Treasuries are weak at spending control but get blamed for meanness

The second law of government is the Treasury is usually weak at spending control but gets blamed for underfunding.

The Treasury is hopelessly outnumbered by spending departments in government. It can only hope to exert effective control if the Finance Minister and PM or President work together, and if spending  decisions  are mainly taken in bilateral meetings between  the Treasury and the relevant spending department rather than in a wider forum .

Government departments can get more money by running things badly and demanding bail outs near the end of the year. They can get more cash by claiming it for crises or issues which come up in year. They can work with lobby groups outside government to create pressure for increases. Some are good at securing money for their next year’s budget under headings where they know they are unlikely to spend it all. They then vire this approved spending to another purpose later during the year, securing cash for something which might not have been approved if asked for originally.

It is commonly believed in government circles that a Treasury has too much control over spending and that a  Treasury makes spending judgements that prevent other departments doing a good job. This is usually a dangerous myth.  It comes from the proposition that new initiatives or demands need new money to pay for them. In practice there are often falling demands or waning initiatives elsewhere in each spending  department. There should be a more active pursuit of the things the department no longer needs to do at the same time as finding new things it is desirable to do.  Old government initiatives rarely die. They rest in some distant corner of an administrative office, and keep their budget line.

 

 

 

147 Comments

  1. Newmania
    May 6, 2021

    Whats the point of spending control when , according to you we can simply borrow money form ourselves spend it and pretend it is not a debt?

    1. MiC
      May 6, 2021

      These are the alternative “principles”, to be applied when discussing the spending plans of political opponents I assume, Newmania.

      1. Hope
        May 6, 2021

        JR,
        The first thing we need to consider following your previous thoughts is why the Treasury can not be trusted to provide figures that required to two quangos ONS and OBR to be created? If the Treasury is not up to job get rid of it and its staff instead of having three departments! The creation of the two quangos does not instil any more trust in govt. or Treasury.

        We know Johnson is incapable of managing his own finances let alone the country. We saw first hand in March budget 2020 (before Chinese virus) his high tax, high spend credentials big state plans. Even May criticised whether it was conservative in parliament, from a left wing liberal like May!! The budget Less than two weeks before he shut down the country and economy!! What was he and the govt thinking! Today he continues to keep borrowing and the economy shut for no reason justifiable whatsoever. And you and your colleagues remain silent and do nothing.

        We saw his disastrous decisions for HS2, Haiwei and Wa and NIP disasters.

        I do not blame the Treasury, it is the Fake Tory fools in Govt. We saw that when Hammond was making the Treasury come up with nonsense rot over Brexit!

      2. Edward2
        May 6, 2021

        NM and MiC
        Both of you used to regularly moan about “Tory austerity”
        Now you are moaning about increased State spending.

        1. MiC
          May 6, 2021

          Where?

          1. Edward2
            May 6, 2021

            Above.

          2. MiC
            May 7, 2021

            Yet more tangential imaginings.

  2. Mark B
    May 6, 2021

    Good morning.

    The solution is simple. Do what we do in the Private Sector when a department fails or a project overspends – Sack the person(s) in charge. No pay offs, nothing. The complete loss of everything. Stalin was an evil man but a great motivator. Those that failed him faced a certain end. Of course I am not advocating the same, but you get my point.

    The problem with the Public Sector is that when it fails, it just carries on. There is no risk. What drives people in the Private Sector is reward. But there is also risk. Risk and Reward are great motivators but, when you separate one or the other you get the mess we sometimes see.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2021

      Not their money, so they care not what the cost is nor what value (if any) gets delivered in return. The only people who have any interest in ensuring value for money are elected MPs and Ministers (before elections perhaps). But they almost always fail to even try to ensure value for money. May government departments actually deliver net negative value.

      1. Alan Jutson
        May 6, 2021

        +1

    2. Narrow Shoulders
      May 6, 2021

      No payoffs – nothing (ROFL)

    3. jerry
      May 6, 2021

      @Mark B; “Do what we do in the Private Sector when a department fails or a project overspends – Sack the person(s) in charge. No pay offs, nothing. The complete loss of everything.”

      Yo really are quite naive, if only that is what did happen in the Private Sector!
      How many Directors are ever dealt with like that, very few (unless criminality is involved). What usually happens is some luck-less underline is found, the lower their status the better, they become the “Fall Guy” for the failings of higher and the highest oversight, and even when a Director is forced out they are all to often given the chance to ‘resign’, if forced out by a shareholders revolt they all to often do get a pay-off (due to contractual reasons), thus allowing them to seek re-employment at the same (or higher) level…

      It is a myth that the Private Sector handles things any better, at least at the higher levels of management and in the boardroom, even within smaller companies, it’s all about the string pullers protecting their own…

      1. Cliff. Wokingham
        May 6, 2021

        Jerry
        Are you able to give us any examples to illustrate your point. Thank you in anticipation.

        1. jerry
          May 6, 2021

          @Cliff. Wokingham; You know full well, naming names on this site will likely cause our host moderation issues, and anything away from the media spotlight is unprovable in any case – but yes there are names that have been in the (recent) media spotlight who could be named, whilst in the past, I witnessed two lorry drivers be dismissed for serious operational/regulatory errors made by a transport manager who was being protected by the company owner – coincidently, and no surprise, this was also a none unionised company, ho-hmm.

    4. turboterrier
      May 6, 2021

      DOM
      +1
      Too many can’t see or believe what’s happening because they don’t want to.
      Ignorance is bliss or is it?

      Mark B
      Correct. Nothing focuses the minds of the workforce so much as seeing or hearing about directors being stopped at the entrance, surrender their company car, mobile telephone and laptop, to be presented with a tea chest covered in cling film with their personal belongings from their office,
      not even allowed a phone call to ring the
      wife to come and get collect them. The price of failure is severe, but everybody gets the message. Success equals rewards. Failure is not acceptable or tolerated. Brilliant company to work for in every respect in terms, conditions and bonuses.

    5. Andy
      May 6, 2021

      The problem is that the risk / reward equation looks very different in the public sector when taxpayers money is at stake.

      Let me give you an example. A private sector worker on a salary of £200,000 leads a project which generates £1,000,000 in profits and £1,000,000 in savings. The worker gets a £100,000 bonus, a pat on the back and the thanks of shareholders.

      A headteacher on a salary of £200,000 transforms a bad school into a good one, massively transforming the life chances of its students. The head saves the taxpayer £1,000,000 by stopping problem children from becoming problem adults. And the effort also ultimately generates £1,000,000 extra for the state because the children leave school as productive taxpaying adults.

      The headteacher doesn’t get a £100,000 bonus and a pat on the back. She gets vilified by the Tory press for earning more than the prime minister.

      The modern day Conservative Party appears to me to struggle with the difference between cost and value. Sometimes expensive things are worth it – even when they are funded by the taxpayer.

      Tesco is our largest private employers – more than 400,000 workers. Last year its boss received a £6.4m salary and a £2m bonus.

      Our largest employer is the NHS – around 2m workers overall. Its chief executive was paid £195,000. One of them has it wrong – and it isn’t Tesco.

      1. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        The highest paid hospital consultant earned £511,000 and there are a good few more on these rates.
        There are 50,137 NHS staff on £100,000 or more
        1757 earned more than £200,000
        203 earned more than £300,000
        60 earned more than £400,000
        8 earned more than £500,000
        5 Dentists averaged £675,000 each

        1. jerry
          May 7, 2021

          @Peter2; Not sure what you are trying to suggest, even more so if your comment was intended to refute Andy’s point about NHS pay scales compared to the private sector.

          How many of those on the pay scales you cite are front-line workers, how many are back-office, and then how many people work within the NHS but are not directly employed by the NHS. Your figures above are pretty meaningless as they stand, given the total numbers, directly or indirectly, employed within the NHS.

          1. Peter2
            May 7, 2021

            Sorry you didn’t get my point Jerry.
            Andy said the Chief Executive of the NHS got £195,000 a year.
            I showed he was wrong and that the NHS pays bigger salaries than that to thousands of its top level staff.
            If you want an answer to all your questions I suggest you trawl the internet for a few hours and satisfy yourself.

        2. Lifelogic
          May 7, 2021

          Well one very senior Prof. & general surgeon I know earned £140k for a full time NHS job (about five years back) but did earn about £300k on top, from private practice (though he did work almost every hour God sent. He was then head hunted for a job overseas that payed about £400k without having to do any private work and without losing so much (circa 50% in the UK) in taxes. Plus avoiding the 40% UK Inheritance tax issues later down the line. So the UK lost loads of tax income and the NHS, UK and private patients lost an excellent surgeon.

          1. jerry
            May 7, 2021

            @LL; “though he did work almost every hour God sent”

            Nothing to boast about there, that is how errors and misdiagnoses happen…

    6. a-tracy
      May 6, 2021

      MarkB you saved me typing the same message. It is up to Sunak, and we all rely on him, to hold these department heads responsible. If Managers overspent in their department and come back with a begging bowl for more before the year was out, their card would be marked, and if I felt they were at fault (they’d get a disciplinary meeting). I would go over their following year’s budget with a fine-tooth comb regardless and make them report monthly to me until I was reassured of their competence.

  3. DOM
    May 6, 2021

    Recent articles by Mr Redwood are his most enlightening and honest to date. An appreciation of the ever increasing authoritarian nature of the British State is vital in trying to understand why your vote at a GE has become almost meaningless.

    Labour’s Client State politics aims to circumvent the voter’s influence and limit the uncertainty engendered by democracy. By creating a political system whose instinct is more spending and more State control at all costs the threat from the people is minimised.

    Departments of State have today become highly political in nature working directly with pressure groups and lobbyists to pump out their Socialist, regressive agenda

    Without opposition to this authoritarian, Anti-Democratic political machinery the voter and the abused taxpayer become financiers of their own diminution.

    Both main parties are complicit in this deceit and until we get a party or a Tory leader who confronts it then I predict the UK’s descent into the authoritarian mire will continue until the State becomes all powerful and we the voter neutered

    Democracy has been captured by political extremists. And yes, they are extremists.

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      May 6, 2021

      +1

      The Political Correction and indoctrination has already started (the stuff we thought was confined to the looney Left of Haringey) – it’s only a matter of time before the camps are created.

    2. J Bush
      May 6, 2021

      +1
      I agree, they are extremists. Evidenced by ‘we will tell you when you can hug a relative’.

    3. jerry
      May 6, 2021

      @DOM; “An appreciation of the ever increasing authoritarian nature of the British State is vital in trying to understand why your vote at a GE has become almost meaningless. Labour’s Client State politics aims to circumvent the voter’s influence and limit the uncertainty engendered by democracy. “

      Except the facts point to the problem being one of a Right-wing ‘Client State’, not the left-wing, out of the last 70 years this country has been governed by the right-wing for around 46 years, 33 years of that with the “Market Economy” being to the fore.

      “Without opposition to this authoritarian, Anti-Democratic political machinery the voter and the abused taxpayer become financiers of their own diminution. “

      That I agree with, and is probably why this country should perhaps have had a 5 year (or less) term of govt lead by someone like Mr Corbyn [1], to break the now very institutionalised problems you cite, but he was defeated by vestige interests from within his own party in 2019, people attempting to out Tory the Tory party in effect.

      [1] or Kinnock in the early 1990s

    4. turboterrier
      May 6, 2021

      DOM
      +1
      Too many can’t see or believe what’s happening because they don’t want to.
      Ignorance is bliss or is it?

    5. Jim Whitehead
      May 6, 2021

      DOM +1

    6. a-tracy
      May 6, 2021

      Dom, “Biden has suggested more than once that future generations will analyze this era and judge whether autocracy or democracy was more successful.” source: interview with Hilary Clinton, Guardian.
      Clinton goes on to say “the separation of the UK from Europe, I hope, doesn’t lead to a weakening of the commitment to democracy and the strength of standing up against both internal and external threats”.
      “a weakening of the commitment to democracy” where? by the EU? Surely a referendum is an ultimate vote of democracy a vote by the people. When she says the strength – it was Blairs UK to give the USA UK military strength, not the EU?

    7. DavidJ
      May 6, 2021

      +1

    8. Mitchel
      May 6, 2021

      Reading Sir John’s analysis and putative remedies over the past few days,I am reminded (in terms of the likely response from the Establishment) of Antoly Lunacharsky’s*thoughts on the tsarist intelligentsia that remained after the Revolution:-

      “The intelligentsia are waiting for an invitation from Soviet Power for the most valuable elements of the aristocracy of the mind to enter the highest organs of government….But they must not be surprised if the Revolution which has to defend itself against it’s enemies meticulously and ruthlessly,has also produced organs that look on such things from a completely different point of view.”

      *Bolshevik Commissar for Enlightenment (from “The Intelligentsia & it’s role in Soviet Construction”,Revolutsiia i Kultura,15/11/1927).

      (I love that expression “aristocracy of the mind”!)

      1. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2021

        +1

    9. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2021

      +1

  4. agricola
    May 6, 2021

    Sounds like a strange way to run a government, credible though it might be. It seems that ministries live and operate in their own isolated world with little responsibility for the financial state of the country as a whole, and are prepared to cheat to retain their spending power.
    The Treasury are the only body who should know how much money they have, how much is coming in via taxation, how much they can safely create. I assume they pass this info to the PM.
    Ministers and their political staff have control of the civil service ministry. They should exert that control and reign in the abuses and any accounting slights of hand. I suspect that the very worst abuses occur in the devolved governments, particularly that one North of the Border. They would seem to have lost all sense of responsibility for those they govern in blinkered pursuit of an independance that is financially irresponsible.
    Whatever is going on I would contend that government tries to do too much. That the people would benefit from a great reversal and taking responsibility for all those aspects of life they dealt with on a personal level themselves in the past. It would produce a more robust individual. Government should confine itself to Defence, Health, and Education. The control of the Somerset Levels was a creation of the people of Somerset eons ago. If they had not had the power of local control removed and replaced by a body with a different agenda, the disaster that happened might not have happened. The people affected had had personal responsibility removed. That is just one illustration, the cumulative effect of the removal of personal responsibility across peoples lives in the name of improving said lives has largely failed. Put another way, government at all levels should get off peoples backs, it is unhealthy.

    1. J Bush
      May 6, 2021

      +1
      Government should confine itself to its main purpose, which is the Defence of the Realm, which it dismally fails to do, with catastrophic results, evidenced daily. Instead, it focuses its attention on trying to control every aspect of our private lives!

    2. DavidJ
      May 6, 2021

      +1

  5. Everhopeful
    May 6, 2021

    Which department was responsible for chucking helicopter money at the joyfully imprisoned furloughed workers? Hot off the press.
    No doubt the only reason we are getting elections today is to give Johnson a mandate for further sheep sticking, herding and penning.
    If only there were some vote worthy opposition. If only the bleating ones had not allowed the annihilation of all but two identical parties.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2021

      Meanwhile all cause deaths is running well below the 5 year average now. The annual death toll (from say July 1st 2020 to June 30th 2021) after age and population adjustment looks like it will be no more than about 2% above the five year average (this barring some unexpected huge surge in the next few weeks). So it is entirely in the normal range – and this with much of the NHS actually shut for the period.

      So why on earth are we still locked down exactly?

      1. J Bush
        May 6, 2021

        +1
        Agreed. After a year or extreme control freakery, the annual death toll evidences this was, and still is, about desperate despotic mania to control of every aspects of our lives.

      2. Hope
        May 6, 2021

        Because Johnson and his govt. are incapable of saying sorry we fu..ed up. So the hole needs to be dug deeper to convince the public his actions were necessary. While most sane people wonder why their MPs went along with, including the host to this site. JR advocated at the beginning to open up quickly.

        Today in con woman an article explains the growing scientific opinion confirming lockdowns do not work as first thought, and plans written based on that premise were correct. China must be laughing its socks off as its economy soars again. Keep buying from it and keep giving it aid and while you are at it allow it to build cheap energy sources to boost its manufacturing while in contrast the west move to insane green crap which gives more jobs to….China!

      3. a-tracy
        May 6, 2021

        Lifelogic, I believe people are still locked down because more than half the population in the UK wants to be. When the public hold politicians responsible for every day in every week they delayed lockdown last year or every week they open up lockdown early, or allowing people to go into restaurants then we reap what we sow. We were told teachers were going to die if they went back into the classroom just before opening up recently.

      4. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2021

        Agree absolutely.
        They bought cooperation with all this with their rotten furlough 30 pieces.
        Have they been bought and have to obey? More and more lockdowns?
        Destroying our nation at the behest of a foreign creditor/industrial competitor?
        Or are they trying to scrabble back from the financial crash they engineered in 2008?
        Hope’s theory is pretty good…they are VERY childish.

        Didn’t Obama try lockdowns for some reason?

    2. SM
      May 6, 2021

      Everhopeful: there is nothing stopping you or anyone else from creating another political Party that you believe (hope) will be closer to your opinions and be more honest and effective in Government.

      You will of course need to have boundless personal energy/a sense of commitment/financial backing; you will also need the personality to attract others to help you for little or no reward, and it would certainly help if you had the character to withstand constant criticism, usually expressed in a deeply insulting fashion, and 24/7 intrusion into your private life and your past.

      ps. May I also recommend looking at the ongoing political crisis in Israel, which has 14 political Parties in a population of less than 10 million.

      1. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2021

        The establishment, which is in no way democratic, infiltrates and destroys new political movements/parties.
        It also sets some up as fake opposition.
        I have no illusions about politics or politicians.
        I just wish things were different…and you know what they say about wishes…

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      May 6, 2021

      I’m spoiling my paper today.

      The worst government and PM in British history and the people are voting for it ???

      (I read today that there is incontrovertible proof that the vaccines are responsible for the lowering of CV-19 but BJ persists keeping his boot on our throats.)

      1. Everhopeful
        May 6, 2021

        We are falling further and further down the rabbit hole.
        Now that IS incontrovertible.

    4. Andy
      May 6, 2021

      Furloughed workers – people ordered not to work and to stay at home by the government – received a maximum of 80% of their salaries. Many received much less. Some got nothing.

      Pensioners – ordered to stay at home when they’d mostly be at home anyway – continued to receive 100% of their pensions.

      1. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        Well they would young Andy.
        They spent the previous 30 odd years paying into the National Insurance scheme every week.

      2. Martyn G
        May 6, 2021

        The basic full OAP pension is £137 and a few pence a week. You might like trying surviving on that and live life to the full. And keep up with your energy and other bills based on that income. Hardly as you so often describe, pensioners living a jolly life if that is all they have to rely on.

      3. a-tracy
        May 7, 2021

        Andy from July 2020, the government introduced ‘flexible furlough’ so that furloughed workers could get top-up income, prior to this furloughed workers depending on their contracts could take on work with another employer as long as it was not connected to their usual employer’s company in any way.

  6. Lifelogic
    May 6, 2021

    “The Treasury is usually weak at spending control” – indeed it is. But if you have a tax borrow and piss down the drain Chancellor like Sunak what hope it there? The man actually thinks HS2, the net zero carbon lunacy, renewable energy subsidies, testing millions of health people for no reason and even taxing some people (wasting much of it in collection admin and distributions costs) then using it to buy 50% of other people restaurant meals is a sensible use of tax payers money.

    I see that the proportion of cars sold that are all electric has fallen by about 20% to circa 6% as people catch on to the reality of their problems, expense, charging issues, range and general impracticality . Grant Shapps said in response “it’s clear the shift to green motoring is accelerating” Shapps mate that is not just decelerating it is going backwards! Oh and they are not green, save little (or often negative) CO2 and are not zero emission either – get real and do some sums!

    1. Lifelogic
      May 6, 2021

      Plus most people in cities (the place where they can occasionally make a little sense) do not have anywhere to park then or charge them.

    2. Everhopeful
      May 6, 2021

      +1
      Just had a look at the Treasury website.
      Debt forgiveness, grants to hospitality…all manner of splashing the cash.
      Treasury not being mean today. Profligate with the funny money rather.
      Shame the government purposely caused all this.

    3. dixie
      May 6, 2021

      Where do you get your data from! Readily available data for 2021 Q1 from the SMMT registrations has;

      fuel: YTD’21 :% change: mkt share 21: mkt share 20
      —————————————-
      Diesel 11,000 -62% 12% 19%
      Petrol 45,000 -50% 50% 61%
      BEV 6,260 54% 7% 2.7%

      (PHEV 6,000 28% 7% 3.2%)
      (HEV 6,221 -24% 7.6% 6%)

      So BEV share is 7% not 6% and it has risen by 54% against ICE falling by 50 – 62% in a market whichfell by 39.5% overall. So EVs are bucking the trend and it is the ICE ranges which are crashing.

      You damage your own case by cooking up false data – just like the AGW “scientists” did with their hokey stick scam.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 6, 2021

        April figure 6.5% compared with previous three months average 7.5% (pure electric that is as a % of overall car sales figs) from the same SMMT trade body. Reported in the Times today. Not made up at all no cooking up data required.

        I agree with you fully on the Climate Alarmist hockey stick.

        1. Jim Whitehead
          May 6, 2021

          LL. +1

        2. dixie
          May 7, 2021

          From the SMMT year to year charts registrations halved across the board and April appears an atypical month.
          For example, I could point out that a major trade show (Shanghai) in April and earlier availability of next generation EVs in Q3-4 rather than 2022 announced in March-April would likely effect buying decisions. This has caused me to change my timing but I wouldn’t pretend to know why other people buy what, when and how they do.
          My point is that you invent and project reasons without any proof at all and are very choosy in your data, hardly an objective “scientific” analysis.

    4. Suzette Burtenshaw
      May 6, 2021

      Well said, LL.

    5. DavidJ
      May 6, 2021

      +1

  7. Sakara Gold
    May 6, 2021

    “It comes from the proposition that new initiatives or demands need new money to pay for them”

    Exactly. So that must be how we decided to waste £35 billion with more in reserve on Hancock’s Test and Trace, instead of buying the Army new main battle tanks. Or making the RAF scrap 25 air defence Typhoons, our entire C130 Hercules fleet and 81 Hawk trainer aircraft. Or making the RN scrap two more antisubmarine escort frigates and our minehunters. Just when Boris “pile the bodies high” Johnson has got us involved in a war with France, one of our oldest allies.

    But it’s OK, the MoD’s budget gets to rise by £16 billion over four years. So as usual, our military costs the taxpayer more, for less kit. Brilliant.

    1. J Bush
      May 6, 2021

      +1

      The governments first duty is defence of the realm, not to gather data on everything we do, where we go and who we meet etc.

      1. MiC
        May 6, 2021

        I’d say that equally it must do all that it reasonably can to make it a realm worth defending.

        I think that it is failing miserably at the latter.

      2. nota#
        May 6, 2021

        @J Bush – Agreed.

    2. turboterrier
      May 6, 2021

      Samara Gold

      One of our oldest allies.

      Whatever your on stop it immediately.
      You are having a laugh.
      The French turn us over at every opportunity they get. What further proof do you need that the UK should have said thanks but no thanks to the so called deal. But it is the price we have inflicted upon us due to a lousy leadership and his ministers.

      1. MiC
        May 7, 2021

        As a friend said recently:

        I liked the story about Chris Le Masurier, who runs a Jersey Oyster business, and who said that the terms imposed on the French fishermen were insulting and discriminatory. He took his own boat to the protest, saying that the Jersey government had behaved disgracefully, and that the actions were about protecting people’s historic rights, livelihoods and friendships, which have been forged over years.

        Well done and well said that man. He is clearly made of different stuff from the English Tories.

        This is what your nasty little brexit means.

        1. Peter2
          May 7, 2021

          There is always one.

    3. Andy
      May 6, 2021

      One thing this government does well is deception.

      The vaccine rollout – run by the NHS and not the government – is a success. The government is taking credit even though the NHS is responsible. The scheme does not have NHS in its name.

      Test and trace – run by the government and not the NHS – is a failure. The NHS is taking the blame even though it is run by the government. It has been named NHS test and trace despite the fact that the NHS doesn’t run it.

      1. Martyn G
        May 6, 2021

        The reason that the vaccines became available was because the government took a huge risk and put the right person in charge to accelerate the programme. Without that, the NHS would have been stuck without the means to administer the vaccines. That was not deception but firm action on the part of government.
        Test and trace, so far as I can see, has been an expensive and unmitigated disaster from the start, possibly because of the closed mindset of those involved with decisions refusing the help of outsiders who knew what they were doing.

      2. Margaret Brandreth-
        May 6, 2021

        And so you should be shouted at. If you also look at the other side of the equation you will see that in the main pensioners put far more in during a lifetime of contributions , both in tax and NI, than they take out in a pension, whereas the younger end who will get the small pension at retirement have relatively put little in.It is not about what one takes out Andy ,it is about what one puts in and again it is the reason why John argues for the richer people contributing rather than what they themselves have.

      3. Peter2
        May 7, 2021

        The government paid for it not the NHS

    4. beresford
      May 6, 2021

      France, one of our oldest allies? We’ve been fighting the French for most of our history. This problem comes from the EU wanting to have their cake and eat it, saying that we can no longer have any of the ‘benefits’ of membership whilst retaining anything which benefits them.

      1. Martyn G
        May 6, 2021

        I find it sad and ironic that, as VE days approaches that we, having spent awesome amounts of blood and treasure to rescue them from Nazi servitude in WWII, find the French blockading Jersey ports. Amusing that the French have declared they are willing to make it another Trafalgar, having seemingly forgotten that they lost that battle quite comprehensively.

    5. Mitchel
      May 6, 2021

      The plan to build the “largest navy in Europe” is also a nonsense as the age of sea power is being surpassed by a return to the age of landpower-effectively going back to the time before the Portuguese discovered the spice route around India and the “discovery” of America.The Sino-Russian alliance (in all but name)is bringing the old overland transEurasian routes back into use in a very modern way(together with the Arctic sea route which the Russians control – as they do the “Siberian Overflight” air corridor).

      If you wandered what the fuss was “really” about re Xinjiang-it is the historic trade/invasion route into/out of China through Central Asia to Russia and Europe.They plan to build a highspeed rail line for goods there.The western alliance doesn’t really care about the Uighurs,any more than they do the Yemenis.

    6. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @Sakara Gold – Agreed +1

    7. Mark
      May 6, 2021

      I gather they want the RAF to go zero carbon by 2040. Wind up the elastic bands to drive the propellers on the balsawood models, and say goodbye to defence of the realm.

  8. oldtimer
    May 6, 2021

    It is unclear to me how the current out of control spending mess will or can be resolved. There is no political mileage for anyone who tries to do so – they will be shouted down. Perhaps it will need the collapse of government finances based on the complete failure of it’s fatally flawed green agenda to get the reform needed. But even when that happens who is there to step forward to clean up the mess?

    1. Andy
      May 6, 2021

      As I have said repeatedly you can’t tackle government spending without tackling the unsustainable cost of pensioners. Close to half of all spending goes on pensions, social care for the elderly and the healthcare needs of the old.

      I get shouted down when I point out this awkward truth because none of you like hearing that you are, in fact, the problem.

      1. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        Pensions accrue from decades of work where ordinary people pay National Insurance payments each week.
        You claim to be a business owner and employer yet you do not seem to realise this very basic fact

        1. J Bush
          May 6, 2021

          Andy, has admitted to being a young person in his late teens/early 20’s, a successful businessman in his 30’s who regularly goes to meet his customers in mainland Europe and also a businessman in his 50’s. You have to admit this is pretty impressive to be all of this in the space of a year!

      2. jon livesey
        May 6, 2021

        Jeepers, are you twelve years old? That “half of all spending” doesn’t get thrown into the sea. It goes back into the economy in the form of the direct spending of retired people, wages for people in the NHS and carers, medical devices and services, salaries for doctors and on and on.

        You have this adolescent view of “spending” as some sort of waste. It isn’t. Spending *is* the economy. What is spent on the elderly eventually comes back to you and me in the form of economic activity. Spending is not a zero-sum game.

        1. MiC
          May 7, 2021

          Ooh!

          So why isn’t that also the case for the salaries of public sector employees then?

          I agree with you, but what about these other types of public spending?

          1. Peter2
            May 7, 2021

            The difference is MiC that pensions are accrued through decades of weekly NI contributions.

  9. Lifelogic
    May 6, 2021

    Allister Heath is good today:-
    Labour faces extinction if Boris can retain his hold on the English centre
    Keir Starmer’s woke base won’t let him repeat Tony Blair’s trick of shifting Right on cultural issues – thought the Tories are almost as woke and full of socialism and green crap as Labour.

    Also about the need to sort out that absurd bloated university system delivering mainly worthless degrees, in largely worthless subjects and large debts plus interest to our youth (if they can just get one or two Es at A level or similar).

    1. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @LL, and were is a Conservative Government in all this – Oh we don’t have one! Still we could wish Tony Blair a happy Birthday(today) and remind him how he added to the destruction of the UK

    2. No Longer Anonymous
      May 6, 2021

      We’ve had the Tories in office for well over ten years now and this country has never been so woke !!!

      Why blame woke on Labour ???

      1. nota#
        May 6, 2021

        @No Longer Anonymous – you seem to be suggesting that the successive left wing activists that have resided in Downing Street over the last generation or more a have something to do with the Conservatives. MT was the last Conservative the UK saw.

    3. Andy
      May 6, 2021

      Labour’s long term future is much brighter than the Conservatives. Whilst your alliance with the Faragist has had some short term benefits – particularly in the north – it will have a much longer term cost in the south and in cities.

      The people you’ve all been rude about for years – snowflake, woke, liberal metropolitan elite or whatever abusive term is in use this week – make up a significant majority of under 50s. As Conservatives and Faragists die out you really won’t have people to replace them.

      And, no. This is not how it has always been. People may get more small c conservative as they get older but they won’t vote Conservative. Your party is facing an existential threat and you do not realise. And, no. As I repeatedly tell you all. I am not a Labour voter.

      1. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        That isn’t what polling repeatedly shows.
        Ambitious younger working class people are aspirational.
        They are not as loyal to voting Labour as you think.
        They act like customers looking for the party offering the best for them and they look at their track record.
        Their previous generations may have loyally voted Labour but that trend is dying.

      2. jon livesey
        May 6, 2021

        That’s the most idiotic thing yet today. People are not born with permanent labels. As they grow up – well some of them – their ideas mature and change. Voters who gave Attlee a big majority eventually gave up on Labour and elected Thatcher.

        The notion that there is a permanent “lump” of Labour and Conservative voters who can “die out” is about the most basic misunderstanding of democracy that it is possible to have.

        Remember the stoned teens who sang songs to Corbyn? Where are they now?

      3. Fedupsoutherner
        May 6, 2021

        Andy, you are an expert on the subject of being rude so we can all learn from the master.

    4. MiC
      May 6, 2021

      Today’s Tories have mopped up what use to be the BNP vote, but the more moderate, now ex-Tories probably stay at home.

      In other words they and their media have changed the type of people who don’t vote.

      Yes, the ex-BNP voters are mainly working class, but they would never ever have voted Labour anyway, so it does no harm to describe them as they are.

      It’s not “insulting the electorate”, but simply telling the truth.

      1. jon livesey
        May 6, 2021

        MiC. Every time you make a completely counter-factual claim with no evidence, or you grossly over-generalize about the voters, you call it “common sense”.

        Has it never occurred to you that this is what the BNP canvasser on the doorstep does, too? Makes wild claims and then calls it “common sense”?

      2. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        The BNP vote was a tiny percentage of thevtotal vote.
        “Mopping it up” would get them nowhere.
        But thanks for the cliché slur MiC
        PS
        Seen the latest polls ?

        1. MiC
          May 7, 2021

          Yes, lemmings voting for higher cliffs and for sharper, harder rocks.

          They’ll get them too.

          1. Peter2
            May 7, 2021

            Keep insulting the voters MiC
            It will help keep Labour in opposition for many more years.

      3. Mark
        May 6, 2021

        The BNP vote was only ever very tiny. Hardly enough to damp your mop.

  10. Alan Jutson
    May 6, 2021

    The simple fact with all Government and Local Authority departments is that there is no reward for spending correctly and efficiently, and no penalties for wasting money.

    Whilst they have the power to simply remove money from the population lawfully, at will, and for any reason, simply gives them a feeling that they are untouchable, and can simply do as they please.

    1. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @Alan Jutson – you give them to much credit. You cant really suggest the knowingly think things through and think of their customers before themselves and the next election

  11. Bryan Harris
    May 6, 2021

    This comes down to a lack of consistency – Every New PM will require something different – ensuring that goals vary from year to year. It’s part of the way our political system operates, and far from an optimum state.
    If the Treasury was provided with rules that could not be broken they just might be able to keep the budget under better control.
    Some form of continuity, as opposed to a constantly moving agenda is something our economy would really benefit from.

    As part of the re-definition of how our political system should work we need to define policies that will last. Not just guidelines, but solid instructions to taper the extremes of political parties to operate within known boundaries that have found to be optimum.
    Otherwise we stick with this flip flop system, that we have, that wastes far more than it achieves as we move from one authoritarian political ideology to an opposing one.

  12. nota#
    May 6, 2021

    You highlight the problem of the Socialist State we live in. They know what’s best and want everything in their image of one size fits all. The problem with that concept is the Government will never have enough money to feed all those false hopes and promises.

    In the mean time they starve the people of their own money and play Oliver Twist and want more.

    Every time people are left more of their own money they go on to make a difference for all.

    Governments time and time again demonstrate they are good at wasting money but never good at returning value on investments.

    We are over Governed, to much rule to suit the WOKE and Cancel Culture and not enough attention to releasing the people from the burden on a leftish State. If they(the Government) just paid a small bit of attention to ensuring they release the people to thrive instead of pandering the MsM and the entitled millenniums we would be living in a great, free and thriving society. It is simple one school of narrow minded thinking doesn’t fit all.

  13. Qubus
    May 6, 2021

    A propos the French action against Jersey:
    Why don‘t we put a modular nuclear power–unit of the Rolls–Royce type on the Island?

    1. Alan Jutson
      May 6, 2021

      Amazing isn’t it the UK fishermen have been suffering limited access to markets because of paperwork for 4 months with hardly anything done about it, but when the French Fishermen are affected after only 4 days, action to resolve it is taken immediately.

      We need a greater resolve to sort these problems rapidly me thinks !

    2. MiC
      May 6, 2021

      Jersey isn’t part of the UK, and was never part of the European Union either.

      You might want to ask them if they’d like to be the subject of your proposed experiment?

    3. Mark
      May 6, 2021

      Nice idea, but a) it’s actually not available, b) it would be too big at 470MW compared with island demand that peaks at much less than half that, c) it is not well suited to handling the much lower levels of generation needed overnight and in summer time. You would need to be able to export the surpluses at a reasonable realisation – reversing the cables to France? Probably more sense would be small LNG based facilities like they have installed at Gibraltar. The difficulty is there is no deep water port for Jersey or Guernsey so you need an offshore buoy. A side benefit would be that gas could also be used for heating. But this would all take sensible thinking, not a net zero approach.

  14. nota#
    May 6, 2021

    In the meantime the French invade the Channel Islands simple because this Government failed to give the people independence from the EU.

    As the report notes we are encouraging more of these ambushes. Our energy supplies even on the UK mainland are predicated that we will need to rely on 25% of our future energy requirements to un-reliable neighbour. And what isn’t wind production in the UK comes from French owned power companies – hostages until we capitulate and admit the EU are our rulers.

    1. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      The Channel Islands have never been in the EU. As a consequence they had nothing to do with Brexit or any deal by the UK Government with the EU. They are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK as such they do not get seats in the UK Parliament – the UK Parliament and Government doesn’t represent them. So the Channel Islands being threatened by the all mighty EU Commission and France because they are not getting what they want is a bit misplaced, just playground bullies.

      1. MiC
        May 6, 2021

        It appears that this CI has breached the 200-year-old Treaty Of Granville Bay in the eyes of the French.

        1. jon livesey
          May 6, 2021

          In the past two hundred years, France has had two Empires, four Monarchies and five Republics, plus three lengthy periods of anarchy and no Government at all. Which of them is complaining, exactly?

          Which of the dazzling array of defunct French states, quasi-states, non-states and failed states claims to have this eternal agreement?

        2. Peter2
          May 6, 2021

          Gosh MiC
          We better just let their boats do what they want where they want.
          Presumably that is what you prefer.

  15. beresford
    May 6, 2021

    The situation in Jersey is a clear indication of the need for sovereign countries to be self-sufficient in key commodities such as food and energy, to protect against blackmail and blockade. Concreting over farmland in order to house a surging population of immigrants while arguing that ‘we can buy it cheaper from overseas’ is manifest folly.

    1. Alan Jutson
      May 6, 2021

      +1

    2. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @beresford,
      +1

    3. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @beresford, I agree but we now find out that for this Government to make it low Carbon Future it has agreed to short the UK and import 25% of all its energy requirements. You could say they are just exporting the CO2 production elsewhere to get us off the hook – as we now see with neighbors like ours that is a Big Risk

    4. Mark
      May 6, 2021

      Being self sufficient is probably not possible. However, where that is the case the plans should entail ensuring diverse competing supply, and a healthy export economy so we have the ability to trade into what we need. Shutting industry and relying on imports is the worst of all possible worlds.

  16. Roy Grainger
    May 6, 2021

    Luckily at the moment the Treasury is entirely aligned with the rest of government, none of them want to cut spending and they all want to put up taxes instead.

  17. agricola
    May 6, 2021

    Back to reality, Jersey is under siege and threat of loosing its french electricity supply.
    Solution, short term, send one of our two aircraft carriers that probably has an electrical generating capacity greater than Jersey’s needs. Longer term ask Rolks Royce to pioneer their small unit atomic power generator in the island and end dependence on french supply which has become a political weapon.
    Lesson for Germany re dependence on Russia as a main power source. Lesson for the UK, be power self reliant and do not depend on a single source ie electricity.
    I suspect that the french are trying to increase the numbers of their fishing boats in Jersey waters and the government of Jersey is not buying into it.

    1. Mark
      May 6, 2021

      An oil products tanker (the Sarnia Liberty) offloaded at La Collette today. I imagine the power station is now well stocked to cover until further supply could be provided. More of a problem may be that one of the ro-ro ferries that does the route to Portsmouth has been taken out of service with engine trouble – actually it seems they can’t stop or slow the engines and it is steaming up and down in Jersey waters.

  18. Richard1
    May 6, 2021

    The situation in Jersey is most absurd. The extraordinary threats of the French govt to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply, presumably at great risk to the population, reminds us of a few things. 1) that we need urgently to ensure the U.K. is not dependent on interconnectors from France (its impossible to imagine any other European country behaving in such a way). 2) that Germany is most unwise to place itself in a position of reliance on Russia, the one other country in this part of the world which might behave like France. And 3) that unfortunate as this is we really don’t want to be in a political union with France!

    1. MiC
      May 6, 2021

      Yes, the consequences of your silly brexit are exactly as grotesque as you were patiently and repeatedly warned they would be.

      Generations of amiable co-existence between Les Îles Anglo-Normandes, with both British and French are at an end in weeks.

      Not just Gibraltar, is it?

      Well done.

      1. jon livesey
        May 6, 2021

        MiC, you keep telling us that the EU is willing to break its own agreements, which they claimed to be entering into in good faith. We get that,

        Then you blame Brexit for the EU’s bad faith. That’s like blaming Banks for Bank robbers.

      2. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        The EU demands very correct paperwork in Northern Ireland to allow goods to pass.
        But expects unlicensed boats from France without correct paperwork to be allowed to enter foreign waters.
        I assume you side with France MiC

    2. Mark
      May 6, 2021

      The plans for GB were to build as much as 8.8GW of interconnectors from France. Given that there plans have since changed to replacing a significant portion of their previously fairly reliable nuclear generation with completely unreliable wind generation, which is likely to have a high correlation with GB wind output which we are planning to increasingly rely on, a review of the plans is long overdue. Matters will not be helped by other EU countries shutting down reliable generation capacity and trying to replace it with wind and solar.

      Chart of wind correlations between European countries

      https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tn541/1/

  19. formula57
    May 6, 2021

    That financial management in government is weak typically suits all parties (finance ministry, spending ministers, civil servants, quango operatives) too well to see any change surely?

    There is scant evidence of balance sheet management, allocations are often inflexible, budgets spent in order to protect claims on future budgets, concepts like zero-based budgeting eschewed.

    Who wants all the grief that arises from getting proper control? In any case, post the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, there is no shortage of funds as there is virtually no limit on how much can be borrowed from the central bank so why bother?

  20. William Long
    May 6, 2021

    A revealing post. It would be very interesting to know if there is anything, in your view, that the Treasury is good at? We know it is bad at forecasting, but is acccustomed to rely on those bad forecasts, it does not understand enough about the workings of taxation to realise that very often, lower marginal rates will result in higher inflows of tax revenue, it has proved incapable over many years of doing anything to reform the tax system and make it more efficient and understandable. We now hear that it is bad at monitoring and controlling the spending programmes it has agreed with Government departments.
    The only thing that it seems good at to me, is the speed with which it indoctrinates incoming Chancellors to its appallingly bureaucratic, inefficient, and negative ways of thinking.

  21. agricola
    May 6, 2021

    I now learn that Jersey has a backup power station, so cutting supplies is a hollow threat.

    1. acorn
      May 6, 2021

      How is a 79MW diesel fuelled power plant going to replace four interconnectors with a capacity of 350 MW?

      1. jon livesey
        May 6, 2021

        Capacity and daily usage are not the same thing. Next?

      2. Mark
        May 6, 2021

        Jersey has a 5.5MW black start diesel, 4×11.5MW diesels, 8MW from a waste plant, 76MW of gas turbines, and 45MW of steam turbines, according to Jersey Electricity Company. That’s 180.5MW, which will only be needed if at all in cold dark winter conditions at prime rush hour demand. Summer demand is much lower.

        The cables include import and onward supply to Guernsey, which also has its own backup generation, since the cable cannot be relied upon. The theoretical capacity available to Jersey is about 200MW, which allows for some growth in demand, since there would be no point in installing small additional cables at high cost. Jersey has previous experience of lengthy cable outage.

  22. bigneil - newer comp
    May 6, 2021

    Spending control??? – -What a laugh – a VERY sick one. Sunak has been throwing cash about like confetti – Of course HE will not be paying it back will he !!! EVERY govt project starts off at one price – and escalates and escalates. Also – Why is it that there is supposed to be limits on budgets – but the only one that does NOT seem to have ANY limit on is providing totally free lives for (seemingly evermore ) anyone turning up here illegally ??? Housing, NHS treatment, schooling – in fact EVERYTHING they use or consume – comes from OUR taxes.

    In plain English – Charity from our govt for anyone from anywhere starts in our pockets. You lot clearly HATE us with a vengeance.

  23. forthurst
    May 6, 2021

    The NHS paid out £8.3 billion in awards for medical negligence. in 2019/20. The majority of these related to
    maternity. Apart for the trauma experienced by parents, there is also the ongoing costs associated with
    children whose lives are permanently damaged.

    English male doctors are in a minority. Many doctors are female and foreign. Women rarely practice full time after the birth of their first child and many foreign doctors are unable to maintain the standards of conduct and professional competence expected in a first world country. It is therefore vital that our medical schools are capable of training all our own doctors and prioritise the recruitment of males.

    It goes without saying that £23 billion spent on a PPE graduate to oversee the NHS Test and Trace was not money well spent. PPE graduates are not qualified to do anything and are certainly not qualified for involvement in anything medical. The involvement of non-medically qualified staff in administrative roles is inappropriate for a properly managed health system. Germany understands this.

  24. MPC
    May 6, 2021

    What value for money have we had for our recent £23m payment to France for the cross channel migrant problem?

  25. lojolondon
    May 6, 2021

    The problem starts because unfortunately ALL governments pretend that they can “give” money to voters. So everyone who asks expects to receive. This is the view held and voiced by our broadcasters.

    The fact is that the government has no money – not a single penny. Until recently they could only spend what they took – by force – from taxpayers. Now, of course, every government in the world has learnt that they can set the interest rate to zero and print away… not sure how this is going to end, but it will never be good!!

  26. Denis Cooper
    May 6, 2021

    Off topic, I clicked on this new article:

    https://www.thejournal.ie/crime-groups-using-irish-common-travel-area-to-bypass-brexit-border-checks-5428752-May2021/

    and the first paragraph:

    “IRISH AND BRITISH police forces have begun to work together to target the illegal trade in fake documents as Ireland is being used as a backdoor into post-Brexit Britain.”

    set me wondering why Ireland and the UK can still work together to regulate the movement of people across the land border between their territories, without either side feeling compelled to erect a barbed wire fence with manned border posts and watchtowers, but apparently they cannot now work together to protect each others’ markets by regulating the movement of goods across that same border.

    But of course they could, if the EU was not determined to prevent that happening:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0505/1213988-barnier-book-brexit/

    “Mr Barnier writes that during a meeting with the then taoiseach and the former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in February 2019, he told Mr Varadkar: “We must be clear between us. Controls to protect the single market must be put in place somewhere. Either around the island, or on the interior of the island. Or on the continent, which has the risk of excluding Ireland from the single market, which we don’t want.””

    1. Alan Jutson
      May 6, 2021

      Not a surprise that this is happening Dennis, it happens all over the World where there are no borders, be it the smuggling of people, or goods, that is why politicians arguing that they can control it without a border of any sort is a farce.

    2. Heljut
      May 6, 2021

      Denis – What a dumbo you are- looks like you English have it all before you – Scotland for independrnce – and NI to shear off will leave only Britain – maybe minus Wakes – then you can build your own barbed wire fences with manned border posts and watch towers. Idiot

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 7, 2021

        ?

    3. jon livesey
      May 6, 2021

      One answer to your question is that smuggling goes in different directions for people and goods. Now that the UK has reduced its external tariffs 50% below EU levels, the EU becomes a high tariff area WRT the UK. It makes no sense to smuggle goods from a high tariff area to a low tariff area, so where goods are concerned the smuggling, if any, would be from the UK into the EU.

      With people, it’s the other way round. The jobs are in the UK. No-one is “escaping” from the UK to the EU; instead they are trying to get into the UK, sometimes illegally to find a job. So the two cases are just not the same.

      Also, there is the additional twist that the EU is going through a period of “trade theatre” in which it pretends to be very concerned about rogue scallops waddling into Ireland and France, but cares much less about Europe’s unemployed making it into the UK, for the UK taxpayer to take care of.

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 7, 2021

        But in both cases the Irish and British authorities could co-operate to protect each others’ interests.

        Which is part of what is being called “mutual enforcement”:

        https://centreforbrexitpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Correcting-the-Damage-Caused-by-the-Northern-Ireland-Protocol-5-Feb-21.pdf

        “Mutual Enforcement entails each side making a reciprocal legal commitment to enforce the rules of the
        other with respect (only) to trade across the border. Each side maintains autonomy – but commits to the
        enforcement of whatever rules the other seeks to impose in respect of goods crossing the border.”

  27. Mike Wilson
    May 6, 2021

    By the time I had read the comments, I had forgotten what today’s subject was.

    Ahh, the Treasury. All government departments should be incentivised to spend less each year – with a bonus for employees if this year’s budget is not spent in full.

    1. Peter2
      May 6, 2021

      Would you prefer it were the opposite MW?

  28. X-Tory
    May 6, 2021

    Surely this problem once again reflects a lack of ministerial ‘buy in’ to government policy and goals? After all, if ministers genuinely agreed with the need to cut spending then they would adopt this policy in their own fiefdoms.

    This got me wondering. When the PM appoints ministers, what discussions does he have with them first? Does he simply say: “Hi John, I like the cut of your jib. You seem to be a pretty good fellow, how’s about being a secretary of state?” Or does he set out his vision, goals, and other aspirations for the department and then ask if the MP is in full agreement before considering appointing him? I am genuinely perplexed about how the ministerial ‘sorting hat’ works.

    Furthermore, the PM has so many levers he can pull to nudge ministers on this issue. He can rank them in order of percentage spending reduction and sack the bottom three, for instance – ‘pour encourager les autres’, as it were! It all comes back to weakness by the prime minister. As I pointed out the other day, a poll in 2019 showed the majority of Britons want a leader who is a ‘strong man’. Boris is not he. Oh, if only you had won in 1995!

  29. agricola
    May 6, 2021

    I read that Biden is proposing that all the Pharma companies involved in Covid waiver their patents so that the vaccines can be made on a greater scale.
    All very christian and superficially laudable. Immediate result, all Pharma share prices take a dive, well done Biden.
    As I understand it the vaccines are a bit like a cake recipe, many ingredients from different sources. More dangerous, some of those ingredients have a finite world supply. Result vastly increased demand for them, and the price goes up. Second problem can you trust the medical integrity of those who would like a slice of the action. All in all a classic example of market and technical ignorance from a politician, happy to virtue signal, but by doing so risking screwing up the delivery of vaccines. An intelligent person would facilitate the rapid increase in ingredient and final product capacity. Then you know what the third world is getting is a first class product. The real minus is quality of political experience and judgement even af presidential level.

    1. acorn
      May 6, 2021

      Pharmaceutical companies are the ultimate monopoly. If they are; free market wise you understand, allowed to form a cartel like OPEC for instance, they could hold the planet to ransom, just like OPEC has done on several occasions. They could decide who lives and who dies. Possibly based on race, colour or creed. Is this what you intend?

      1. Peter2
        May 6, 2021

        There are a large number of pharmaceutical companies and an even larger number of research and development companies in the world.
        All competing internationally to invent products to improve the health of humans.
        If they are a monopoly or cartel where is the restrictions to entry into the market?
        Got any good ideas acorn?

      2. agricola
        May 6, 2021

        No and I doubt if the Pharma companies have that in mind either. Astra Zeneca have been selling at cost which in effect means at a loss to them. The only one in serious profit would appear to be Phizer.
        Playing the race card is insultingly dumb. I doubt anyone at the manufacturing end knows the colour of the arm their jab will go in. Why deny yourself 12% of the market in the UK for instance, and even greater elsewhere. It does not make marketing sense. Vaccination only works if everyone is vaccinated.

    2. nota#
      May 6, 2021

      @agricola – the main cost for Pharma is R&D, they chase a lot of dead ends, then there is always the next project. A lot of these Guys(and it goes with the territory) have lost billions because they still haven’t got passed go on Covid.
      AZ is a loss making company and even now it will loose big time compared to Pfizer

  30. glen cullen
    May 6, 2021

    I see Boris has given in to the French again

    Couldn’t the two RN ship be diverted to Dover to stop the illegal crossing from France

Comments are closed.