island of Ireland – admittedly one of the inspection sheds has been built too short for some trailers — and yet now the same Irish politicians are perfectly happy about it.
April 7, 2021
Denis, we are told Northern Ireland want their European passports, they want the Irish and British common travel area, they want no border within Ireland. At the moment the UK is all giving and no-take (an unlevel playing field in EU speak), they allow free movement of people from Ireland without test or quarantine, they allow free goods movement and seem to encourage this to continue by extending a further six months even though the EU applied 3rd Country restrictive rules from day 1 – why?
If we send someone to Southern Ireland they have to quarantine for two weeks, have a PCR Ā£100-Ā£140 test, the ferry costs have doubled and sometimes trebled to UK paying clients, did these costs raise from Ireland to the UK and the return trip I bet they didn’t.
April 5, 2021
Are you sure the loss of UK production is simply down to the EU? Or is it more connected to people being told to buy the cheapest even if it is imported? That is what free trade is all about after all.
April 5, 2021
Sir John,
One wonders what else Ursula von der Leyen will achieve during the remainder of her term.
April 5, 2021
With luck she will have convinced quite a few members of the Evil Empire that they want out!
April 5, 2021
The UK is still in reaction mode to events in the EU
I can only prayer for a time in the future when the UK initiates ideas, plans & business without looking towards the EU for the nod of approval
We might be sailing our own ship, but that ship is tied firmly to the EU dock
April 6, 2021
It’s not that bad. Debates on social media just reflect who is still stubborn. Entrepreneurs and businessmen are no longer debating but looking for opportunities.
April 6, 2021
Its our law makers, not our businessmen but our politicians that continue to look towards the EU
April 5, 2021
None of this is of any consequence so long as we are in SAGE’s death grip.
They are high on power.
April 5, 2021
UK deaths these past 3 days – 25, 10, 10 – do the SAGA not seen this data on worldometer
April 6, 2021
more fall off ladders, die of brain aneurysm, sudden arrhythmic death syndrome.
April 5, 2021
Repeal the Climate Change Act.
Tear up the Withdrawal (Remain) Agreement.
Butt out.
Advisory: get rid of Johnson and his useless cabinet
April 6, 2021
Gets my vote
April 5, 2021
It’s probably quite true that Brexit will lead to the on-shoring of quite a bit of manufacturing and processing that is currently done in the EU.
However, Brexit by itself will not change the trade deficit with the EU by much, because the euro is still an undervalued currency, and because EU-produced goods still have cachet in the UK market.
The trap to avoid is to do too much towards import substitution if that involves subsidies, and especially if it involves the creation of new companies that just end up with too small a domestic market.
For an example, look at the UK’s efforts to produce jet airliners, which never sold in significant numbers, and which distorted our entire aerospace industry. When the attempt to produce “flagship” planes was given up, and the industry began to concentrate on producing systems for other peoples’ planes, it never looked back, and there are very few planes flying today without British subsystems.
The aim should not be to create a small British X-Industry that struggles in the Word market, but to create specialised British companies with superior technology that prosper when the World X-industry prospers.
April 5, 2021
I totally disagree with you about the EU however this is well known so no need to go over old ground again.
Public Procurement can be a mine field especially if Politicians know the companies or individuals concerned as it leads to many accusations.
The rules relating to Public Procurement need strengthening or at least reviewing by an all party committee. Recent examples of bad procurement is the original Covid test and trace that had to be abandoned to Local Government who did it so much better.
Competition should not be allowed to give rise to lower standards both end product and working practices.
In my work as an Architect I operate on a 60/40 or some times 70/30 procurement ratio. The 60 or 70% being quality that includes many specific areas inc pay and conditions and 40 or 30% price. Only by doing this is there good VFM. Companies know up front exactly what is expected and if they don’t like it they don’t pass the quality threshold to bid in the first place.
Too many contracts are offered by price alone and to me that’s fundamentally wrong when dealing with multi million jobs.
April 6, 2021
If competition “isn’t allowed” to do what it does, then it’s not competition. Enterprises either compete or they don’t.
If you want to see what happens when you “compete” but you cannot compete, look at EU external tariffs. That’s what you get when you pretend to compete where you are not competitive.
April 5, 2021
Here is a fantastic opportunity to support UK industry:
To meet the carbon-zero target will need a guesstimated 40,000 offshore wind turbines.
To manufacture these takes a guesstimated 80 million tonnes of steel, over ten times current UK annual production.
So here is a golden opportunity for the UK to put its money where its mouth is. Source the immense amount of steel needed to meet the zero-carbon target (via offshore wind) from UK steel producers.
Let’s see what happens. I’m not holding my breath.
April 6, 2021
Building a steel mill is enormously expensive, the business goes from boom to bust, and the spare capacity in China can kill you any time they like.
You are quite right not to hold your breath, because the aim here is not to recreate a working museum of the UK circa 1960, but to make money.
April 5, 2021
China and the US have large enough economy, landmass and population to haul up a drawbridge and be self-sufficient.
Other countries rely on trade for key commodities, products and services delivered cost-effe timely at scale.
Chinaās belt and road initiative is securing their supply of commodities, but will at least raise the standard of living of billions by offering a road out of poverty.
In contrast, Franceās aggressive acquisition of service companies across Asia, with state-owned conglomerates like Caisse de DĆ©pĆ“ts in the vanguard, is entirely self-serving designed to transfer skilled jobs to France and keep the native populations in low-paid work.
The U.K. Government needs to appreciate what is going on, and either call them out, or copy them. Or both!
April 5, 2021
Giles
“The U.K. Government needs to appreciate what is going on, and either call them out, or copy them. Or both!”
It has copied them – we have loads of eastern European agricultural workers in de-skilled craft jobs, and loads of highly skilled British craftsmen on the dole or stacking shelves as a consequence.
They call it ‘progress’
April 5, 2021
Giles B
“China and the US have large enough economy, landmass and population to haul up a drawbridge and be self-sufficient.”
As a matter of fact China has a problem in that lots of things are made in China, but not by China. You see the weakness there ?
The US couldn’t pull up the drawbridge as it were…..too much of US industry has been destroyed by the greedy
big incs. Take a look at the appalling things they did to Detriot.
The US would need to rebuild industry from scratch in Michigan and many other states. If they tried I hope the american people give ’em the middle finger, as we should do here in the UK if Johnson tries to tell us we’re all of a sudden needed.
They threw us on the scrap heap, now they want us ? …… no, that is not how it works, shove it.
April 5, 2021
Well Sir John, how do you feel about these restrictions carrying on? Will your party colleagues have misgivings on the slow rollout – the issues on travel, the businesses that ‘can’ trade sort of, the public meeting- well maybe not, the back to normal that isn’t going to happen, the free test yourself stick up the nose that gets rid of the Chinese stockpile but won’t give us reliable results?
A little quiver of fear, uncertainty and doubt creeping in? May elections coming soon – how will it stack up when your party is laid to waste?
April 5, 2021
Since we are discussing EU behaviour –
The latest on the news is that the MHRA are due to make a decision on whether or not to suspend the AstraZenica vaccine here in the UK.
Who is leaning on the MHRA ? Surely not European countries who’s vaccination programs are a complete shambles.
April 5, 2021
Sir John.
Respectfully.
You, nor other MPs, nor the PM and nor ministers are running the country. SAGE is.
So why are you still taking the money ?
This life is SHIT.
I wake up in panic about the life I used to have.
April 5, 2021
When do we get our freedoms back ? Including freedoms from these dreadful masks ???
All I hear is terror from the Government broadcasts.
What are back benchers doing about it ? Why are you taking the money ???
April 5, 2021
Muffled voice. Soggy mask. Unable to jog in fresh air. People suspicious of each other. Scared eyes over masks.
No proper human interaction.
Are weirdos Whitty and Hancock what pass for Tory freedom these days ? Despite the vaccine push and the lockdown sacrifices ???
You go on blaming the EU, why don’t you !
April 6, 2021
sounds like a widespread religion we have to get used to!
April 6, 2021
At times I have almost been ecstatic here with the EU blundering, a organisation that is desperate to increase exports busy smothering them with bureaucracy makes for extremely weak competition and should be good news for our industry.
The same with the US and their new found belief in wasting billions on government projects, all of this is easier to compete with. However at the same point it is hard to sell to people who are not prosperous and long term the EU and US are following the same route.
I hope this belief in “the man in government always knows right” does not spread to the UK and in course we can show by example that limited government involvement produces the most prosperity.
April 7, 2021
We should consider whether to re-nationalise the UK railways. or seek the immediate end of EU nationalized companies operating same in the UK.
So it seems our defenses & policy are being managed down to fold into the EU army at some point.
All defense contracts need to be supplied domestically. We no longer have a navy to protect our seaways and we have unreliable supply chains from the EU.