Levelling up is a good slogan and a worthy idea. The idea is not to press for equality by trying to drive the super rich out of the UK and by taxing the successful who remain more, but through greater opportunities to let more people succeed all round the country.
There are some who seem to see it as primarily a matter of providing more public money to the places that have been left behind. Where they need better public services or need to renovate the public estate that may be necessary, but it is not sufficient to level up. Levelling up is about the quality of life and the living standards of the many, not about the percentage gains in public money for the public sector minority.
There have been various government attempts in the past to institute regional and local policies by improving public buildings, putting in better arts facilities, expanding public sector offices to house more officials and tidying up pieces of land owned by a careful public sector owner. All of this can be helpful, but it does not generate the self sustaining jobs nor provide the private sector impetus needed to create a richer community where more people fulfil their personal ambitions.
Levelling up needs to be about hundreds of thousands of personal journeys, as people in places on below average incomes and with a shortfall of good employment come to generate the businesses and the jobs that can sustain more well paid employment. One of the things a town or area needs to level up is a wider range of housing, with more of the new executive housing investment so favoured in the higher income communities available in places with aspirations. More good new homes are needed both for those who already live in the area to move into as they get pr0omoted or build their own business. More good homes are need to attract in people on higher incomes or with successful businesses so they can enjoy the new local area and make various contributions to it.
May 25, 2021
It is easy to say all this but you do not indicate how all these wonderful new homes and job opportunities appear in âplaces that have been left behindâ.
I see more building( not necessarily what I would class as good quality)in the crowded south east but no reinvigoration elsewhere.
May 25, 2021
I agree but we also need to challenge the super rich Brits in this country to be proper PATRIOTS and pay their taxes in the UK.
Michael ‘O Leary pays all his taxes in Ireland. That’s a sign of a true patriot (and I bet the Irish government and how money is spent drives him more crazy than tax payers here in the UK but at end of day, he still pays his TAXES on his country and doesn’t ask for big special government hand outs to his airline unlike so many of the big airlines across Europe / UK.
There is greed / lack of patriotism in every level of society: the poor, the not so poor, the average, the rich, the super rich – from the working classes to the aristocracy.
May 25, 2021
Hmm. And why would he do that?
Could it be that the ROI tax regime is the lowest in Europe?
May 26, 2021
Income tax in Ireland same as in UK I believe.
May 27, 2021
Who says he takes a salary??
Dividend tax in ROI is 20% plus no NI.
I would suggest that is the route he takes, along with 12.5% corporation tax.
May 26, 2021
Well at 12.5% Ireland is perhaps the best place for him to pay. In the UK Sunak is, idiotically, putting the UKâs rate up to double this. This to encourage investment elsewhere and chase businesses overseas one assumes. Lots of other measure to do this in place too. Daft employment laws, restrictive planning, red tape everywhere, a mad expensive intermittent energy policy, freezes on allowances for CGT, income tax, IHT, pension pots …
May 26, 2021
As far as I believe O’ Leary has to pay 40% income tax. I want income tax to be down to 20% for rich nevertheless O’ Leary still doing patriotic thing and paying his income taxes in home country. And like a true entrepreneur in the spirit of adventure its the challenge not the money that ultimately lights his fire in business.
May 25, 2021
For some reason, I am put in mind of Peter Tinniswood excellent comedy writing in âI didnât know you caredâ. Set in Yorkshire, Carter Brandon is a âyoung executiveâ seemingly on the way up and about to move into a brand new house with his fiancĂ©e. His family – and his Uncle Mort in particular – are traditional Yorkshire folk.
May 25, 2021
+1
May 25, 2021
Good morning.
Leveling up means nothing more to me than a short of Soft-Socialist slogan. Hence why I am very suspicious of it.
The Private Sector creates wealth and the Public Sector consumes it. If you want more people to have a bigger slice of the pie you are going to have to increase the size of the Private Sector and reduce the Size of the Public Sector. Plus allow people to keep more of what they earn.
No need to for silly slogan or government benevolence.
May 25, 2021
“The Private Sector creates wealth and the Public Sector consumes it.” Largely correct and they create this wealth despite being strangled with red tape, forced to buy expensive energy and being hassled and overtaxed at every turn. Stop the government strangling (deterring or pushing overseas) the golden goose.
Ministers keep saying they want higher productivity, but over taxation, restrictive employment laws, OTT red tape for government is the main cause of this low productivity. Also a cause of low productivity is the state virtual monopoly NHS with 5 million awaiting procedures, unable to see a GP or waiting years in pain for dental care. A state virtual monopoly education system too with people taking on ÂŁ30K to ÂŁ150K of debt (plus 6% interest) for what are (more often than not) worthless degrees. These often in fairly commercially worthless subjects too. Make people fund their own hobbies by getting a job and doing day release or night school.
May 25, 2021
“silly slogans” Yes it was thought a silly slogan and a “fantastic ” algorithm
won vote leave. The plebs are not understood especially by the bald coot.
May 25, 2021
There are lazy / greedy fat cats in both private and public sector. We need public sector to a degree because some people aren’t emotionally strong enough to work in private sector and / or are mothers who want to preserve some of their energy for their children. Eradicate public sector and far, far more people will end up on dole and / or going to hospital with more serious mental and physical problems and more anti social behaviour – leading to tax payer paying more not less in future.
The thing is to make sure salaries in public sector aren’t excessive and to keep a big eye on spending.
The only way we can build up a strong economy is by educating / inspiring more young and others to take responsibity for their lives – and not depend on state – through Education, The Arts, Media, Church of England etc and to a degree Politics, and to greatly boost high tech sector to greatly improve skills, productivity and high quality exports.
Do it like this, and tax could shoot down to 20% in long run which is what I ultimately want of course along with a strong, diverse, highly skilled, highly productive private sector (and a well-controlled public sector that is not taking taking advantage of people but that works for mothers in work who want to keep some of their energy for their kids who need mothering and others who don’t have the emotional strength to work in private sector).
May 25, 2021
+1 Spot on Mark.
May 25, 2021
@MarkB – +1, oh so true
What ever happened to taking back control – giving back control
Less bureaucracy
Removing Red Tape
Reducing Big Government
Reducing the HoC, replacing the HoL.
Reducing taxes
What is Government Money?
What is Public Money?
I forgot, they were just they sound-bites to keep duping the People so as to get re-elected
May 25, 2021
Your claim is far too simplistic. The private sector can only create wealth if the right circumstances exist for it to do so.
This means a properly educated workforce – for which you need state run schools and universities. It needs a decent transport system for workers to get to and from work – or to transports goods around on. It needs a health system to ensure workers are looked after when they are sick. And a police force to ensure law and order is maintained.
The Conservative argument that the private sector is always good and the state sector is always bad is as silly as the Labour argument to the contrary.
May 25, 2021
We do not argue that the private sector is âalwaysâ good and the private sector bad but this is clearly largely true. Yes we need law and order and defence though it is clear the police have largely given up on most real crimes and our defence is very poorly run.
Health, education and transport however would be far better if the government left it to the private sector with vouchers for the few people who really could not pay. As it is they kill most private sector provision by being âfreeâ, heavily subsidised with soft loans.
May 25, 2021
+ 1
And there are none better than the SAS, SBS, SIS and the Royal Marines to prove it.
May 25, 2021
Only the Corporate tax rate in Ireland is at 12.5% other tax rates are particularly high compared to UK
May 25, 2021
Where does the public sector get the money to build all the infrastructure you list Andy?
May 25, 2021
But there is no Labour argument to the contrary Andy.
The party, even those Corbynites, have always endorsed a mixed economy.
The absolutists are all in the Tory party.
May 25, 2021
Nonsense MiC
The Conservatives have always supported a mixed economy.
Your propaganda slur doesn’t bear scrutiny.
May 25, 2021
Andy, you pointed out the other day we have had more conservative governments [Since 1922, 11 Coalition, 56 Conservative and 31 Labour]. So it follows that the Conservative Government doesn’t believe that ‘private sector is always good’ ‘state sector is always bad’ or they’d have done something about privatising the ‘state run schools’, the ‘state run universities’, ‘the health service’ and the ‘police and fire service’ wouldn’t they?
I feel the Labour government did more to privatise e.g. British Dentists. When the National Health Service was established in 1948 all prescriptions were free. The power to make a charge was introduced in the NHS Amendment Act 1949, and proposals for charges were a factor in the resignation of Aneurin Bevan from the Labour Government in 1951. Opticians initially they were free, but a ÂŁ1 charge was imposed in 1951 the last year of a six year Labour government – through the National Health Service Amendment Act of 1951 Gaitskell introduced a cap on NHS spending and charges for dental work and glasses.
The Conservatives in power from 1979 to 1997 improved the staying on rates for 16-year-olds to increase from 42% to 74% and the rate for 17-year-olds went from 27% to 58%. Participation in Higher Education went from 3.4% in 1950 to 8.4% in 1970, 19.3% in 1990 and 33% in 2000 (source National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (Dearing report) Report 6 widening participation in higher education.
May 26, 2021
@a-tracy – a thorough and illuminating summary. The trolls will ignore such facts as it doesn’t suite their narrative at all and they won’t stop lying, but I will find it a useful counter argument in future.
May 25, 2021
What neither the private sector nor the front line workers of the public sector need are the levels of bloated bureacracy and paperwork at the higher levels of the public sector. (I worked with one this century that still had a typing pool despite the fact that all letters were now generated by the individual departments using PCs and even the ladies there admitted they had no work to do.) Likewise it is rarely the beat police, the frontline nurses and doctors, or the carers who work in the luxurious multi-million pound office buildings that local councils are building for themselves.
If you follow the news, one notably bankrupted themselves creating such a building, with literally no one in the organisation held accountable and the taxpayer left to collect the bill. The result was massively higher business taxes, leading to a high street that was half empty even before Covid hit, a loss of jobs, and, surprising no one, a loss of tax revenue to pay the council’s huge bills.
May 26, 2021
but you don’t believe in state schools- you bang on about your kids in private schools and wanting a refund in taxes.
May 25, 2021
Isn’t that a somewhat simplistic view of the world? If a private sector employer wants to employ a capable employee, they will (generally) employ someone who, courtesy of a state education, can read and write etc. The national grid will deliver power to their offices. Their goods will be delivered on public roads etc.
It is, surely, a symbiotic relationship.
May 26, 2021
You’re right to a degree but not to focus too much on this argument. Real, high-productivity wealth will only be created when we see the government help the private sector to grow in the High Tech / Digital Sector + and that Conservatism educates / inspires people (in particular the young) far more to take responsibility for own lives. And this has to take place in Education, Arts, Media etc
May 25, 2021
Levelling up is just a a way of saying redistribution or regional policy. London and South East are the only tax exporting regions in the country, so it means taking money from places like …ooooo …Wokingham , let us say ,and giving it to politically useful seats like Hartlepool
Fortunately even this misbegotten objective has descended into pork barrel politics with Thirty-nine of the 45 constituencies receiving a share of the first ÂŁ1bn in funding for struggling towns are represented by Tory MPs many of them notably affluent already. Do we need to level Richmond up ?
May 25, 2021
Newmania, Which ‘taxes’ are exported from London and the South East? Income tax, Council tax, Corporation Tax (if CT are these companies just HQ in London and manufactured elsewhere)?
May 25, 2021
You would have to ask the ONS how they did their calculation, I am admittedly relying on old data and ( to be honest) , the East was also an overall contributor – 2015-2016. In that year every Londoner stumped up ÂŁ3,070 more in tax revenues than they received in spending. People living in the south-east had a surplus of ÂŁ1,670 per head. The east of England had a small surplus of ÂŁ242 per head .
Everyone else took more than they gave .
Gives you some idea of the insanity of a deal that got zip for services
May 26, 2021
I wish I could just ask the ONS or get ‘fact-check’ on things like this.
If the majority of headquarters are centred in the South-East even though their trade is around the whole of the UK or worldwide it is hardly fair or just to say all that revenue was generated just in the South-East. If this is from manufacturing just in the South East then that is fair enough.
You might find these statistics interesting:
Spending 2019/2020 source â commons library
UK as a whole the government spent ÂŁ9895 per person
England ÂŁ9604 per person
Within England the highest spending area is:
London ÂŁ10835 per person 10% higher than the average
Within England the lowest spending area is:
The East Midlands ÂŁ8879 per person 10% BELOW the UK average
Wales ÂŁ10929 per person 10% above U.K. avg.
Scotland ÂŁ11566 per person 17% above U.K. avg.
N. Ireland ÂŁ11978 per person 21% above UK avg.
May 25, 2021
You say: “The idea is not to press for equality by trying to drive the super rich out of the UK and by taxing the successful who remain more” well perhaps that is not the idea but that is indeed the effect. The UK was absurdly over taxed even before Sunak began his vast further increases in tax. Furthermore despite this high taxation the government delivers very poor public services indeed.
Then on top of this vast over taxation we have the absurdly expensive and entirely pointless net zero CO2 agenda, over the top red tape everywhere, very restrictive planning, absurdly complex (and very costly in compliance) taxation too and very restrictive and damaging employment laws too.
Minister keep saying salaries and GDP is higher in the South East well yes perhaps but after you consider housing costs, child care, commuting costs, congestion charges and similar many in London and the South East have less disposable income than those in cheap housing areas (yet despite this they often pay more income tax and national insurance as they have a higher initial wage). Most London/SE weighting on salaries is insufficient after tax to cover these extra London costs.
May 25, 2021
One of Sunak’s first acts as chancellor (planned even before Covid) was to axe 90% of entrepreneurs tax relief. This says all you need to know about the broken compass of this foolish PPE graduate. The man is yet another socialist, tax borrow and piss down the drain Chancellor. He cannot even bring himself to cancel the basket case HS2 and wants to waste trillions on a pointless war against CO2 (plant, crop and tree food). The fool even thinks that taxing people more (wasting loads in collection and distribution costs) and then using to pay 50% of some people restaurant meals was a good economic plan! Taxes are far far too high and most is wasted. Much is even used to do positive harm.
May 25, 2021
It’s a sinister political idea because it conceals its true intent.
Like most politics today, the aim is State control and an expansion of the State. This isn’t Thatcher’s dream of a small State and a ‘large citizen’ but Marx’s dream of a large State and a tiny, silent and compliant comrade
This is political paedophilia. Offering up sweeties (free lunch for no cash outlay) to naive voters (children), luring them in and then taking them prisoner.
It stinks, it’s sneaky and it will destroy democracy as the State becomes ever larger, ever wider and more powerful
Just leave us alone, please
May 25, 2021
No, what you say, though desirable puts the cart before the horse. Jobs are the key and private sector jobs should predominate. Incoming companies and expanding companies should be directed to levelling up areas. Nissan at Washington Tyne & Wear being a good example. Only private enterprise provides the means of paying for improved living conditions and incomes.
A few years ago I was directed to fly from an airport in Alicante Province during a temporary closure of Alicante Airport. It was brand new, in the middle of nowhere and had been created to fulfill a dream that had not materialised. Perhaps the EU had paid for it. It served an emergency need, but no doubt has returned to the ravages of weeds since. A classic example of cart before the horse. Jobs first the rest will follow.
May 25, 2021
Social engineering aka cringe making nonsense âlevelling upâ does not work.
30 years ago here âtheyâ decided to socially engineer this faded but beautiful town.
They ripped down avenues of traditional houses to put up office blocks and built over asparagus fields.
They built on former crowd-drawing features too.
OK there was some âregenerationâ but these things are built on sand.
The town is now a dangerous cesspit. Offices closed. Charity shops. Desolation.
Leave us alone!!
Too much money to be made from all this change, change, change?
May 25, 2021
I see reports that the good old tories are again making a huge grab for the green belt.
Disgusting. Beyond contempt.
May 25, 2021
I noticed a tweet.
âIf people are made to buy heat pumpsâ.
MADE!! Isnât that a slight wake up call JR?
We used to have CHOICE!!
May 25, 2021
If electric cars and heat pumps are so good let them have the choice to buy them â ‘what they already have that opportunity’âŠand even with a subsidy people arenât buying them, there just isn’t the demand
Tory answer = ban ICE cars and gas boilers; when did the Tories turn into the communist party ?
May 25, 2021
+1
May 25, 2021
Good post Sir John
For me for levelling up is about changing the mind sets of the inhabitants of the area. Large swathes of the UK are handicapped with the mentality of of second and third generation unemployed and those reliant on social services to exist, all be it some are perceived to be doing quite well out of the process.
A lot of people still carry the blame baggage in that it was governments fault that industries were shut down with nothing to replace them. Therefore it is governments responsibility to care for them. I have heard young men say they are off to pick up their wages but in reality they are collecting their dole money. Older family members voicing opinions that it is only real work that pays wages.
For levelling up to suceed and encourage new enterprises there has to be seen to be a willing , hungry for work pool of available labour with more than a few basic skills to give companies thinking of investing a potential to be able to mould workers into the ethos of their companies and who will benefit themselves as well. This can only come with joint initiatives with government, local authorities and private sector.
As a pre cursor to just throwing money are the area there has to be well planned events using social media, road shows, local press and councillors walking the talk, banging doors and beating the drum laying on induction days to see what potential is there sitting at home doing nothing. Then when ministers started talking to companies they can provide accurate data on the potential work force capabilities.
Get the pride in the residents fired up with a belief they can do it, under promise and over deliver on everything then and only then will you take them with you on the journey. Provide a interested parties with a clear vision of “with these people we can become unbeatable” The only thing that can make this happen is already on site. Getting those people to sign up with a belief that this is their moment , that could be the tricky bit.
May 25, 2021
Levelling up by providing more money for the regions will involved less money for the South East which will then level down with infrastructure improvement projects not implemented and less new jobs and homes for example. I’m not particularly complaining about that but let’s not pretend the government’s policies won’t bring losers as well as winners.
May 25, 2021
Levelling Up.
Politicians and cornflakes live by slogans. Get Brexit Done became Get Done by Brexit after we began to realise that behind it lay absolutely shambolic execution. An acceptable slogan to cover what the majority wanted , but in reality a smokescreen to cover the enormity of what we are paying to leave, the fishing debacle, the NI Protocol et al. The truth will haunt Boris and the conservative party as it becomes public knowledge. The greatest act this government could perform to facilitate levelling up would be a radical reform of our time and wealth consuming tax system. When I hear that is happening I will know you are serious. Until then levelling up has as much relevance as going to work on an egg.
May 25, 2021
@agricola – +1 you could even reason that these slogans, sound-bites are just lies be those unable to accept the truth that they are incapable of actually managing and creating
May 25, 2021
But you wanted Brexit. You knew what you were voting for. And yet you appear not to like the Brexit you wanted.
Still, at least you managed to get your Spanish residence. Think of all those poor expats (immigrants) being sent home.
May 25, 2021
Yes we wanted Brexit, a consomme, not a minestroni with a few puffball funghi thrown in. You should redirect your fire at those who negotiated the Brexit we have not got, the majority voted for a clean exit. Were it in my hands now I would recind the agreement that is not working and revert to WTO rules. I would say to the EU, you have had your chance and blown it, au revoir et bientot. If you want an irish border, put it in Ireland. Irish trade is not worth a can of beans in any case. No divorce payments, no pension payments, no fishing except by invitation and much else.
Much rubbish is talked here and in the press about Spanish Residency. All anyone had to do, usually with the help of a lawyer/ abogado was apply, cost âŹ100 at a designated police station. If you qualified, owned a property that you lived in there was no problem. You were then liable to pay Spanish Income Tax. I had been paying it for some years and had a Residencia since about 2004, which easily converted to a Residencia Permanente. There was a two year period of grace to get all this completed.
The real problem was I suspect that too many Brits had been living between the two tax authorities and not paying tax anywhere. Under Shengen their movements and duration of stay anywhere in the EU could not be tracked. Likewise the registration of their vehicles and their obligation to have a spanish driving licence. Brexit put an end to living in a grey inbetween world, it was make up your mind time. Those that thought they could get away with an inbetween life are now having the problem. It is not malicious intent on the part of the spanish, the UK would I hope say much the same to any spaniard who spent most of his time in the UK. I imagine the rules are much the same for you in France.
May 25, 2021
They could all have applied for residency before Brexit. They only have themselves to blame.
May 25, 2021
have you risked the French reaction to the ‘Brit’ visiting his holiday pad over there yet? I wonder what the welcome will be? A variation on the ‘come home to a real Welsh fire?’
May 25, 2021
Agricola – you are right about the slogans – one for me is “Lessons have been learved” – biggest pile of BS ever. Only ever uttered after they have been caught out. No wonder they are not trusted. Another pack of lies is “We are going to cut immigration” – Still they arrive, legally or not, straight in, hands out – and a life on Whitey’s taxes. Sunak seems to think our taxes are endless.
May 25, 2021
The avuncular verbose one who leads the SNP at Westminster was aguing on Politics Today that he wanted the illegals in Glasgow that the UK government wished to deport. We need them for their work contribution to Scotland he said, I added, what about the 4.4% unemployed in Scotland who might wish to work. He then proposed that Scotland run it’s own immigration policy, not realising that such a back door would require a hard border at Gretna. Their separatism is long overdue for boxing.
May 25, 2021
Spain has sent back thousands of illegals recently. Why don’t we?
May 25, 2021
Tory governments like Johns have done more over the years to remove the scope for ordinary people to progress in life than almost any other influence, culminating with their disastrous brexit.
Their shamelessness is showcased by their temerity in trying to dupe the public that they are actually sailing as this slogan flag suggests.
Their only direction is, as ever, as far towards absolute, permanent power as they can go.
Their Chicago School, Tufton Street economics dictate as axiomatic that worker insecurity is a very Good Thing.
Reply Pathetic dishonest nonsense.
May 25, 2021
Reply to reply
How else is mass immigration justified ? Why not more grammar schools ?
I note that the BBC last night were talking about a disparity in pay of ÂŁ2k pa between those in the North and those in the South East. There was no mention of housing costs in the South East, none whatsoever. A salary of ÂŁ27k in the South East means staying at home with mum and dad and living in your childhood bedroom.
May 25, 2021
Soon it will cost people ÂŁ10k to replace their boiler (instead of ÂŁ1,500 presently.) Soon people will be unable to fund their own cars to find jobs.
Levelling up… har har har.
Never in my life has this country looked more communist than after 11 years of Tory rule – replete with Political Correction compulsory unconscious bias training for workers, which I had recently. It is truly shocking. I never thought I’d see the day and now I see no reason for our future not to be gulags and re-education camps.
When do we all get issued our government approved blue boiler suits ?
And it is quite obvious that the whole of the UK is going to be held hostage at the behest of a few regional pockets that refuse the vaccine because the Tory party is more scaredy cat of political correctness and accusations of racism than anything else.
It would rather kill its own voters with open borders during a pandemic than close them for fear of being called racists.
The EU has been removed as an excuse, so has the Labour Party. It turns out that the Tories were to blame all along.
May 25, 2021
There is too much truth in what you say NLA.
May 25, 2021
Exactly many people in London and the South East are far worse off in disposable income terms after housing costs, child care costs, increased living costs, commuting costs. Often, despite being worse off in disposable income terms, they are also paying rather more tax.
May 25, 2021
Renting a house in the south can cost over ÂŁ1k a month
Even a 2 bed flat in Sussex commands a price of ÂŁ900 pm.
May 26, 2021
in most areas its over ÂŁ2k.
May 25, 2021
MiC, I suppose you yearn for the days when the trades unions had a stranglehold on our lives and businesses, for example when shop stewards threatened and enacted violence against workers who disagreed with strikes (I worked for the Ford Motor Co when incidents like that occurred), or when Arthur Scargill led the miners’ union to such a disastrous and unnecessary strike, or when no worker could enter the print unions unless he had a family connection. Do you like the amount of influence Len McClusky has over the Labour Party? I don’t.
May 26, 2021
‘everybody out !’
May 25, 2021
MiC – “Tory governments like Johns have done more over the years to remove the scope for ordinary people to progress in life than almost any other influence” that is absolute rubbish.
There are many, many things I disagree with the Tory party doing over the years, but they aided ordinary people to progress. I have hundreds of examples in my family and friends. People that grew up ten people to a two bedroomed terrace with an outside toilet and their children and grandchild not only thrived but developed and grew through self-employment, the trades, academic education, technology.
May 25, 2021
Thatcher wanted all Council house tenants to be able to buy their rented homes. Why? Well it meant taking on mortgages, investing in the bricks and mortar upkeep, a sense of needing to work and permanency about their home. Upwardly mobile in the sense of workers dropping employers and moving away damages businesses that really believe in their employess being the best asset.
May 25, 2021
That’ll be “ouch”, then.
May 25, 2021
So the PSBR figures for April just released show the government is borrowing circa ÂŁ1,300 per household just for the month of April. Average UK household income after tax is just ÂŁ2,500 PCM. They will of course waste the vast majority of this just as they do with most of the tax they extract. Then they want to waste ÂŁtrillions on the CO2 religion on top.
Cannot see it ending well unless they cut government by about 50% easy to do as most do nothing of value but no political will. Next election probably in under three years time so will Boris go early before the proverbial hit the fan?
May 25, 2021
“show the government is borrowing circa ÂŁ1,300 per household just for the month of April. ”
It may do, but that simply means that the private sector is saving circa ÂŁ1300 per household just for the month of April, because saving is what causes the government to borrow. Gilts are after all a savings product first and foremost that is held largely by Pension and Insurance Funds across the world. If people decided not to save and spend instead then that increase in activity would generate the tax that would eliminate the need to issue the Gilts in the first place.
The big question is why do you want ordinary people to save less and borrow more simply because you choose to look at the wrong side of the national balance sheet?
May 25, 2021
Saving by large institutions purchasing assets and individuals buying homes and pushing up their prices with funny money
May 25, 2021
Much is bought by overseas buyers/lenders.
May 25, 2021
And most of the money borrowed will surely be wasted by this government too – rather than be invested.
May 25, 2021
Japan is the country to watch. Their debt interest is the second largest government cost after social spending. With an ageing population and not exactly a magnet for international investment, they will be the first major economy to show what happens when you lose control of government spending.
Reply The state has bought in half the debt, and they can refinance for up to ten years for zero interest. It is all surprisingly stable after years of huge borrowing.
May 25, 2021
I should add, expect global contagion when their economy does fail. Will a generation rise up to say “Not our debt”?
May 25, 2021
Dave Andrews
“Not our debt”
That is what we will be hearing from the SNP when they win independence.
May 25, 2021
Once again the nation finds itself teetering on the brink of another explosion of cases of the Chinese plague virus, as the India B.1.617.2 variant follows the now familiar pattern and spreads out of control across the country. Unbelievably, after the SAGE committee suggested that this new, unwelcome variant may be “up to” 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant (itself more transmisible and lethal than the original strain), the government (Johnson & Hancock) currently still proposes to proceed with further relaxation of the lockdown.
This in spite of numerous reports in local and national press that elderly in care homes – who have received a double jab of the Astra – are now going down with it, hospitalisations in Bolton have already begun and community spread is rapidly affecting the NE, NW, the Midlands, N London, Luton, Hounslow, SE England and elsewhere. Typically, Hancock is blaming the public for “not having had their jabs”. In fact, Bolton for e.g. is no better or worse than any other area in vaccine take-up.
Today we are told that in 7 areas the public has quietly been told not to travel into or out. When is Hancock going to tell us the truth about the spread of this nasty variant?
How much longer must we endure the unbelievable incompetence from Boris “pile the bodies high” Johnson, Hancock, Shaps, Harding and Co? How did this variant get past our “toughest border measures”? How did Test and Trace fail – once again – to lock the new variant down? Why is the government always behind the curve? Questions should be asked in Parliament.
May 25, 2021
Generally speaking people on low incomes and lack of job opportunities are people who have low educational attainment.
There has to be more targeted focus on public money into education in low income areas.
For some itâs a vicious circle of no hope so why bother with education.
Investment does need public seed money to attract more sustainable growth
Money comes to money and that needs some public stimulus.
The blue collar areas that rejected the traditional Labour vote can just as easily reject a Tory vote.
Itâs a careful balancing act and people in these areas have high expectations of this Gov.
May 25, 2021
” Low educational attainment” ” money comes to money”
So you think the schools and universities are doing a good job.
May 25, 2021
David Brown ‘more targeted focus on public money into education in low income areas.’
This was done, the school leaving age extended, the % of pupils staying on vastly increased. Our lowest league school has the smallest number of pupils per class 16.
May 26, 2021
I think you will find that builders , business owners , the lone skilled person , have a better income ( not always shown) as they have not gone through the system of reading and quoting university allowed text to get a first .This learning is so closeted and always looks to others to learn, so that very little new is generated.
May 25, 2021
Removing people off the roads, freezing people to death by mandating useless heat pumps and bankrupting people with green nonesense.
This isn’t levelling up its trashing peoples lives.
May 25, 2021
+100
May 25, 2021
Expect long waits and queues for bus & trains, unless you are fit enough and will cycle 10+ miles. The old will now die of hypothermia in homes and in bus queues. Fossils fuels banned will mean economy collapses and much higher taxes for those on megabucks.
Much of Britain will start to resemble Warsaw in the 1950s. Neighbours will be reporting each other when smelling wood burning, electric cars will be vandalised as ‘posh transport’.
May 25, 2021
but the UK will be the world leader on the Green revolution
May 25, 2021
Any conversations about making Child benefit universal once more as part of levelling up Sir John?
It is stolen from the “rich” at the moment because they are undeserving yet given to those who pitch up on our shores or those who breed for the money
May 25, 2021
Narrow Shoulders
+1 totally correct
May 25, 2021
Good morning Sir John
public money is that political double speak, we will tax you the people even more to bribe them with their own money and make the Elite Classes feel better about themselves.
May 25, 2021
Not actually sure what levelling up means, I wish the government would actually explain what the aim is in rather more detail.
Different areas have different natural advantages, certainly in farming and industrial terms, be it more windy, less windy, more rain, less rain, more fertile, less fertile, raw materials close to hand, raw materials far away, Hills and mountains as opposed to valleys, Industry and farming is affected by all of the above, and people move about accordingly.
Surely if you are try to level out, then you have to start with the same education sylibus and examinations nationwide, the same NHS treatment and Social services, with the same criteria available to all.
Then we get onto taxation, council tax, housing and infrastructure.
Is subsidy the answer or the problem ?
Do you give more to some and take away or limit others to try and make all equal.
Would someone please explain in detail ?
Another great slogan, “equal opportunities for all”, when that is simply not possible either due to personal contacts, individual ambition, work ethic, personal health, family wealth, personal choice and the like.
May 25, 2021
The only levelling required is for the Socialist Metro Left in Downing Street to ‘but-out’ of everyone’s daily life. Stop directing, stop orchestrating, stop micro managing and leave the people more of their own money.
This Government just as the ones that have gone before it just don’t know how to spend the money they steel from people. They prove it over and over, its time to let go and let people manage their own lives from a monetary perspective.
The tax system isn’t and hasn’t been for a long time, it was built for the 19th Century. It had the life tinkered and tweaked out of it. It is now a situation the only ones the Government can punish and extract more from are the very ones they make sound-bites about helping , every one else has the mechanisms to avoid contributing on an equal basis.
What is needed is Government for the People and that means all the People of the UK.
May 25, 2021
Keep it simple â remove business rates and employer NI to all SMEs north of the Watford Gap for a period of 5 yearsâŠ..job done
May 25, 2021
Morning John,
Introduce a job guarentee they’ll be levelling up alright. Entrepreneurs will set up shop in areas of full employment not in areas with long-term unemployment.
The private sector cannot fill that gap without sales. The Job guarentee provides those sales.
For example – Take every project on Countryfile on a Sunday day night for the last 5 years that wants everything done by charity and turn them into rural jobs.
Why should Tunnocks pay for lifeboats for example ? It is embarrassing. Tunnocks spending money they get from HM Treasury on life boats is just as inflationary than HM Treasury instructing the BOE to credit the boat builders bank account.
A 2 per cent surplus is not better or worse than a 5 per cent deficit.
It all depends ⊠on the context.
The government is just one spending source in the economy.
Taken together spending equals output equals income, which drives employment.
To have full employment, spending has to be sufficient to create output that, given productivity, can create sufficient employment to satisfy the desire for work from the labour supply.
If non-government spending (that is, the sum of household consumption, business investment and export revenue) is insufficient (which means that sector is saving a proportion of its income) to produce full employment, then the only way the economy can reach that desired employment level, is if the government meets the âspending gapâ by running a deficit.
This is not an opinion. It is basic national accounting fact when you look at the balance sheets.
So a continuous fiscal deficit is usually required to produce full employment, especially if the nation is running an external deficit.
A surplus in this context will drive the private domestic sector into continuing deficits, rising indebtedness, and ultimately, insolvency.
That is context.
A nation such as Norway, with very strong external revenue coming from its export sector can run a fiscal surplus and still ensure national income is sufficient to generate savings that satisfy the private domestic sector aspirations.
A different context.
So it is just plain ignorant for one to conclude that a fiscal surplus whilst running a trade deficit would be the appropriate position at full employment.
Such a fiscal stance would assuredly mean the economy could never sustain full employment â we have thirty years of evidence of that.The
30 years that shows running a Fiscal surplus does not mean the the MONOPOLY issuer of the ÂŁ is saving ÂŁ’s in a warehouse somewhere. It shows clearly when you run a Fiscal surplus whilst running a trade deficit you destroy private sector savings.
Slash taxes since they don’t fund anything anyway ( we don’t use the Euro) introduce a job guarentee and give the competition and monopoly authority some teeth and the budgets will take care of themselves automatically. Productivity will go through the roof.
conservatives will be in power for the next 100 years looking after a full employment economy. Dreams and aspirations will be met everyone will have a job who wants one and can progress and do their bit for the country.
Drop the economic models that created food banks they are a disgrace in a country so wealthy. They are not an economic success story.
May 25, 2021
I must admit I’d prefer that we didn’t have to live with political phrases – it may sound good on election leaflets, but it smacks too much of socialist dogma, which appeals only to those voters that think in one syllable at a time
Look what happened to Major with his ‘Back to basics’ idea.
I’d prefer a few more words to describe what is being attempted, with actual examples. Let’s appeal to those who have the potential to take advantage of these opportunities offered.
May 25, 2021
More good homes don’t level up John, not when you have a local Labour Council! And when the County council was Tory-controlled with priorities elsewhere.
These councils of both stripes spend so much money on consultations, dithering about, asking residents who tell them the same things for the past 30 years, that they then go on to ignore. Thirty years of promises and things got much worse. It was always someone else’s fault. Badly written sale agreements when shopping centres were sold to private Companies not in the UK. Not one building matches another with planners just agreeing to any ugly building going up, flat roofs badly built, different brick colours on every building. No signage controls over shops – so large ugly old signs stay up making the area look run down. Ugly tall brick walls to segregate, no planting. All the new homes do is provide good council taxes to spend elsewhere and we don’t get levelled up we get left behind.
There was a little spending when all the Council houses got sold off for just of ÂŁ7000 each 65% of which were in the town but that was only because of people campaigning to get a fair share of that money spent in our Town, it’s probably all been sold off and refinanced now! We get all the ‘affordable homes’ whilst other areas are allowed to build posh little enclaves without the ‘affordable/HA homes’.
I could tell them how to make five improvements immediately, wouldn’t cost too much money, and would make things look and feel a lot better for free! But they’d rather engage more expensive consultants, after we’ve already paid for ten sets to be created.
May 25, 2021
Part of the problem with âlevelling upâ is the people.
People from grim towns who have any get up and go about them will largely leave – going to London, the big cities or abroad to get a decent job, rather than staying in their miserable, failing hometowns.
Pretty much all of my university friends from such towns eventually gravitated to London and the south east for six figure salaries in the end. Why would you want to stay in a crumbling town full of unemployed, drunk, hypochondriacs, who spend large parts of their time gambling and eating kebabs – when you can live somewhere nice like Dulwich or Chiswick or the shires?
This leaves these grim towns stuffed full of miserable, unmotivated, unsuccessful people – with massive chips on their shoulder – who believe they are owed something and who blame everyone else for their own failure. Their misery is clearly the fault of the EU or the BBC or statues or climate change or immigrants or dinghy manufacturer or someone else. It is never their own fault.
There is not a short term fix. Long term we need massive investment in education and training in these areas but in the meantime let them wallow in their own misery.
May 26, 2021
‘How dare you’ Andy in the words of Greta be so discriminatory to poorer towns and stereotype the good people that live in them.
These Towns are not all ‘full of unemployed, drunk, hypochondriacs, gambling and eating kebabs’ – ‘full of miserable, unmotivated, unsuccessful people – with massive chips on their shoulder..blah blah blah’. There are a minority like this and they need sorting out. No one should get money for nothing, they owe their local community their time at minimum wage for their benefits, I don’t know one Labour voting person I know that disagrees with me on this other than local union workers who think it will put their council gardeners out of work but surely they would be the trainers, overseers and actually make sure places are cleaned up, windows cleaned, graffiti removed. I know women that spent their life on benefits one child every eight-ten years with no dad to keep the gravy train rolling.
It is also very likely a Labour council in these type of areas keep allowing more and more poverty into these same towns. No town should have more than 15% Housing Association/council/social housing but every Town should have 15%.
May 26, 2021
andy
Hilarious listening to you describe in such snobby derogatory terms the working class voters the left used to claim to represent.
Your post reveals why Labour are losing these areas and the real Labour vote is now resting on you rich public sector people (or those who live off the public purse) in posh city areas, like the ones you mention.
Traditional Labour voters are abandoning Labour because they see how much you dislike them.
May 25, 2021
Off topic, is it not time for Boris Johnson to make it clear to the EU Commission that the UK government can see various alternatives to the “full and correct implementation” of the Irish protocol:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57238226
and one such, by far the simplest and the best, would be “no implementation”.
We are in this mess now because Theresa May sold the pass in her Mansion House speech of March 2 2018:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/01/30/the-commons-votes/#comment-992274
âWe have been clear all along that we donât want to go back to a hard border in Ireland. We have ruled out any physical infrastructure at the border, or any related checks and controls.
But it is not good enough to say, âWe wonât introduce a hard border; if the EU forces Ireland to do it, thatâs down to themâ. We chose to leave; we have a responsibility to help find a solution.â
May 25, 2021
BBC reporting – No alternative to ‘full implementation’ of NI Protocol, says EC chief Ursula von der Leyen
May 25, 2021
glen cullen
I don’t give a toss what Ms der Leyen says, She’s a nobody as far as I’m concerned and I don’t recognise any EU claim to authority over my country.
Besides there are more important things in life to deal with…..like finding ways to circumvent Boris’s green crap lunacy. EU bitterness can get to the back of the queue.
May 25, 2021
I agree – however Boris and his team are on the same page as Ursula von der Leyen with regard to the NI protocal…..and I worry about that
May 25, 2021
Since there needs to be a border somewhere, there are only three possible approaches:
1, Re-join the single market or the Customs Union.
2, The backstop deal that May negotiated.
3, The current arrangements.
Leavers have already rejected the first two, which means there is only one option left on the table.
May 25, 2021
Or the EU forces the Republic of Ireland to have a more effective and restrictive border on their side.
May 26, 2021
Agree thats the most sensible solution, the border is already designated, if the EU are worried about infiltration of goods, people, and services, let them man it and work it..
Let the EU be responsible for any breaking of historical protocols.
May 25, 2021
Peter Parsons
How about –
4) Build a border and fortify it.
May 25, 2021
Because the UK already committed not to do that.
Then again, the current lot are not exactly showing themselves as shining lights in terms of keeping their word on the international stage.
May 26, 2021
Peter.
I didn’t say the UK should build a border.
I said “Or the EU forces the Republic of Ireland to……”
May 25, 2021
or 4. put the border between Eire and NI
May 26, 2021
+1
May 25, 2021
You have your brexit.
You wanted it so that the UK need have nothing further to do with the European Commission, as you believed was possible.
Why then do you urge these communications?
May 26, 2021
Do you know what is meant by the abbreviation “UK”?
May 26, 2021
yes of course – United Kingdom – often known as YUK.
May 25, 2021
It’s not going to happen we signed up to the protocol part of the WA so we are bound by it. Only other thing to do is to rejoin the single market or at least the customs union?
May 26, 2021
How can we stop the EU/Republic of Ireland having a border GaryK?
May 25, 2021
If this government really wants to “level up” it would be bringing forward measures to give all of us an equal say in UK democracy, however the only proposals on the table from this government around UK democracy are to make certain elections less democratic (more FPTP) and make it harder for people to vote, despite the fact that you can count the number of convictions for electoral fraud on your fingers under a voting system where over 22 million votes (over 70% of all votes cast) were utterly irrelevant and pointless in determining the outcome of the last general election.
May 25, 2021
The 22 million votes were not utterly irrelevant Peter.
The outcome of a general election develops the make up of the House of Commons with all the different MPs from different parties.
Even under PR the Conservatives would currently have a majority.
PS
Do I actually get a say under PR?
I might not even know the person I am voting for, nor what policies will emerge in the wranglings after the election.
As manifestos are torn up in the power struggle
May 25, 2021
Peter 2
“Even under PR the Conservatives would currently have a majority.”
I doubt it Peter (2), people now see Boris Johnson for what he is, and the danger he represents.
If there was a GE tomorrow, he’d lose.
May 26, 2021
Steve
Firstly, I was referring to the 80 seat majority gained in the last election.
Secondly, the Conservatives are getting poll leads of 10 points or more.
Which would give them a similar majority.
The last YouGov poll gave them an 18 point lead over Labour.
With Boris well ahead of Starmer as voters preferred PM.
May 25, 2021
They were utterly irrelevant. It was just under 30% (29.2%) of the votes that were cast that actually decided the outcome. All of the others made zero difference to the result.
Please explain to me how you think that a PR system would give the Conservatives a majority with a vote share of 43.6%.
And you certainly get to know which individuals you are voting for with PR so long as the choice of voting system is made to allow you to do that. That is how the STV system (currently used in both Scotland and Northern Ireland) works, you vote for individuals who get elected to represent constituencies. Same as now, except it’s just much more representative of us, the voters.
May 25, 2021
Just to give a like-for-like comparison, in the most recent set of English local elections (using FPTP) less than have of those who voted affected the result, whereas in the most recent set of Scottish local elections (using PR – STV), about 95% of those who voted affected the result.
I know which one of those two figures represents better democracy to me – the one where 95% of those who participated had an influence on the result.
May 26, 2021
I fail to see how my vote counts in your PR heaven if I vote locally for the candidate who comes last out of 8 candidates.
I realise you want a greater Lib Dem or Green number of MPs Peter.
But if I and millions more really wanted that to happen we would vote for them.
And in Scotland all the Greens do when they get elected is to robotically vote with the SNP at nearly every occasion.
Did they promise that in their separate manifesto?
If I was a Green voter I would consider my vote wasted.
I might as well have voted SNP.
May 26, 2021
Perhaps you would benefit from learning a little about how STV works and how every vote has an influence. For example, the threshold to gain election is determined from the number of votes cast, so whether you vote or not actually contributes to changing that threshold.
If you chose to use your vote to vote for only one candidate who came 8th when there were 3, 4 or 5 seats available, then perhaps your views really do represent a tiny minority.
What I want is a parliament which is representative of the voters, which FPTP fails to deliver time after time.
For example, where was the fair represenation for Unionists in Scotland when the SNP won 56 out of 59 seats in 2015, despite the fact that the Unionist parties polled a similar vote share between them to the SNP?
May 27, 2021
So I was correct Peter.
If I voted for a minority party that came last my vote would be wasted.
Nice to know I changed the threshold though.
I note you avoided any response to my observations on how the Greens vote in Scotland.
if I voted for them on their election manifesto my vote is wasted.
May 25, 2021
Peter, you don’t get what you vote for with PR either. If through PR UKIP took a big number of seats in 2017, other parties would have ganged up against them and their voters to exclude them completely.
May 25, 2021
Yes, it is striking, that, Peter.
May 25, 2021
I don’t see how building more executive rabbit hutches will directly improve the range and extent of opportunities for all much less sustained growth throughout the country.
How about direct improvement in work and business opportunities by reducing red-tape, the bureaucratic public sector, reducing personal transport and parking restrictions. What about facilitating new business startups by providing low cost startup premises across the country.
In Wokingham you could start by reducing the amount of dormitory development and establishing low cost enterprise parks throughout the borough rather than demolishing them in favour of appartments or whatever and focusing solely on the Wokingham town centre area.
What about placing conditions on funding and loans to universities to require them to properly engage and partner with the community, eg educational and new business opportunities, foster social and commercial enterprise, new areas of critical mass and not just for the dons. Why do something similar with the libraries, turning them from book storage into community hubs for exploring new skills.
May 25, 2021
The Government’s Green Agenda will level down all but the elite – never mind levelling up anyone! The latest warning – increased TV/film streaming will lead to power cuts.
May 25, 2021
How about sending some asylum seakers to Witney and Maidenhead, instead of to the North West of England. After all, why should the voters of Witney and Maidenhead not be enriched as well.
May 26, 2021
why inflict it on them? There must be falling down abandoned prisons in the middle of nowhere they could be sent to ?
May 25, 2021
We up north have absolutely no desire to have our house and beer prices levelled up to London prices thank you very much.
May 25, 2021
Repeal the Climate Change Act. Tax the rentier economy into the grit. Prosecute the banksters that crashed the economy and then set rules designed to cleanse the City of spivs and spivery. Return public exams to the standard of their external equivalents Introduce scholastic selection in schools; revert all the new universities to polytechnics and close all their non-technical courses. Fund tertiary education and stop it educating foreigners in order to make ends meet. Stop importing foreigners with their alien cultures whose presence bears down the hardest on the poorest in the land.
The economy can only prosper when there is a level playing field for those who want to work and to succeed.
May 25, 2021
Levelling up.
This would happen naturally as wages would bid up. If only they actually reduced immigration & pursued a UK based higher productivity model. Lower emissions , less energy needs , higher wages,better training, less people more space , lower house prices, more automation etc etc.
May 25, 2021
You remind me of the Gigante supermarket in Mexico where the aisles were festooned with ÂĄAhorre! placards – which means Save! Of course, what they meant was Spend! Which is of course what the government has been doing, with a lot of the benefit going to the corporate sector. Much of the borrowing – over ÂŁ300bn – has been funded by direct borrowing from the Bank of England a.k.a. QE or money printing, rather than through the issue of gilts to households or foreign investors.
May 25, 2021
Meant as a reply to Lucan Grey
May 25, 2021
Please drop the equality nonsense. A more sinister has never been contrived. It exudes a huge dollop of moral good yet it’s nothing more than a pernicious political ideology designed to consolidate political control over people
And levelling up is simply another dose of huge spending by a State that seeks to politicise. You can see this deceitful agenda now taking shape in the dead nation that is the US.
Create a safety net and then leaves us alone cos we’re ALL tired of extremist intervention in every aspect of our lives by both main parties
May 25, 2021
Levelling up, another Government spin word, does not mean laying out nearly ÂŁ100 Billion on a project that is no longer required. HS2 MUST be scrapped in favour of upgrading the local lines and directly connecting the major cities of the North. If the PM really to wants to help those up t’north he should attend to their needs not those decided by the facless wonders in Whitehall. Consultations with their MPs would be a good start. So HMG be different – go ask the tax paying workforce up there, exeactly what they want. Let them decide.
May 25, 2021
I’d be interested in hearing views from commenters on how weather affects this levelling-up agenda. I’ve long thought that it’s more likely that a talented young professional or business owner in the North will sell up and move South than it is for their equivalent in the South to sell up and move North. Much of the reason for that concerns average summer temperatures and the number of annual days of sunshine in different parts of Great Britain. This effect has probably been amplified in the past two generations because the TV channels have happily broadcast daily weather reports showing everyone how much warmer and sunnier it is in London and South East. Perhaps Mr Johnson plans to stop them from doing so.
May 25, 2021
Will
Made exactly the same point in an earlier post with regards to topography, and very many other reasons why levelling up is impossible, unfortunately my comment is still in moderation at the moment.
In addition Human Nature and choice also compromises any levelling up programme, as people do not always do or act in the way others predict.
May 25, 2021
Many years ago I used to have one of these exec houses , but the gardens was still small. I now have a very small house with 1/4 acre and lots of hard work . As i get older managing this will be difficult due to slopes and a stream. I have been looking at the traditional 3 bedroom detached boxes (which have floor space less than mine) and are overlooked from all angles. We are again becoming a nation of gardeners and need room to grow veg etc without being viewed from all windows. I personally am not impressed by curb credibility and need something useful.Fancy facias 2 metres apart create a terrace like presence and not like the London well known terraces with huge floor space.
May 25, 2021
JR
“More good homes are need to attract in people on higher incomes or with successful businesses so they can enjoy the new local area and make various contributions to it.”
Mr Redwood since you invite my comment I feel obliged to pull you up on this one.
In my experience many people on higher incomes tend not to contribute to the community. Granted they may throw money at the local clique, but even that is usually because there is something in it for them. I don’t think we should be building houses for these people, after all look at what they have done to communities along the Thames i.e Goring etc – locals can no longer afford to live there and have had to move out because of the security gate mob.
I do wonder if you are suggesting that lower income people don’t contribute to the community, I know lots who do. There is a big difference between someone who feels the need to bragg about wealth with security gates, and someone on benefits who would never turn a blind eye to a fellow community member down on their luck.
In fact a neighbour of mine who is unemployed and doesn’t have much wealth came to my aid during a serious ilness, and did all my shopping despite not being able to drive, the housework, washing etc all despite severe arthritis. She has never accepted so much as a penny payment (but did accept a book of poetry and some flowers).
‘Community’ is not high income, Sir Redwood. It is spirit, which has sadly been broken right across the country by successive governments, consumerism, shit-stirrers in the MSM, and I’m alright Jack.
Give me the salt of the earth, any day.
May 26, 2021
A moving post, Steve. You’re right about the community spirit, it is what so many people lack and have seen destroyed and want back, outside the well-off metro-elite areas. I suspect one reason why Labour are being thrashed is that so many Labour MPs now – often thoughtlessly parachuted in – have only a residual fig-leaf contact with the local area they represent, and very little understanding of (or sympathy with) the motivations of the majority of voters.
May 25, 2021
“Levelling up needs to be about hundreds of thousands of personal journeys….”
That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. There is also the question of getting those journeys started. I am a pretty good example – my early life was pretty poor, but eventually I got a degree, entered a profession, and now I suppose you would call me solidily middle class.
However, that had to start somewhere, and when I was young it was the era of social mobility, assisted places in public schools, free University tuition and a lot of encouragement. I certainly didn’t do it all myself, nor even know the direction to go without help.
This isn’t really a question of ideology. There is nothing in conservatism that prevents Government helping individuals to succeed, and it is a failing strategy to expect individuals to know what opportunities are available and how to get to them.
May 25, 2021
John, you’re looking at this in an unconsciously southeastern way. You can create tax breaks for startups, but they will not create a lot of knock-on employment. My own startup is 23 years old, and I would never consider hiring a permanent staff member – the disadvantages are too great. Build as many ‘executive-style’ houses in the north as you please – they are not the aspirational northern dream you deem them, and in any case they will still be bought by the same people who buy them now – either those who can afford mainly cash, as they’ve sold properties in more expensive (southern) areas, or those in secure civil service/local authority or corporate employment who are the usual beneficiaries of mortgages. The banks are not interested in assets, nor in creative business ventures, they will only look at those who have reliable, index-linked amounts of monthly income – i.e. those who work in unionised unsackable jobs. Labour – thinking only of votes – pushed government departments from the SE to Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow suburbs, and all those government workers could suddenly afford big houses and decent cars, and shored up the local Labour vote. Those moves did very little (as you say) for non-public service workers, and created no real employment at all, just gentrified a few areas and made housing more unaffordable (and mortgages more unattainable) for locals, who became even more reliant on council housing.
The banks have been baled out by the government with taxpayers’ money, and have grown lazy. They pick the low-hanging mortgage payment fruit from public service, fill their bellies, and look no further. If you want a creative business economy, they must be forced to lend, unless those ‘creatives’ are all going to be ex-public schoolchildren from monied family backgrounds.
May 25, 2021
Sir John
Now that death rates are so low surely we must be able to get exact causes of death rather than “within 28 days…” ?
Why is covid policy still driven by *infection* rates ?
There is a real sense that Freedom Day is going to be abandoned because of those who refuse to take the jab and the fact that the Government is under sustained assault from the woke-ists. Local lockdowns will start looking like racial apartheid and so we’ll all have to be locked down again.
It seems impossible to have a Conservative government anymore. The Left will not allow it no matter how many votes they lose.
May 27, 2021
Just saying…. I consulted 40 people yesterday , either on the telephone or Face to face . Not one of these people was English .. so where do we go from here.? Language skills are the main source of frustration and with a 10 min turn over it is impossible to practice thoroughly..