In the year to March 2021, the pandemic year, the UK state borrowed an extra £298bn. This was well down on the original forecasts that the state would borrow almost £400 bn extra, and well down on the budget forecasts just four months before the year end of an extra £354bn. State debt as a percentage of GDP has hit 100%, a level breached in many other advanced countries. I would normally be concerned about such a level of borrowing. On this occasion there are two large offsets which means so far it has been fine. The first is interest rates remain near zero, so the cost of servicing the debt has actually fallen despite the rise in the amount borrowed. Second ,the state is busily buying up £875bn of it. In practice therefore the state debt to GDP ratio has actually fallen to around 60%, a level which the EU and many Central Banks think is just fine.
The way out forecasts by the Treasury of much higher borrowing numbers over the last year than happened show how difficult it has proved to forecast how the UK economy would respond to the extreme damage of the pandemic polices on various sectors. It also shows the tendency to pessimism by officials. From here assuming we press on with a proper recovery and do not lapse back into closures and restrictions on business the deficit should tumble. Spending will plunge as furlough and social business schemes end, and revenues will surge as more money is spent and flows through business tills. The best way of getting the deficit down is faster recovery. That needs tax rate cuts, not rises.
As the economy recovers we should look to private business and families spending more and to public intervention less. More state spending cannot be on sufficient scale or wide ranging enough to level up most people and areas. It will take strong private sector growth in better paid jobs and more business success to achieve that. The richer parts of the country are the ones where there are more businesses and more better paid private sector jobs.
July 25, 2021
The government accepts that levelling up in deprived parts of the country can be achieved by having low taxes and fewer restrictions. If this promotes economic growth, why is it not applied everywhere?
July 25, 2021
JR used to write about sound money now he has swallowed the socialist LL phrase tax, borrow, and piss down the drain.
Yesterday we read HS2, originally a £32 billion project, cannot keep to its £106 billion and will rapidly rise!! You lot have lost the plot on finances JR.
How about hot air Patel, anyone believe her about immigration? How about the useless health secretary whose answer to everything is taxation? What has he ever achieved in any department- nothing other than disasters.
As you say, No one believes you.
July 25, 2021
Hope – The new rules PP brought in was to “stop them claiming asylum” as far as I recall. I didn’t notice anything about actually stopping them coming, nor returning them. They have NO intention of going back – families will be here ASAP – multiple kids each by multiple wives. Housing, benefits, NHS, translators, A full infrastructure, built and paid for by us, to be ruined by them.
The govt cannot, in any way, deny the end result of all this. Deliberate.
July 25, 2021
Hope
I wouldn’t tar John Redwood with the same brush, he’s not like the others.
The rest I agree are wrong – uns, in fact starting with Johnson / May et al they have jumped into the highest category I asign to those who betray, namely ‘shyster class’.
July 25, 2021
Hope – He is a politician. Wake up.
July 25, 2021
“How about hot air Patel, anyone believe her about immigration? ”
Nope.
July 25, 2021
Exactly, given the current absurdly over taxed and over regulated UK position (with so many people working for government many doing little nothing of value and many doing positive economic harm). Increasing tax rates from here will raise less tax not more. Then they want to dump the total insanity if the £trillion Net Zero CO2 on top. Can we have the pre Carrie Boris back please?
July 25, 2021
Off topic, I have just sent this letter to our local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser:
“Dear Sir
On February 22 2018 the Advertiser kindly printed a letter headed “Easy solution to EU border conundrum”, in which I proposed:
“There is an alternative, and perfectly reasonable, approach, for after we have left the EU, and that is for the UK Parliament to pass a new law requiring all exports to the continuing EU to meet all EU requirements, on pain of penalties.”
Concluding with the explanation that:
“If the existing UK law provides a sufficient guarantee to the Irish and EU authorities that there is no need to check imports from the UK at the border, as it does, then there is no reason why a new UK law could not also provide such a guarantee.”
Now forty-one months later I read in paragraph 43 of the government policy paper “Northern Ireland Protocol: the way forward”:
“We also stand ready to bring in new legislation to deter anyone in Northern Ireland looking to export to Ireland goods which do not meet EU standards or to evade these enforcement processes.”
And, again, in paragraph 62:
“ … we are also ready to put in place legislation to provide for penalties for UK traders seeking to place non-compliant goods on the EU market.”
One could say “Better late than never” for the UK government to ask Parliament to take this action, which could provide the basis for a system of export licences as suggested in other letters also copied to our local MP when she was Prime Minister, and which would not require the agreement of the EU or the Irish government.
And one could also say “The sooner the better”, as that system of regulating the carriage of goods out of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic would make redundant the present crazy system of EU checks and controls on all goods entering Northern Ireland, even though only a very small fraction of them later cross the border.
Yours etc”
References:
https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/128146/easy-solution-to-eu-border-conundrum.html
“Easy solution to EU border conundrum”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1004581/CCS207_CCS0721914902-001_Northern_Ireland_Protocol_PRINT__1___2_.pdf
“Northern Ireland Protocol: the way forward”
“43 … We also stand ready to bring in new legislation to deter anyone in Northern Ireland looking to export to Ireland goods which do not meet EU standards or to evade these enforcement processes.”
“62 … Once again we are also ready to put in place legislation to provide for penalties for UK traders seeking to place non-compliant goods on the EU market.”
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2021-07-15b.587.0
The DUP MP Sammy Wilson speaking on July 15:
“The British Government argue that the protocol was meant to deal with only those goods that could be at risk of going into the EU through the Irish Republic; any other goods were not at risk. The EU takes the view that we must prove that goods are not at risk before we can avoid the checks. In other words, 97% of goods that are currently being checked do not need to be checked. They do not go any further than Northern Ireland. Yet the EU is insisting that there is a risk that they might go into the Irish Republic. That is why we have such a high level of checks.”
July 25, 2021
I can think of better things to do with my time.
July 25, 2021
Feel free to do so.
July 25, 2021
Dennis,
I read quotes from Sammi Wilson MP very critical of the “standstill” proposal put forward by the useless lying govt.
The real question is why did Johnson sign up to it knowing what it contained, lied to say it was something quite different ie no checks required, no border etc. The EU are quite right he signed up to it knowing it to be awful, despite pathetic excuses from JR and others who also knew how bad it was and it’s inevitable consequences. Lewis repeatedly said the NIP was staying. Gove the same.
You can only despair at this lying dishonest govt.
July 25, 2021
+1
July 25, 2021
+1
July 25, 2021
Boris is a buffoon doesn’t care what trouble he gets himself or the country into so long as he’s in PM position and then later when the heat comes on dreams up another diversion to get himself off the hook – eventually like the rest of the charlatans to get himself into the HoL – a chancer – am amazed that you the British people don’t see it
July 25, 2021
I would love to go to southern France for a week or so just to see friends family etc but between Covid and the brexit thing? with all of these checks? think instead I’ll just settle for Blackpool. Makes we wonder what did we vote for
July 25, 2021
Jacob
Some of us do see it.
July 25, 2021
Dennis
It always was the most sensible and simple solution, but Politicians of all sides do not do simple and sensible very often.
July 25, 2021
Denis
A very well composed letter I must say and actually a pleasure to read.
However there remains an underlying issue, that is; the fact that the RoI is making a grab for NI while bravely hiding behind EU coat tails.
No amount of goods conformity negotiation is going to solve it. The only solution is to stand up to the EU and send it packing and with clear message; ‘keep your nose out of British sovereign territory’ . If that means a hard border then so be it.
Of course we would need a PM with guts and not biased in the EU’s favour – which Johnson is because he’s half Belgian, and he’s also a practicing catholic so is a republican sympathiser.
Nice try with your letter Denis, but goods conformity is not the problem. It’s the EU wanting to break up the UK to show all other member states don’t dare leave because look what we did to the British, and the RoI seeing a chance to grab NI.
July 25, 2021
Quite so, that is what it is really about, and making a mountain out of a molehill on the land border has always been a tactic to that end; and to quote another part of the letter I’ve offered to MFD below it was:
“Utter nonsense which the UK government of Theresa May could have easily exposed, but preferred to leave unchallenged as a useful pretext for giving business lobby groups such as the CBI much of what they were demanding.”
Just a pity that when she was replaced her successor made the situation even worse.
July 25, 2021
Steve,
‘Johnson is because he’s half Belgian, and he’s also a practicing catholic so is a republican sympathiser.’
The Belgian Catholic thing is becoming your signature in the same way that Lifelogic has the PPE graduate one.
July 27, 2021
At least LL is correct about the degrees that people got 20 to 40 years ago, whether this is relevant is obviously another question.
ABdPJ is not half Belgian. His mother, Charlotte Fawcett has American forefathers, Stanley Johnson might be (if anybody has time to spend on such things) a sixteenth Bavarian.
BTW, Stanley Johnson is now a person with dual citizenship, British and French. Can’t that explain why our Boris has recently become so treacherous?
As for whether the PM is a catholic, I’ll give you Clark Gable to Vivien Leigh. Have you got a Charlotte in the ceiling?
July 25, 2021
Well if they do that they will have a mighty bill to sustain it and keep the Unionists from rising up. I believe it’s more to do with the EU wanting to keep a foot on the UK’s throat. “I can’t breathe” matters less when it’s shouted by an NI Unionist or a UK Parliament.
July 25, 2021
Steve- stupid comment to make sbout the RoI- the southern Irish people have no wish to take on NI not with the current cost to the UK Treasury presently at keast 15 billion pa for 1.8 million people. Neither does the EU want to break up the UK rather instead it was the intent of some of the UK especially the ERG types who thought that by brexit the EU would fall apart but that did not happen and will not happen? Again the EU has no wish to break up the UK because no need as you are doing that all by yourselves- it seems
July 25, 2021
Steve- NI is Uk territory now and only for the meantime held by the Anglo Irish agreement 1922 underpinned by the GFA and now the protocol but it hardly Sovereign- instead it is a part of the larger Irish nation being held by another nation until something better happens in the not too distant future when the Irish nation as a whole will decide for themselves how they want to reimagine their world and move forward. As they do move forward it will be different from the past very different and very likely under the EU umbrella. It will probably happen around the same time that Scotland breaks off and decides to go its own way
July 25, 2021
Blake
“Steve- NI is Uk territory…”
Good, I’m glad you understand that. End of discussion.
July 25, 2021
steve
+100
Yes, this would appear to be the plan to break up the UK and if serious action isn’t taken pretty darned soon before more damage is done and millions more ongoing infrastructure cost it will be too late.
July 25, 2021
Wow! I know plenty of practicing Catholics in Southern Ireland here and none of them are republican sympathisers – what an ignorant thing to say?
July 25, 2021
James
“what an ignorant thing to say?”
Not really. Ours is one, we know this because he’s allowing our sovereignty to be walked all over by the EU and the republic, and he’s half – Belgian and neither does he hide the fact he’s a practising catholic.
We don’t even need to find out if it walks like duck, the facts of what Johnson has failed to do makes him a sympathiser. Probably a better maxim would be ‘if the cap fits’ where Johnson is concerned.
As for your friends in the republic; they are not the Prime Minister of the UK, so we would’nt be concerned about them in any way, and their loyalties are their business not ours.
July 25, 2021
I believe the opposite! We Brits should be doing our best effort to flood the eu with goods that do NOT comply with their petty market.
We must make every effort to destroy the eu and their fraudulent dictators like von da liar!
July 25, 2021
MFD, then you might like this other letter from June 2019:
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor-varadkars-bluff-over-the-border-may-soon-be-exposed-38254509.html
“Now there are rumours that in their frustration over the Brexit logjam, centred on the ‘Irish backstop’, the UK government is secretly planning to set up batteries of trebuchets to hurl US-style ‘chlorinated chickens’ over the coming ‘hard Border’ into the sacred territory of the Republic.”
I chose the Trebuchet font to send it to several Irish newspapers.
July 25, 2021
MFD
That’s certainly one idea, though I favour not trading with the EU at all.
July 25, 2021
MFD.. As an Irish national who has just received his EU digital Covid Cert I could not agree less. FYI This cert allows me with my EU passport to travel without hindrance through the entire EU countries total populations 450 million – so why wish to destroy something that works good – alternatively it looks like UK is going down the road to increased checks on everything including immigration customs health etc I saw it all in the 50’s 60’s – ah well each to his own
July 25, 2021
Not posted by this Peter.
July 25, 2021
Peter
“As an Irish national ….”
Not anymore, you’re not.
July 25, 2021
Reply to MFD again.. Should read – i cannot agree
July 25, 2021
“requiring all exports to the continuing EU to meet all EU requirements, on pain of penalties.”
This completely misses the point. To export to *any* country you have to meet their requirements. They won’t accept your exports otherwise. The “penalty” you talk about already exists – it’s a lost sale.
July 26, 2021
The immediate point is to avoid any new need for UK goods to be intercepted and checked as they cross the land border into the Irish Republic, as explained in the final paragraph of the letter:
“If the existing UK law provides a sufficient guarantee to the Irish and EU authorities that there is no need to check imports from the UK at the border, as it does, then there is no reason why a new UK law could not also provide such a guarantee.”
The penalties envisaged would be civil or criminal penalties imposed by the UK authorities, not by the EU or Irish authorities, and would go beyond the commercial penalty of a lost sale even if that were to happen.
At 30 seconds into this Sky report dated November 24 2017:
https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058
Leo Varadkar is seen proclaiming that there must be no “hard border”, “no physical infrastructure on the border”, and “we need a clear legal understanding of how that can be achieved”.
Well, the best way to achieve that “clear legal understanding” was and still is for the UK to pass new law to replicate the effect of the previous UK law implementing the EU Single Market rules, but only for the goods being carried across the border. As stated in the penultimate paragraph of my 2018 letter:
“After all the previous need for checks was removed when the Single European Act came into force, which was only possible because the UK Parliament had passed the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986 to approve that treaty. ”
As this would only be the UK half of the “dual autonomy” or “mutual enforcement” schemes, eg here from Sir Jonathan Faull last week, essentially repeated from two years ago:
https://www.ft.com/content/6923b4b7-6e4a-41f0-a22f-70459db3cd7f
it would not require the agreement of the EU or the Irish government, and so it would not be open to the instant rejection that they have always meted out to such proposals. They could be invited to collaborate, but even if they declined the UK could go ahead anyway and provide a practical proof of the point that there is a better way forward, their repeated claim that “there is no alternative” is false, and if the UK then unilaterally dropped the EU checks and controls at the Northern Ireland entry points that would not create any significant additional risk to their sacred EU Single Market.
July 25, 2021
You want to talk about Ireland – , in 1649, 20000 of Cromwells troops under Ireton landed in south wexford and went on to kill tens of thousands of innocents men women and children.. the cry was to hell or to Connacht and all because of their religion. Last point we don’t trust british intent – never will
July 26, 2021
I do want to talk about Ireland, but not with people who are still living in 1649.
July 25, 2021
I gave up reading today’s offering after the silliness of the first paragraph. Suffice to say the British State cannot invent liquidity from a point of nothingness and then use it to finance all of its activities without resorting to the taxpayer at each and every turn. The first paragraph suggests it can which of course is utterly preposterous
The State’s destruction of the very meaning of money to act without fiscal censure will lead to the expropriation of each citizens assets to repair the damage caused by leaders and officials are now see the Exchequer as a source of POLITICAL POWER rather a conduit that exercises due diligence in State-private taxpayer transactions
Inventing digital zeros from zero is bullshit and John knows it
July 25, 2021
Rushing wants to introduce a digital currency and abolish cash.
Big brother here we come.
You will own nothing but be happy.
July 25, 2021
Any dissenter will have to take 2 weeks isolation watching only the BBC followed by the mandatory happiness vaccine
July 25, 2021
As ever agree totally but I don’t trust Kim Jung Johnson with anything. I see they are now spinning to get out of the triple lock. Apparently they need 10 billion for social care. Forget the 59 billion in waste and inefficiency, just another 2 billion spaffed on useless protection equipment, umpteen times more than HMG admitted to, more ‘lies’ with hundreds of containers still to be opened.
How can we get any economic sense from a person who nicknamed himself ‘trolley’ because he is addicted to buying things (spending) also the architect of the sclerotic ineffective quarantine policy, more money wasted on test and trace because they haven’t the political courage to admit what the rest of us know.
France put on amber plus destroying family holidays by a frightened Health Secretary acting on wrong information on the effectiveness of vaccines against their variant.
And now sports stadia are going to have to check 50;60000 Covid passports before people are going to be allowed in, how long will that take Sir J.R? I suppose at least a three hour wait that you find acceptable at Heathrow. What message does that send to the world? Probably that we are ******* useless
July 25, 2021
+1
“I see they are now spinning to get out of the triple lock”. As I read this, the cynic in me thought they are obviously annoyed enough pensioners didn’t die as required and the remaining ones must be punished.
July 25, 2021
Nigel,
The real question ought to be when is Handcock going to be investigated for the contracts given to mates and associates that fed his power hungry ego?
We need a thorough judicial inquiry for the Chinese virus fiasco with all powers open and legislation making ministers responsible for wrong doing. Do not hold your breath.
July 25, 2021
Not very likely. Cameron has been whitewashed in his dealings recently. MP’s look after one another first and foremost.
July 25, 2021
Nig 1
“France put on amber plus destroying family holidays ”
But why would you want to go to France ? it’s our historical enemy, and probably the most ungrateful & untrustworthy nation on the planet.
July 25, 2021
And in other news it seems we are all,going to have to,pay for electric car charging points despite many of us not having an electric car. Presumably far manufacturers make a profit, let them pay a ‘surcharge’ per car sold to fund the network. We are being lumped with enough unnecessary cost, the next will be to give EDF profits to fund nuclear power stations.
July 25, 2021
EDF dont make me laugh. Nuclear power stations – thats if they are ever completed.
The more you see and hear of this shower in Westminster the more your realise that change might be a good thing.
July 25, 2021
Taxes need to go up to pay for Covid. I’m afraid the wealthy just need to pay more.
The cost would not have been so high had the government not failed so miserably.
Let’s get the ball rolling with a windfall tax on billionaire. Seize 50% of all the assets of the UK’s billionaires. Increase this to 99.9% of assets to those who try to dodge it.
We also need to spend less too. Let’s star by scrapping the Tory’s £200m Brexit barge. A pointless waste of money. Nobody cares that you can build a small boat. Scrap the triple lock. Immediate 25% cut in pensions, with a further 10% cut per year.
Some meaty savings to get us started.
July 25, 2021
Wonderful. My daily smile.
July 25, 2021
Nig1. Don’t you mean first good laugh of the day?
July 25, 2021
Andy, taxes won’t go up ‘to pay for Covid’. They will go up to pay for the socially and economically suicidal lockdown measures that the government imposed. Which you’ve cheered on.
Trash the economy and you trash the tax base.
Nice idea about the billionaires, especially those who’ve been coining it in thanks to the Covid crisis. But don’t imagine they’ll pay anything. They fund the public-private agencies that steer policy. No, chum, you and I will be paying a tax on our savings. Perhaps you’ll welcome that, as ‘social justice’?
July 25, 2021
+1
July 25, 2021
UK now down to 20th in Covid deaths per million. Behind many EU countries. Despite our numbers being inflated. UK vaccine programme a triumph by comparison with many others. Thank you Tories, thank you.
Confiscation of wealth from a few successful people is obviously a dumb idea which will result in lower overall receipts. which is why no successful and prosperous countries do it or have ever done. None.
But good to hear a leftist propose a silly idea. A reminder that for all the unsatsis aspects, we’re always better off with the Tories.
July 25, 2021
Andy
“The cost would not have been so high had the government not failed so miserably.”
Hmm…..that’s certainly true. Johnson deliberately let the virus in and then had the cheek to curtail freedoms to keep infection numbers down…….it was him that did it !
July 25, 2021
Indeed if it hadn’t been for Johnson we all would have been dead. I’m sure.
July 25, 2021
John Hatfield
Not so.
Johnson deliberately allowed flights from Wuhan and Delhi to continue, whilst simultaneously telling everyone how vital it was to lose our freedoms to keep infection numbers down to a managable level. Do you not see the problem with Johnson ?
July 25, 2021
Hey, Mr Corbyn, you forgot you promised us that you would reopen all the bankrupt Welsh coal-mines. How could you have missed that essential step?
July 25, 2021
History tells us that the printing of fiat currency inevitably results in hyperinflation. Governments love printing money because it lets them spend on electoral bribes and if they lose, the resulting inflation can always be blamed on the incoming opposition. Ultimately, the printing of fiat causes hyperinflation which destroys savings. Recent examples being Weimar Germany (1920s) Hungary (1946) Zimbabwe (2007) Yugoslavia (1992) and Angola (1994)
Hyperinflation not is some obscure and rare phenomenon that has seldom occurred in the past. In contrast, it is a destructive economic force that has tormented economies around the world in over 50 instances in just the past 100 years.
Historically people have bought gold bullion as a store of value to preserve their wealth. In addition to the gold, I have been buying silver on the dips recently. When paper money (fiat) fails, silver coin and gold will be the currency in use for commerce.
Many people have been buying British Sovereigns over the last five years. Because of the high premium, instead I buy allocated gold (gold metal known as “physical” by the LBMA, good delivery bars) vaulted safely overseas in Zurich. This means that I own the gold and it is not some gold derivative paper on COMEX. I do not buy “unallocated” gold. Those interested could check the difference out at
http://www.bullionvault.com
Reply This site does not offer investment advice or suggest assets for people to own
July 25, 2021
Add Venezuela to your list (Jeremy Corbyn’s model state). It’s sensible to say the Venezuelan bolivar is worthless rather than apply meaningless inflation rates to it.
July 25, 2021
US$275 per ounce was the average price Blair/Gordon Brown sold the UKs gold at. Current price $1802. He sold for $3.5 billion would be worth $23 bn today. Well done Mr Prudent plus you pissed it down the drain on idiotic things Gordon like you baby bond voter “bribes”.
Plus Blair gave us the appalling and outrageous US extradition treaty. Let us hope Patel refuses any more US extraditions without suitable, proper and appropriate evidence to support them.
July 25, 2021
I started buying gold in 1999 when Brown began his highly controversial gold sales. Gold is volatile and the price is constantly supressed using paper gold derivatives, so central banks can buy it at a cheaper price. Russia, China, Iran and Israel are the big buyers of gold mine output so far this year.
July 25, 2021
That’s hilarious. “Russia, China, Iran” all *produce* gold. When you read breathless stories about them buying gold, they are only taking their own gold and putting it into central reserves.
Gold is going to do what it has always done, spike around up and down all over the place, but overall gently drift up in line with inflation, while paying absolutely no dividends to its buyers.
People who bought gold in 1980 still have not seen their money back in inflation-adjusted terms and have missed out on forty years of the income they could have received from any real investment.
July 25, 2021
“History tells us that the printing of fiat currency inevitably results in hyperinflation. ”
The UK has been printing its currency since 1931 and we have never seen any sign of hyperinflation.
July 25, 2021
Most things in this country seem to be well down on the original forecasts. .
ONLY an extra £298bn. Phew!
There is no good complexion that can be put on this government’s actions and I imagine all in government must know it.
The vast crowds protesting in London yesterday certainly did.
July 25, 2021
Yes, it looks like at last the people of the world are starting to rebel.
Insane government policies leading to bankruptcy and suicide not to mention excess deaths due to non treatment of illness.
Add on the net zero lunacy and these demonstrations will seem tame.
July 25, 2021
+1
July 25, 2021
is still being underestimated, and generally ignored by those making the decisions.
I’d love to be a fly on the walls of number 10 – to find out who is really pulling the strings for these decisions.
July 25, 2021
Bryan Harris
Mrs C Johnson
July 25, 2021
From an economic stance I agree with your “From here assuming we press on with a proper recovery and do not lapse back into closures and restrictions on business the deficit should tumble”. However, I strongly suspect it will not be sufficient to clear the deficit Johnson and his fellow spendthrifts have created and direct and indirect taxes will rise.
We already know of four tax rises
1. The tax free amount on earned income has barely risen. For those who receive a State pension but still have a small paid job, but had no pay rise, they are now paying more tax now than last year. Offsetting the rise in the State pension to the point there has been a reduction.
2. NI is going up
3. Council tax rises every year, but with the wee gem that local councils will be responsible for setting up charge stations for EV’s it will have to rise to an extortionate level.
4. The cost of vehicle fuel has been going up every week.
Also along with their HS2 and net zero carbon, whilst adding to the population size every day and its associated 4* accommodation and ‘pocket money’ cost, their spending will spiral upwards. I would be interested to see the full breakdown their 2020 3-year spending plan, including risk, contingency and escalation costs on where this is all coming from?
Given governments do not have any money and can only spend other peoples money, I don’t think it unreasonable to expect the government to release its spending plan to the public every year. Pipe-dream I know, as I doubt many of them would have a clue what I am talking about.
July 25, 2021
The Budget appears every year in March on gov.uk, the latest called ‘Budget 2021 (HTML)’ (sic). All budgets since 1999 are accessible as ‘Budget xxxx’ from that same site and are in very comparable formats. Previous to 1999, they appear to have slightly different titles.
What you might be after is called ‘Comprehensive Spending Review’ or ‘Spending Review’, they are available for most years following a GE. Latest one is ‘Spending Review 2020’, 120 p.
July 25, 2021
Hi Hefner
Both of these are effectively political wish or want lists and neither are risk assessed, consider contingency and in particular escalation, so are not costed for viability. HS2 is but one example of failure to manage year on year rising costs, because they failed to set up a viable schedule, ignored escalating set-up costs, they didn’t factor in this risk, nor set aside a contingency, hence the ridiculous overspend being reported and they haven’t even laid one sleeper, but politicians still want to go ahead with it! IMO the taxpayer has the right to consider and decide whether their money is being well spent and whether some projects should be binned.
Net zero carbon is another looming failure to understand the principle of cost build-up and in doing so are unable to evaluate viability.
July 25, 2021
Congratulations to the EU27 – who will surpass 450m vaccine doses between them today. They remain on course for half a billion jabs by mid August.
Germany will surpass 90m doses tomorrow, France will surpass 70m
doses today, Italy will surpass 65m today and Spain will surpass 55m next week. A great achievement by all.
Malta is just about the most vaccinated country in the world, in terms of % jabbed. Both Hungary and Spain are about to surpass the U.K. in terms of % fully vaccinated too.
The EU27 are doing over 3m doses a day. Close to 14 times what we are now achieving -which is around 220k.
They have also fully reopened the borders between them – allowing EU citizens to travel on holiday. We, on the other hand, have to quarantine if we go to France.
July 25, 2021
Ah yes, the EU and Hungary, the happy pair!
July 25, 2021
Yes, the tortoise beat the hare.
July 25, 2021
How do you work that one out? 450 million doses is only less than half the job done. You and Andy are a right win double. He writes rubbish and you back him up.
July 26, 2021
Do you not know the story?
July 26, 2021
Andy gave us the figures. I checked them with France 24 and they report under 50 percent of EU vaccinated with one jab. Spin it how you like. If you have some countervailing fact why don’t you just state it rather than try to be clever?
July 25, 2021
450 million doses. Only another 450 million plus to go then. Seems like they are almost half way through. They should be done by New Year. Well done. We’ll be done by September, ready for the boosters this winter. When are the EU going to do their boosters?
July 25, 2021
I don’t know how this country compares with others as to levels of vaccine refusal, and therefore whether we – rather than they – will ever be “done”, TBH, Graham.
It looks like a significant problem though.
July 26, 2021
You cannot force people who have weird views to be sensible. So we will be done as far as can be done. The EU will have some nutters too, for fear of government control with micro chips in the vaccine or religion. Why do you continually split hairs? The fact is around 90 per cent here have had one jab and more than 60 percent have had both. The EU has done under 50 percent with one jab. So your tortoise and hare was obviously stated without any thought, just to make a point. Unless you have some other information?
July 25, 2021
Stop being such an arse, Andy.
Even if we ignore the population difference, you know full well that out vaccination programme has slowed down only because many of your precious under 50s are opting out !
If they had taken up the jabs in the same proportion as the more sensible older Brits you hate so much, we would be way ahead.
July 25, 2021
Why do you think that vaccine refusal might be a greater problem in this country than in, say, Germany?
July 26, 2021
He didn’t say Germany was slowing down Marty – try reading the post before jumping to another country’s defence.
Your prejudices become ever more apparent.
July 26, 2021
Quite – reread my post.
My point about the tortoise and the hare is that you should wait until the race is over before picking a winner.
If it happens that this country has a high rate of vaccine refusal, then it may well be that others achieve a better final position than this one.
And as Andy points out they are catching up very rapidly.
July 25, 2021
Even the EU can get a job done if you salow them six months longer than everyone else.
July 25, 2021
The BBC said on June 20th that in the EU member nations 300 million jabs had been administered but that only 28% had two doses.
Seems unlikely to me that in the next 4 weeks 150 million people had a jab as andy claims.
Here in the UK 47 million have had one dose and 37 million two doses
A total of nearly 84 million doses.
If you say a UK population of 70 million then this means 53% of our population is fully vaccinated.
If you go with 63 million, ie the last census then it’s nearly 60%
Either way it is way ahead of the EUs efforts.
Tortoise and hare….not a good analogy.
July 25, 2021
With respect SJR I see todays submission as something of a stocking filler. There are subjects of much greater immediate import that need attention.
The bumbling return from Covid that seems to have lost its way and continues to impact on a return to work, international vacation travel and relatively normal social interaction.
Resolving the NI Protocol has dithered in indecision for far too long. If HMG cannot see what is going on and for what purpose they are not fit to be HMG.
The total farce of cross Channel immigration traffic. If the DM can get it all what are HMG playing at.
The last two points recall the appeasement of Neville Chamberlain and the total failure of HMG to acknowledge what is going on. Persistence will cost you politically and very dearly.
July 25, 2021
We only have state barrowing because we need to fund non-essentials; HS2, Foreign Aid, Trident renewal and paying off the EU – that’s your £300bn…..not to mention the excess pay/pensions of top level public/civil servants or other vanity projects like going carbon zero
Just image the advances we could make without the burden of state borrowing
July 25, 2021
A perfect opportunity for levelling up. Stop pussy footing about and take proper control of our fishing waters, attract the entrepreneurs back to Grimsby, Hull and other East coast ports and regenerate the success we had in the beginning of the 60s.
I went to a frozen food convention in 1960 and it was dominated by the likes of Carl Ross, The Youngs, Bernard Mathews etc all based on the East side of the country. It would have remained a prosperous area if hadn’t been for the EU’s industrial treachery and the weakness of successive governments over the past 40 to 50 years.
This weakness still exists today as we have a PM with a tendency to be liked and is too polite towards those bureaucrats in Brussels. As Denis Cooper has pointed out, it has taken 41 months to come up with an obvious solution to the NI problem. There are many more areas where we are being far too slow to regain our sovereignty all impacting on our economy, paying off the Covid debt and the implementation of ‘levelling up’.
Far better to be ‘liked’ by 30 to 40 million in this country rather than a small number of commissioners and MEPs in Europe
July 25, 2021
The most important of Kiplings six serving men is who.
Everything that has and is happening is down to people. Whether it be the PM, ministers, civil, public servants, the country can only try and work with their plans and aspirations.
We have arrived at a cross roads where there are to many things running on loose wheels. Is it not becoming extremely obvious to a blind man at a 100 yards that the present “team:” is not working to its full potential if at all.
We can scream all we like but until we change big time how this country operates, we the people are on a hiding to nothing.
July 25, 2021
I agree turboterrier. 😱. I think the problem we have in the UK is that there is two agenda’s the primary agenda is to serve the politicians/globalists needs, the second is to manage the aspirations of the people that put them there (Not the voters). You can only pick an MP for a major party from the selection they provide it is all an illusion. When they then get their position they have to toe the line, it is in their interest to if they want to keep their job for as long as possible.
July 25, 2021
Why is it too much to expect and ask MPs to comply with and only with, the wishes of the voters that got them into power
July 25, 2021
Are we going to be mending the roof while the sun shines then (as Osborne speak (but not action) would suggest)?
Your heroine QE1 might have indulged in debasing the coinage but not to the extent of £875 billion. Recent activities likely o’er flow the measure.
July 25, 2021
Good morning.
+1
And that is the thing – ‘their plans and aspirations’ and not ours. They only offer what we want when seeking election.
And that is why I believe it is time we looked at Direct Democracy. Clearly those that make the decisions, if they are making the decisions and not being told what to do like before, are making bad ones. This is a consequence of BREXIT. For too long the dross at the top have been getting away with it. Now they are, supposedly, in the driving seat, there is no one they can blame apart from themselves.
July 25, 2021
Kind of O/T: ‘Failures of State: The inside story of Britain’s battle with coronavirus’, J. Calvert, G. Arbuthnott, 2021 (two Insight journalists of the Sunday Times).
Very scary, but well worth reading if you still have a public library that asks for purchasing advices from the public. Otherwise £20.
I just hope that many people (and MPs) would have read it when the ‘independent public inquiry’ is finally called in 2022.
July 25, 2021
Of course it’s scary, Hefner. That was the playbook. If you want to know how the scare was managed, you can read Laura Dodsworth’s outstandingly well documented book ‘State of Fear’. Here’s a brief excerpt: ‘The virus narrative makes us enemies of each other, which is used to justify impositions on our freedoms and the manipulation of our fears.’
A public enquiry which mainly asks “Why didn’t Johnson lock down harder and sooner?” would be worthless, a bit like the Hutton enquiry, from what I recall. What is needed is a criminal court to try those responsible for what has been inflicted on the British public, taking evidence from victims and from truly independent experts, not ones funded by government or big corporations who have profited from the crisis/opportunity. More and more people are now working to make that happen.
July 25, 2021
Philip P., Thanks for the tip.
July 25, 2021
When was there ever a serious crisis that was not followed by a crop of “inside story” pot-boilers?
July 25, 2021
When the figure of 354 billion was given out it included bad loans and transport which are not included in the 298 billion you speak of now,, i would say that the 354 billion is nearer the true figure overall with a lot more to come. As for the new digital currency to magic up exxtra GDP out of thin air when you already have a digital currency that works well. There are people in gov who want to take the crown away from Japan and overtake their 300 percent of debt and be first again.
July 25, 2021
How comforting!
What scenarios do you have for when interest rates rise, as they will?
There is no solution to any of this until the country sells more abroad than it imports. Government doesn’t pay this the attention it deserves – it is quite happy to prostitute us by selling everything we have, nailed down or not.
We must massively support by grant and orders to new and existing home owned manufacturing ( although I suspect ‘Boris” surrender to the EU on Brexit prevents this ).
In addition we must introduce far stronger legislation preventing foreign takeover of our businesses – the recent is Act is useless and will probably hardly ever be used as it is weak and much limited.
July 25, 2021
I do not share your apparent complacency about the level of government spending. It is out of control. Too much is spent on vanity projects. Too much is wasted by bungling incompetence of a government that is not under adult control. It is all too easy for here today, but gone tomorrow, politicians to promise this, that and the other grandiose spending plans leaving others to sort out the mess they have made when they are no longer around. The UK needs as PM someone who understands money and has a better grip on the consequences of what they plan to do. That is not the present incumbent.
July 25, 2021
The logic of this position is that it would be OK to put all government spending on the BoE tab and cancel all taxation. There would be no limit to spending on whatever politicians desired. Aid at 100% of GDP. Net minus 100% to save the world. Then Alice woke up and realised it was a dream.
July 25, 2021
Now the government has found they can borrow as much as they like (with the BoE’s connivance) with no negative effects apparent they will become addicted to this form of financing. Like income tax, this temporary measure will become permanent.
July 25, 2021
That the State has bought back £875B of its own debt is bewildering. We had to borrow an extra £298B to cover the virus costs so where did the £875B come from? It must have been effectively printed for there cannot be a more logical reason for “finding” that enormous sum.
As I recall, Zimbabwe, under Mugabe, went on a money printing spree in order to fund the country. The result? Hyperinflation, which destroyed the currency and bankrupted the State.
It is difficult to see a positive outcome in the UK from our own profligacy and the only ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card I see is that most of the world is in exactly the same situation.
I feel sure a terrible financial storm is approaching for which there is no escape and it will take years to die down. History tells us it took 20 years for the DJIA to recover its level prior to the 1929 crash. This time around, may take longer.
July 25, 2021
Oh right. Zimbabwe. You could guess that one was coming.
July 26, 2021
And your point, is? I could add Argentina and the Weimar Republic, even France too. I selected Zimbabwe as it is the most recent. My point is that no currency is immune from such dangers. These lessons from history are being ignored right now.
July 25, 2021
As Sir John knows very well, the state has no money of its own. It is our money and there is friction in collecting and distribution, often misguided distribution.
July 25, 2021
Correct its our money, either we spend it or our government spends it on our behalf.
However the issue with government borrowing is that its not our money, its our credit…which they use and abuse
July 25, 2021
What happens eventually when the number of people working directly or indirectly for the state in jobs which do not bring in foreign earnings increase every year?
Or are we to believe a well-known economist who advises governments and organisations, write books and is head of a research group who said on a BBC Daily Politics programme in May 2018 that because the NHS employs so many people it pays for itself from the taxes they pay?
July 25, 2021
Then we should have two NHS and use the second one to fund the rest of the economy.
July 25, 2021
Clinical totalitarianism is extremely expensive to finance. Johnson’s vicious barbarity in dragging OUR nation into the Marxist abyss of fear, paranoia, monitoring and the unreal must be paid for in numerous ways by those who voted for these MPs who have the nerve to call themselves elected representatives.
The British State is today a sinister political monster out of control and those in Parliament who choose silence rather than accountability are acting to protect their party advantage rather than protecting something far more important, our country
This PM is the apotheosis of all that has gone before when this experiment in massive State intervention in our lives started in1997.
John and his so called Tory colleagues may as well belong to the Labour party
The two party status quo is destroying all that we are
July 25, 2021
They have become gods of power, the new kings of Britain
Where does our sovereignty now reign; with the people or the politicians
They’re shaping the country into their image, ignoring the voters decisions
They no longer work for us; we toil for them
July 25, 2021
I suspect part of Boris loves to get a rise from angry old Tories who go on about spending / tax reduction – basically stuff to do with money as opposed to culture / civilisation in general.
Conservatism should be about culture / civilisation in general – not just money / tax reduction (and libertarianism).
So the more these types of Tories complain, the more Boris will happily dip into the country’s purse and spend.
July 25, 2021
A man with a hammer sees nails everywhere, and “reduce taxes” is a good old familiar hammer.
July 25, 2021
A man with a hammer should also have a toolbox that he can create wonderful things with. The Conservative movement isn’t just about hammering taxes – it’s far more. It’s about – or should be about (like in past times) creating a culture / nation / civilisation – in which human enterprise, family life and nation life can flourish – from the economy, science and education to the arts, architecture and sport.
This COMPREHSNIVE, INTEGRATED Conservatism (like Tories of old would have regarded Conservatism). Not something hyper-focused on taxes, money and libertarianism. Ironically, there’d be even more money, lower taxes and more security for individuals – and happier individuals overall – if our nation embraced the more comprehensive, integrated form of Conservatism – and a far more interesting form of Conservatism as well.
July 25, 2021
Sir John, with regard to the Northern Ireland Protocol, there is a sentence in the Command Paper published the other day that goes to the heart of the whole problem. The government states: “We also recognise our share of responsibility in helping the EU protect its single market”. WHY??? Why on earth do we have ANY responsibility to help THEM protect THEIR single market. This makes no sense to me at all. Do we help Japan protect their domestic market? Or Uganda? Or ANY other country? I don’t think so – and nor should we! I really do not understand this. Sir John: can you explain this? Do you know why the government holds such a bafflingly weird and illogical position? This just seems like lunacy – quite literally!
July 25, 2021
That was just the price of getting the deal signed. Most Treaties contain nice pablum that no-one believes.
July 25, 2021
You are preaching to the converted here John. It is our socialist government you need to be speaking to, especially our wandering prime minister.
I fear that, unless we can change this government, we are a’ doomed.
July 25, 2021
“The best way of getting the deficit down is faster recovery. That needs tax rate cuts, not rises.”
I agree, but the likelihood of that happening is far below zero.
July 25, 2021
Mainly because it’s wrong. With all respect to JR he has a bee in his bonnet about reducing taxes. Taxes should be set at a level that meets Government spending and tax reductions not treated as an end in itself.
What is going to drive economic recovery is demand, skills, education, reduced regulation, ease of doing business, ease of creating companies, labour flexibility.
No-one sane who has a good business idea is going to sit and vegetate because taxes are a percent above his taste.
July 26, 2021
JL, I fully agree. But do not forget that Sir John is before anything else a politician and for such a person to possibly look attractive to voters it is much easier to talk about tax reductions (that everybody usually understands) than to address ‘demand, skills, education, reduced regulation, ease of doing business and of creating companies, labour flexibility’, likely to be more complex and messier topics.
PS: According to the all-party Public Accounts Committe, the cost of measures to deal with the pandemic was £372bn by end of May, an additional £74bn in two months from end of March.
Reply I believe in data driven policy.Tax cuts boost private sector investment and growth.
July 25, 2021
Daily Mail reporting
‘’BBC under fire for Diversity Tsar June Sarpong who works three days a week and earns a whopping £267,000’’
That why we need to borrow, to fund the vast costs of the BBC and other vanity projects
July 26, 2021
But the evidence is before our eyes and ears, she is incredibly over-successful.
July 25, 2021
In a small step towards sanity, HMG has abolished the requirement for all imported wines to have a so-called VI-1 certification. This was a typical EU regulation that involved a lot of form-filling and a technician performing no less than seven tests in each batch of imported wines. That is, officially. In reality it was just one of the EU’s usual non-tariff barriers intended to protect EU domestic wine producers from international competition.
Abolishing this non-tariff barriers will supposedly save wine drinkers 130 million a year, which is a small sum, but if we could save that much on each category of imports would add up to a pretty large sum. The real benefit here is that we don’t have trained technicians wasting their lives testing wine that was already tested at source.
July 25, 2021
Need more money? Tax the windfarms. The owners of these unnecessary virtue-signals are granted a license to print money with billions being given out every year. This is not collected from the general taxpayer but is added by the power companies to the bills of individuals. Those who use most electricity, the old, the poor and the sick thus pay proportionately most for unreliable and wasteful delivery of the most vital thing our civilisation supplies.
HS2 is a crime. Subsidised ‘renewable’ energy is a sin.
JF
July 25, 2021
Been saying this for years Julian ever since Communities Against Turbines Scotland was formed. Nobody is listening.
July 26, 2021
Glen C above: BBC Diversity champion – A good piece on this on GB News earlier today. Not just a £267.000 bill as it would appear that there are a number of other Diversity job titles too, presumably they are also paid.