I reproduce below a piece I published recently on Conservative Home:
Iām all in favour of levelling up. Our country needs all the talent it can get. I want more people who have bought their own home, found a good job, built their own business, developed a passion for dance or sport or entertainment.
I want a society where snobbishness is a thing of the past and where the plumber is as valued as the accountant and a food delivery driver as much as a health worker. We need a reliable water supply and food in the shop every day. These are important tasks.
The recent battle to recruit a new army of truck drivers should be seen as a prime case where we need to level up. We have seen years of decline in the numbers of people wanting to be long distance and heavy lorry drivers. A lack of concern by some employers over facilities for breaks and overnight stops, coupled with relatively low pay and long periods away from home, has made it difficult to recruit younger people and women.
During lockdown the online retailers needed a massive expansion of van deliveries for their offers. They were able to attract drivers to smaller vehicles with more flexible hours and better pay. The closures and shortages across Europe reduced the numbers of migrants willing to work for less with poor conditions.
The UK needs to attract back the qualified HGV licence holders and early retired, those who have swapped jobs in pursuit of better pay, and train a new cohort of truck drivers. Large employers and government need to remedy the defects of the conditions with more lorry parks, with better facilities for breaks and overnight stops.
Pay needs to go up, as it did when tube drivers used their negotiating muscle to require the public sector to pay much higher rates for a job than an HGV driver gets. There should be a new respect for these drivers now people see how dependent their own lifestyle is on the timely delivery of everything from food to petrol.
Levelling up is about people as well as about place. Indeed, if enough people in a given town make a success of their business or company careers their extra spending power will bring the extra investment, new services and better shops people would like to see.
Conservatives should not try to define levelling up in Labour terms. They place all the emphasis on levels of public spending. Levelling up to them is more about place than people. Buy the town a new heavily subsidised tram system, put in more public sector community centres and provide new school and surgery buildings and the place will be levelled up. If only it were that cheap and easy. They stress the amounts of money rather than what we get for it.
Of course it is right that improving the quality of the public estate and helping with communications and connectivity can help. Any MP knows they have to argue the case for the new school or the improved road for their patch.
That is not the same as thinking if we just double the public sector spend lives will be transformed. To have a self sustaining wealthier community requires government helping the many. They need to reap better rewards from work and to get access to the qualifications and opportunities it takes to own your own home, have some money in the bank for a rainy day and to have a working life that commands respect.
It all begins in the schools. Inspired teachers can help every pupil find that spark, that thing they love and wish to excel at, that drive to be positive about life and its numerous chances. It requires discipline, as you only get good when you practise a lot.
Aims need to be stretching but achievable, built up as a child progresses. It moves on to the choice of apprenticeship or degree. Some break from academic education because they are already sure of their ambition to be sports people or entrepreneurs or performers whose path in life after leaving school requires their full attention to the chosen course.
Government can of course help. It needs to redouble its efforts to make it easier for people to set up their own business, and to go on to recruit their first employees. It needs to make it easier and more affordable to buy your own home. The attack on the self employed through IR35 was unhelpful, The new tax on jobs is a bad idea. Getting a mortgage is not easy. Government contracts could be made available to more smaller companies to give them a chance of getting one through break down of quantities required through multiple suppliers.
Where place and people come together is in planning decisions. Places the Government wants to level up need more homes for people with good jobs and businesses of their own. Many have more freedom over where to live now we are moving into a hybrid world of working. More people with good qualifications and earnings help boost a community and provide more demand for others to meet.
A relatively affluent community like Wokingham is not affluent through more public spending. We are at the bottom of the tables for public spending per head in the main services. We are well placed in the relative prosperity and good place to live tables because they keep on sending so much investment in expensive homes for people to live in who have levelled themselves up through qualifications and good jobs.
October 2, 2021
Spot on. Levelling up was always and still is a cliche meaning all or nothing depending on your point of view.
Certainly unmeasurable as usual and a typical example of Borisās waffle.
October 2, 2021
Absolutely, Nig1, and it’s also a complete contradiction of the core purpose of Conservatism.
That is, to conserve the uneven distribution of wealth, power, and property on behalf of those who have the most of these.
Surely people realise this?
Reply. The opposite of what we stand for
October 2, 2021
Thank you Sir John, but the opposite of those would be to promote the even distribution of wealth, of power, and of property, on behalf of all the people.
So if you are true to your word, then why are you not in the communist party or something like that?
October 2, 2021
‘So if you are true to your word, then why are you not in the communist party or something like that?’
That’s stumped you JR – can’t gainsay that then!
October 3, 2021
It is something do with free will. Although every single human being has a limited amount of free will, whatever situation they are born into, there are degrees of freedom and the communist regime restricts and disallows , whereas encouragement to respect the individual and achieve is the other side of the coin.
October 2, 2021
“but the opposite of those would be to promote the even distribution of wealth, of power, and of property, on behalf of all the people.”
No, it would not. It would be to ensure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
October 2, 2021
Er, I know the letter of what I wrote, Jon, and what is its literal opposite.
It’s right there just above.
See?
October 2, 2021
NLH :
There is nothing wrong with an āuneven distribution of wealthā.
The Westās culture of freedom of thought, speech and action and importantly the application of meritocracy has brought an āuneven distribution of wealthā but at the same time has levelled up the quality of life for everyone through the creation of wealth, new ideas and technology and institutions.
Communism with limited personal advancement, except for an elite few, levels everyone down to the poorest existence and means it can only exist under authoritarian regimes.
October 2, 2021
OK, for “uneven” read “grotesquely uneven”.
I accept your literal point.
October 2, 2021
You are mixing up equality of opportunity which is what Conservatives want with equality of outcomes which is what socialist want.
Easily done.
October 3, 2021
@Peter2; Do Socialists really expect both equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes, how does that work then, given they have long accept pay scale differentials etc. Surly to have equality of outcome the candlestick maker should get the same pay as the tallow renderer, never mind the farm labour? You obviously do not remember the strikes in the 1970s when one trade union demanded more pay because less skilled workers had gained a better hourly rate that narrowed the pay differential between skill sets or trades?
What you describe as ‘socialism’ sounds more like some sort of fundamentalist Communism that even the USSR didn’t practise!
October 4, 2021
No they dont Jerry.
October 5, 2021
@Peter2; So you’re agreeing with me, thank you!
October 5, 2021
No I am not agreeing with you Jerry.
October 3, 2021
NLH, You think communists “promote the even distribution of wealth”?? You are Rip van Winkle who went to sleep in 1900, and I demand my Ā£5.
October 2, 2021
You mean the uneven distribution of wealth, power and property which was such a feature of the Soviet Socialist republics, Notts Lad? That’s the way converts to statism like Boris Johnson are headed after all.
October 2, 2021
Wasn’t the uneven distribution of wealth, power and property for a very tiny group of people – the even distribution was among the poor majority – I’m just guessing.
October 3, 2021
It shows.
October 2, 2021
Is the One Million Pound Club not part of what you stand for?
October 2, 2021
@NLH; Surely you describe Toryism, not “Conservatism”.
October 2, 2021
Should stand for a straightforward meritocracy. Where your talent and hard work matter more than they do now.
October 2, 2021
Yes, ālevelling upā is just a new phrase that politicians use.
It is a subsidiary of ābuild back betterā and can be used to reinforce it.
The aim is to take more off people and put them all in their place, beholden to a few billionaire big shots.
Meanwhile, nobody who has feathered their nest at the higher levels will ever resign for incompetence or misdeeds. They will not be sacked either.
Governments are now so emboldened that they know the electorate are aware of the strokes they are pulling – but they donāt care. They work on the basis that the electorate cannot do anything about it.
October 2, 2021
Peter – that seems absolutely right. Look at the well known corruption, illegality, outright crimes committed by the US but no one can do anything about it. And the US is our wonderful ally. If the Nazis hadn’t committed those dreadful crimes and only went for regime change in the USSR then they would have been a valued ally.
October 3, 2021
Wrinkle, Go on enlighten me – what are those “well known corruptions, illegalities, outright crimes committed by the US”? And “if the Nazis hadnāt committed those dreadful crimes” (which particular dreadful crimes have you in mind?) they would, no doubt, be the Vegetarian party, and so much better than the wicked US?
October 2, 2021
It is unfair to criticise the transport industry too much (over pay and conditions) they had and have to operate in a competitive marked and had to compete to survive. If cheap immigrant drivers is or was available they have to use them or they get out competed or taken over.
The problem the UK has is far too many people doing essentially parasitic jobs rather than real and productive ones. This mainly in the state sector but also where government has regulated or interfered in the markets to generate endless pointless jobs in HR, tax planning, law, accounting, HR and compliance, provisions of pointless degrees, energy market rigging, complex and slow planning and the rest.
Immigration however is still rising, it has not actually been reduced by this government. They are ratting on this manifesto promise here too as well as on tax rates.
October 2, 2021
“Parasitic”?
So how would you describe the fat cats who run the staffing agencies for social care, say, while the carers get minimum wage on ZHCs?
And in all the other sectors?
Do us a favour.
October 2, 2021
If those cats are fat it is because there isn’t the competition in this resourcing system to drive prices down. I suspect it is also, in the case of the NHS, that it is easier for NHS staff to call up Mr Fatcat to recruit for them than to bother to do their own advertising/recruiting etc. Like lorry drivers, costs have been driven down amongst manual workers by the availability of East Europeans etc. The market was distorted, because these folks often don’t have a base here, so could upsticks with their Ā£ account and live in Romania etc, as kings and queens. Indigenous Brits couldn’t do that. Now the game has changed back.
October 2, 2021
Indeed it is probably the NHS with a “what do we care about price it is not our money anyway so do just do what is easiest”!
In the state sector they care care not what price they pay nor what value (if any) they get. Ā£37 billion on Test and Trace – value delivered almost certainly a net negative!
October 2, 2021
NLH, Do you think in slogans too?
October 2, 2021
So you agree there are parasites. If you feel so strongly about those who run staffing agencies then why don’t you open an agency yourself and run it as you want?
October 2, 2021
I did not (and would not) describe carers as parasitic. The people running agencies obviously serve a need or people would not use them and would recruit directly instead. But many people do jobs that produce little value the more complex and onerous you make taxation, employment laws, health and safely, energy supplies, planning and many other areas of compliance the more parasitic worker you create and the less competitive you make the UK.
October 2, 2021
NLH – why do social care use agencies, why donāt they put their advertisements on Indeed and interview their own applicants? Why use temps this needs investigating instead of taking people on in permanent roles, is it because they have too many staff on unknown length sick leave.
We lost a great service in the Job Centres not enough people discussed how useful they were. Now everything is online and worse for it. Unemployed people donāt seem to get the proper help to get back into work and/or retrained and it is just too easy for them to click to fake interest in a job (to show they are trying) then not turn up for interviews without a call or e-mail or even answer telephone pre-lim interviews.
October 2, 2021
Agree
October 2, 2021
A-Track. Totally agree.
October 2, 2021
And how many of those fat cats were at this week’s Labour Conference, cheering Starmer? The fat cats are the new aristocracy, and they support the Labour Party because they think it will create more and more laptop and clip-board jobs for completely pointless people like themselves.
October 2, 2021
LL, +1, and heartfelt.
October 2, 2021
Lifelogic, You are right. I look at what people currently do as job in the UK, and it seems that so many are simply operating and enforcing regulations, or moving other people’s money around. Pointless, demoralising, restrictive and costly.
There is also the problem of snobbishness as portrayed by Remains for over 4 years. Remains stated that the vote of someone without a degree was somehow worth less than a 22 year old with a degree in gender studies.
And of course the notion that a nation of c70 million (probably nearer 80m) cannot produce enough of its own HGV drivers, geologists, care-workers, doctors, etc, is barmy.
October 2, 2021
‘And of course the notion that a nation of c70 million (probably nearer 80m) cannot produce enough of its own HGV drivers, geologists, care-workers, doctors, etc, is barmy.’
That is so right. Look at so many European countries with fewer than 10 million – are they crying out for 70 million?
October 2, 2021
+1
October 2, 2021
So Oliver Dowden CBE, Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party tell’s us Boris Johnson’s aim is to cut taxes. It sound a bit like Cameron (I am a low tax at heart Conservative but never in reality). When exactly will he cut taxes? A week before the next election I assume only for them to rise again directly a week after the election. We still do not have Osbornes Ā£1 million IHT threshold each – promised in 2007! At least the promise made Gordon Brown chicken out of his early election! We now have the highest taxes for seventy years and still rising – it will not work it will just strangle the recovery especially with expensive energy and Net Zero on top.
You can only cut taxes (Dowden/Sunack/Boris) if you stop pissing money down the drain on HS2, net zero, test and trace, bloated government, soft loans for largely pointless/worthless degrees, net damaging lockdowns, the dire BBC and the endless other waste. He clearly has no appetite for this. Some say we now have a choice of socialists light (the Tories) or real socialists Labour/SNP – not at all – we have a choice of real socialists (The Tories) and socialists very heavy indeed (Labour/SNP).
Patel says the police “must raise the bar on harassment of women” well it might be good if the raised the bar in dealing with the stabbing of men and the very many other real crimes that they fail the public on every single day.
Why on earth Ms Patel did you retain the appalling & repeated failure Cressida Dick then?
October 2, 2021
Once upon a time the Home Secretary would have resigned, had someone been found to have been abducted and murdered by a policeman.
October 2, 2021
And the case you have in mind was?
October 2, 2021
It is the Police chiefs that should resign.
October 2, 2021
Indeed
October 2, 2021
Good morning.
That, Sir John, is the last thing we either need or want.
Leveling up is nothing more than Soft Socialism. Socialism concerns itself with equality of outcome and not of opportunity. If Leveling up is about the equality of opportunity, then everyone can enjoy the benefits of a private education at Eton or Harrow. Everyone can go to Cambridge or Oxford Universities.
What Leveling up means, is more governments interfere in our lives. Where ‘they’ see inequality, whether it be real or imagined, Leveling up provides them with the perfect excuse to interfere to achieve whatever outcome they see fit.
Of course, Leveling up will come at a price. Nothing that require equality of outcome and not opportunity is. So the Middle Classes are to be squeezed again and again to reduce the gap.
Before the Second World War, there was real poverty. People were living in shabby homes with outside toilets. There are pictures of the time of children playing in the street with no shoes. That is the REAL poor ! Today we are far, far better off. Better fed. Better looked after by the State.
We are slowly sliding into Communism.
October 2, 2021
+several million
HOORAY!!
As one who has suffered the rigours of working class communism and the spite and discrimination therein you are absolutely correct!
The only people who are discriminated against ( especially the NHSā¦and I could tell some stories!) are the middle classes.
And if you are middle class in outlook and education, living in a working class areaā¦God help you!
Have MPs heard of the black market? It would make their hair stand on end!!
When John Major decided that we were all middle class he should have made sure that middle class values were taught in schools. NOT just handed middle class jobs over to those less able to carry them out!! LOOK at the state of the country.
Meanwhile, as Mark says interfering governments have pushed us into communism!
October 2, 2021
Communism on it’s way?…well with a grand Romanov wedding in St Petersburg and trouble in the Balkans- with militant Serbia confronting Kosovo and Hungary and Serbia at loggerheads with Ukraine over the re-direction of Russian gas this week…….perhaps it’s time to party like it’s 1914!
October 2, 2021
Yes.
āThe Shooting Partyā?
Like a kind of rerun.
No trenches this time!
October 2, 2021
Mark B
Iām from the government and Iām here to help!
As Ronald Reagan said, the most feared words imaginable
October 2, 2021
feared? – a wonderful one-liner that still makes millions burst out laughing.
October 2, 2021
Mark B, +1 , you’re quite right, but who’s listening?
October 2, 2021
Well said Mark. I totally agree! There are some people in our country who do not know how to use their family budget, so the more they are given the more they spend unwisely.
When I was at school ( many years ago ) part of our mathematics lesson quite often included budgeting . Perhaps children should be taught that instead of lefty ā its my rightā, Great Britain would thrive
October 2, 2021
MFD :
Any government that genuinely wanted to ālevel upā would start by de-nationalising our schools.
October 2, 2021
+1 Mark
When I was little in the late 60ās early 70ās my aunts had terraced houses with no toilets or bathrooms in the home, there was a shed at the bottom of the garden and a metal bath to fill up with the kettle. We walked to school with orange armbands because the smog from the local potbanks was so thick in the morning air. My Nana got a prized council ātin houseā with an indoor bathroom and a downstairs toilet in an outhouse next to the coal shed she was made up and looked after that house and the garden like it was a palace. That street now is so run down and thankfully after my aunt died I no longer have to go down to see what it has become.
I worry about how much government is interfering now John, when women I know are better off kicking their partners out and relying on the State as the other parent youāre going too far.
October 2, 2021
a-tracy
Yep same here, outside toilet, no bathroom, open coal fires in my parents private rented house.
They had no telephone or car either, got around on either a bus or a push bike.
But always plenty of good food on the table, and always in work, so never in debt.
Still the same when I eventually left to get married in the early 1970’s.
Andy would of course suggest I was privileged and spoilt.
Agree with MFD Mathematics revolved around sensible matters like meaningful calculations, compound interest rates, budgeting, exercises in using road and rail time table’s, distance calculations from ordinance survey maps etc. All useful skills at the time, and still of use now.
October 2, 2021
Not just kicking out their husbands and relying on the state but in many cases being a lot better off for doing so.
October 2, 2021
Jools, I know one woman who is running a car now, couldnāt afford before, being put through a degree by the school she works in part-time with nearly all the school holidays off. These women calculate to the 1p how many hours at what rate they have to work the minimum. Her partner had no chance once she realised how much better off she would be without him, she stayed in the 3 bed private rental now covered by the State and taking a cut from him too, heās back at home with his Mum & Dad who were hoping to downsize and now canāt.
I had another woman who got pregnant got rid of the fella, took a year off on maternity leave, then when she came back wanted 16 hours with all the school holidays off (as that doesnāt affect benefits) to claim the max. Theyāre smart not stupid. Because fella can still turn up and stay over 3 night per week. It is young working couples I feel sorry for being asked to stump up extra all the time to pay for all this generosity and now they want to keep the Ā£20 Covid top up even though their children are back in school and their work can resume, if not there is plenty of work around for them in care homes weāre told. Gone are the days when women did childminding to top up their income as working from home Mums, all the strict rules and regulations and extra charges got rid of them and now the left decry the cost of childcare when they cut off one of the best sources of reasonable cost care.
October 3, 2021
A-tracy, Excellent points, well said.
October 2, 2021
@Mark B Help from Government, means punishing the taxpayer and the vulnerable more
October 2, 2021
After the second world war too.
October 2, 2021
At least furlough (a massive waste of public money) has finally come to an end.
Other massive waste by this government it is absolutely everywhere:-
The pointless degrees and soft loan for them – about 75% are.
Test and Trace
Unconscious bias training and others such insaniti
The more damage than benefit lockdown.
The absurd net zero agenda and rigging of the energy markets.
The absurdly restrictive employment laws
The diversity agenda.
The slow and restrictive planning system as in Heathrow and Nuclear. One reason Dyson now manufactured in Malaysia.
Absurdly over complex taxation.
October 2, 2021
How about these hotel rooms, usually round about the Ā£60 per night mark which the government ( aka us) is paying Ā£200 per night for.
Apparently the level of behaviour is so atrocious that self funding guests just leave and then WE have to pay for a total refurb. such is the damage.
Alsoā¦border guard funding has now been reduced.
October 2, 2021
On the Greek island of Lesbos there are thousands of refugees in tents (UN sanctioned tents), and not in 4*hotels like the UKā¦.I wonder why the refugees across Europe are all heading towards Kent
Levelling Up perhaps
October 2, 2021
+1
Apparently rubber bullets are now being used in France.
October 2, 2021
I know people don’t like Macron but that is going a bit too far!
October 2, 2021
They have been used by British forces in Northern Ireland in the 1970s to early 2000s. They are a British invention from the MoD. They have subsequently been used in Canada, Australia, USA, Israel, China for years, more recently in Lebanon and even in Switzerland this April. Nowadays they are more made of plastic than of rubber. They are advertised every year at the DSEI Security & Defense Exhibition in Farnborough if you are a potential customer.
And yes recently used by French border forces against potential Channel migrants. But is it not what you would want?
And BTW, French police forces had started to use these little jewels in January 2019 in some incidents involving the yellow vests.
October 2, 2021
JR – is the govt/paying Ā£200/night for refugee hotel rooms? If you don’t know, find out and tell us, if you are not scared to do so.
October 2, 2021
The biggest waste of money: pensions. Ā£100bn+per year for people to sit in a chair and moan.
October 2, 2021
True enough. Given the option at 16 to opt out of 25% of tax paid 16-64 (approx portion of state spending) and also opt out of a state pension, I would have, believe me.
October 2, 2021
And what happened to the National Debt during the period a retired person now was aged 16-64? Did it not go up by leaps and bounds? What was saved of those taxes they paid for their state pension?
All wasted by borrow and spend governments those working people voted in. Shouldn’t they at least share some responsibility in paying off their share of National Debt before claiming entitlement to a state pension?
Sorry if you always voted for a realistic parliamentary candidate, who understood the people of today should be paying for what the country spends, and not pushing the debt onto the next generation. Your peers didn’t.
October 2, 2021
Yes ! you moan every day. There are many other countries, perhaps you should investigate moving to one more suitable to your beliefs.
By the way , my comfortable pension is a result of good budgeting , I had the foresight to purchase it while you were probably paying into the publicans pension fund, just like many other idiots in the cities.
October 2, 2021
Why not advise Sir Keir to commit to stopping State Pensions in his next Election manifesto Andy?
You seem to want Labour in power. Why not encourage this kind of thinking for Labour.
It worked at the last election with Corbyn – but perhaps not quite in the way you’d hoped. š
October 2, 2021
After a lifetimes work, Andy. Which the young in the UK (0 to 18; and c50% 0 to 21) haven’t done, yet still sit on a chair and moan. And the cost to the rest of us is enormous – cĀ£62bn for education alone plus at least 18 years of food, accommodation, and transport on top.
Alternatively you can cease being silly, and accept the fact that every human being is likely to be unproductive between the ages of 0 and 18 years and 66 and 81 years on average. And “unproductive” means that the producers (21 to 65) have to pay for both old and young in some format or another. You included.
October 2, 2021
You undermine your generally very soundly-reasoned pieces with these emotional outbursts, Andy.
Yes, many of those retired people have damaged the country by their Leave votes, and particularly the prospects of the young, energetic, outward-looking, talented and motivated. However, many others also did not.
And every nominally-civilised country has some form of pension provision, often in part at least funded by the taxpayer.
It would be inhuman and tyrannical if they did not.
October 2, 2021
‘very soundly-reasoned pieces’ – I just love it- have you joined the contest for the best joker on here?
October 2, 2021
You are Andy’s sock and I claim my 5 euros
October 2, 2021
I am sure my parents’ generation will be very touched by your endorsement.
October 2, 2021
Well said NLH
October 2, 2021
This is just people drawing on the pension savings they made (that were then borrowed/stolen and largely wasted by incompetent governments). It is right government pay up and they should not abandon the triple lock either. They will need it for the governments idiotic expensive energy agenda.
October 2, 2021
The governments of the day set the rules under which we were employed. We had no choice and the cost of living and interest rates and employment problems such as 3 day weeks, power outages, unions closing down works caused lots of problems, joining the ERM in particular nearly wiped many people out and did – and just like the young people of today we had no choice but to go along with it and hand over our hard earned money and our employers were forced to do the same. So donāt bleat about it because a lot of these pensioners were paying for their elders who didnāt contribute because the system didnāt exist when they were younger. No-one went around bleating about it like you do, they just got on with it because they respected their parents and other elders in the community and would have had to look after them if the State didnāt step in anyway! This targeted attack you make Andy on older people is really unpleasant and discriminatory and I hope one of these days someone will take you to court over it because it is hate speech and we know you have lots of money you keep telling us so. Your attacks on welfare are not balanced you only have a go at retired people not economically inactive younger people by choice who arenāt paying their way or arenāt working and paying taxes and are claiming welfare.
October 2, 2021
Andy
Have you managed to convince your parents and grandparents to refuse it. ?
Will you refuse it when entitled to it ?
No thought not.!
We all get old eventually, including yourself, life may be good for you now, let’s hope it continues, and you do not get a debilitating illness.
October 2, 2021
LL, +1, all true, all of fundamental importance, but no interest taken by this useless government.
October 2, 2021
+1
An appropriate list – a good start
October 2, 2021
It all begins in school.
That is the foundation for any long term plan but it also has to start in the home.
Apart from teaching the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic , in today’s world to meet its needs our educational system should be teaching the introduction of the skills always needed by industry and commerce.
In play scenario, internal markets, supplier chains, customer service excellence, cost of non conformance, right first time and many more. All the skills that employers spend thousands on training their staff despite their educational qualifications. Pupils not only leave school with educational qualifications but with certificates of proof of life skills. Irrespective of the jobs and careers they seek they have a hard core built in knowledge that they have something to give, that could add value to any business especially their own when starting up and looking for clients and customers. Life skills start at the beginning of life and constantly revolve and change. It is one of life’s constants. Change.
October 2, 2021
Many in the South East are actually no better off than people in the north at all when you look as disposable income after mortgages or rents they can often be earning more and paying far more in income taxes (and perhaps stamp duty) but be left with less disposable income. Someone earning say Ā£50K in London still cannot buy a home even a couple both earning this struggle to do so. Yet if someone like this has a student loan then will soon be paying marginal tax rates of over 60% when you take into account NI (employer and employee), income tax and student loan repayments (usually for a fairly worthless and over priced degree too. So hugely over taxed and over regulated is the UK. Someone earning Ā£30K in the north can often be far better off.
A couple in a small house in London or another similar couple up north (in a similar sized house on a similar income) are no better off in living standards just because their house might be worth Ā£500K more. Unless they move and cash it in that is and they probably do not want to do so.
Abolish stamp duty (it is a hugely damaging tax) and benefit the country from better job mobility
October 2, 2021
Add council tax to that list and replace it with local income tax or something fairer. Council tax is another punitive and unfair tax which disproportionately penalises those of us in the south who may be property rich but in many cases cash poor compared to our cousins in the north.
October 2, 2021
L/L. You are so right about how people in the South are no better off than those further north. We noticed this when moving from the South of England to Scotland. Everything is cheaper in Scotland. Rents, mortgages, community charges, water rates, vets, hairdressers etc and that’s before all the freebies the SNP gives out with the Barnet Formula stacked in their favour.
October 2, 2021
Iām sorry to disagree but community charges/water rates were not cheaper than those in England in Glasgow in fact for a 2 bedroom flat they were astronomical and nearly double what is paid in London for a similar flat.
You are correct about certain freebies like the free parking at hospitals; free prescriptions; good nhs dentists, no university tuition fees; plus generous scholarships for Scots only; free music lessons; good roads and free bridges (when we got a new bridge we get charged with astronomic fines for the people who donāt realise how to pay because there are no tolls stops). Yet we still vote for an English party that puts all these charges on just us and doesnāt charge the other nations in the Union extra taxes to pay for their perks.
October 2, 2021
Just looked up band F in Glasgow and itās Ā£1752 compared to my Ā£3000 a year down here in Cornwall, one of the lowest income counties in England. Weāre pensioners and thatās a big chunk of our disposable income. No doubt when England gets another hike in the Spring, Johnās lot will see nothing wrong with the SNP U.K. MPs voting on it. Johnson and the fake Tories are a disgrace.
England deserves better.
October 2, 2021
4 years ago 2 bed flat Ā£26000 pa. Did you include the water rates?
October 2, 2021
Sorry Ā£2600 pa
October 2, 2021
Atracy. We’ll I’m sorry but we live in a similar rural area in England again now to where we were in Scotland. Here we have a 3 bed semi with a small garden. In Scotland we had a 3 bed detached bungalow with an acre of garden and 30 acres or woodland and grazing land. Our outgoings are Ā£700 more in England. Cities are always more. Jools is right.
October 3, 2021
Yes, I guess it depends on the local council too. I checked the band f two bed flat with no garden in Glasgow, today would have council tax charge of Ā£2915.51 pa.
We English keep electing the Conservatives and Labour who charge only our children tuition fees, or a graduate tax if you prefer to call it by itās real name. They make us pay for higher annual council taxes (and say its for social care that they cover in the other regions of the dis-united Kingdom) and now want to take back the concession on NHS prescriptions from over 60ās in England only I read this morning. The Lib Dems would do nothing to stop this either – the English do not have the equivalent of the SNP who are given the luxury of only looking out for themselves and not having to pay more for it. The Scots arenāt told theyāre bigots for supporting a Scottish Nationalist party.
A simple adjustment would be to just stop the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting on devolved issues that affect only the English NHS. The English Universities and schools. Otherwise they get two votes with second expensive chambers voting on all these issues for themselves.
October 2, 2021
No surprise London property is beyond the pocket of those wishing to live there, when its housing is open to anyone in the world to buy and speculate on.
Someone tell me why the government allows it. Is it part of the “sell off Britain” policy for foreign currency?
October 2, 2021
Yes, there are many countries where foreign buyers are not permitted to buy property – is that a bad idea?
In the Philippines foreigners can pay for properties there but in the name of locals, usually wives so they stay in the names of citizens. Is the case in the UK so that rich people here can buy abroad without criticism?
October 3, 2021
Dave, perhaps foreign property investors should only be able to buy one property in the UK. Or would that bring the entire house of cards in the Cities down?
October 2, 2021
Levelling up is a phenomenon that only happens in a free market economy. Britain is not a free market economy. We have continual government intervention in the form of regulation, taxation and now ridiculous covid rules. Our money is continually devalued by government policy and fractional reserve banking, supply of goods has been disrupted, deliberately, and the green aganda will make survival mode the default. We are heading for many, many years of decreasing living standards and declining freedom and it is all because of government. Proud of that are you Mr Redwood?
October 2, 2021
Exactly. Schools, universities, healthcare, energy, banking, housing, transport, employment and much else are hugely & incompetently rigged by idiotic governments the first three are rather dire virtual state monopolies. Non of these should really be state sector at all let alone state monopolies.
It is reported that Cressida Dick is being retained as they cannot find anyone better. Rather a damning inditement of the police service in the UK. I would have thought about 80% of the population would be better at the job. She sounds more like a police trade union leader than someone who want to deliver any real service to the public. She once said she wanted to recruit “the best of the best” and for it to reflect “London’s diversity”. Only someone very dim indeed could imaging you can do both at the same time!
The public want real policing against real crimes and with real deterrents to crime Ms Dick not Social workers, inaction, incompetence and woke lunacy.
October 2, 2021
+many
October 2, 2021
Lifelogic, some twenty years ago I had it explained to me by a very senior retired member of our police force.
To become a very senior policeman you attend staff college at Bramshill. There you are indoctrinated with all the latest social science bullshit by social science bullshitters, not by accomplished thief takers. These days they call it woke. The Dick and all her in place colleagues are products of Bramshill. No doubt Bramshill is a product of the Home Office.
According to my friend you had two choices, accept the word and go on to high office or appear to accept the word and hope to go on to high office. My friend did the latter and retired an Assistant Chief Constable. Rest assured some twenty or more years later the UK police force in all its independent jurisdictions is riven with social science bullshit which you can view on TV from time to time at ground level and explodes with similar frequency from the highest levels of the force. Meanwhile the crimes that affect your daily life are ignored and therefore add to that growing sense of detatchment between the police and general public.
October 2, 2021
Indeed all very depressing but I am sure you are right. Just reading the last few Met Commissioners Blair, Hogan Howe, Stevenson and the likes is very depressing indeed. Needless to say they all get knighted or made a dame for their generally dismal performance.
October 2, 2021
+1, see me smiling ar that post- well said!
October 2, 2021
The reason that Cressida Dick is being retained, is that the accountable person in this disaster, is not her, but the Home Secretary, and we couldn’t have her resigning, could we?
October 2, 2021
They apparently couldn’t find anyone better BEFORE the Couzens catastrophe, largely caused by Police failures under her watch.
Now they’ll have trouble finding anyone who wants to take on the poisoned chalice she would be bequeathing them.
As a female (whose late father served as a Met Officer for 30 years) I am fairly stunned to realise that I no longer trust the Police at all. That’s what Dick and Johnson have done between them over the past 18 months. Dick for giving Couzens the tools to do his vile deed and Johnson for creating the Lockdown restrictions which facilitated it.
October 2, 2021
I respect your Father’s role and service. However, the mistrust goes back decades. I can quote you a basic example that happened frequently. Three decades ago , my son and a few mates were then able to drive a few miles to a pub. A couple of them were insured to drive their Dad’s car, and the volunteer had to stick with coca cola or lemonade. The others might have 2 beers. Quite often they would be pulled over and quizzed. Why? A clearly young chap in a very nice new car.
Jealousy is a disturbing factor in police activity. The local dads would also drive off to pubs and not stick to 2 pints, never pulled over.
October 2, 2021
LL : She [Cressida Dick] once said she wanted to recruit āthe best of the bestā and for it to reflect āLondonās diversityā. Only someone very dim indeed could imaging you can do both at the same time!ā :
“Diversity” is the communists attempt to end meritocracy, one of the reasons for the success of the Westās democracy and capitalist system.
Diversity is designed to level down and worsen outcomes and trust in our institutions.
October 2, 2021
Spot On Lisa
October 2, 2021
Correct. But you forgot subsidies, especially for business that are owned by foreign governments.
October 2, 2021
There was once much emphasis on wider ownership of shares, but little has been heard of it since the Thatcher era and the privatisations.
October 2, 2021
That is because your generation, literally, sold off all the national assets. The shares have mostly found their way into the hands of foreigners who cream off profits and leave us with an inadequate and over priced service.
Still it once made you a little bit of extra money and no doubt bought you a video player, a holiday in Benidorm and paid a bit of your already negligible mortgage.
October 2, 2021
Andy. I don’t see you not taking advantage of the benefits.
October 2, 2021
Well keep any wealth you’ve managed to accumulate for your old age in Cash Andy – and very good luck to you! š
October 2, 2021
I thought you liked ‘foreigners’ and believed that ‘they’ did everything absolutely 100% better than the British?
October 2, 2021
The assets were sold off, literally, to pay for the excessive spending on your generation, Andy. That’s what government deficits do. The money had to come from somewhere to fund your mollycoddling. So look in the mirror Andy – the baby boomers (and older) had on average a very spartan upbringing compared to the likes of you.
October 2, 2021
Literally young andy, we didn’t sell off all the national assets.
The UK’s assets net worth is estimated at over Ā£10 trillion.
And our overseas assets are now worth over Ā£11 trillion.
(Source ONS)
October 2, 2021
Peter 2 -that sounds a lot but when many get salaries, perks, ex gratia payments, buy-outs of billions, what is the value of fiat money these days. Those billions make ‘ordinary’ money seem worthless particularly when money can be just printed off.
October 2, 2021
Well I was just pointing out how wrong young Andy was to claim we have sold off all our assets.
Both at home and worldwide we have a large amount of assets.
October 3, 2021
P2, āweā in āwe have a large amount of assetsā: Do you own a sensible amount of shares in these UKās assets?
Obviously everybody can benefit from using the infrastructure (roads, police, schools, hospitals, ā¦). Otherwise I wonder, how do you benefit from these Ā£21 tn of assets. I would think you are likely to have to pay for any of the āservicesā offered by these UK assets.
October 3, 2021
We as in UK, surely being so intelligent you should have worked that out for yourself heffy.
If you recall your pal young andy, claimed ridiculously that we have sold off all our assets.
October 2, 2021
Andy you are correct – Gordon Brown did almost succeed in selling our assets, well giving away really, he is just about in my generation. Luckily as in the Who’s lyrics:
Why don’t you all f-fade away (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
And don’t try dig what we all s-s-say (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-generation (talkin’ ’bout my generation).
October 2, 2021
Much good sense in today’s post. I was interested to read: ‘Places the Government wants to level up need more homes for people with good jobs and businesses of their own.’ So places that don’t need to level up because they are already affluent, e.g. Wokingham, don’t need so many new homes – I think that follows. But that is not what we see in Sir John’s constituency. If he is calling for a policy change, I would hope the new Minister for Housing will take note. We’ll see.
October 2, 2021
Translation: nimby nimby nimby nimby.
October 2, 2021
Are you really still here Andy?
Thought youād be off somewhere doing good works!
In a little rescue rowing boat mid Channel maybe?
October 2, 2021
Translation: excessive immigration, excessive immigration, excessive immigration, excessive immigration. Nine million or so in the last two decades have to go somewhere, Andy.
October 2, 2021
@Richard – Government meaning taxpayer help as a rule means those that have money get subsidised by those that don’t. Time and time it creates a bigger problem than the intention it set out to solve.
Hence those Conservative haters get to say the ‘rich get richer while the poor get poorer’ Government when using taxpayer money keeps on proving it.
October 2, 2021
Lowest common denominator more like. Socialism in disguise.
Net zero will bring us to our knees except the top 10% in their Zil lanes.
October 2, 2021
+utterly spot on.
October 2, 2021
Bang on Ian. The champagne socialists in Government are clueless at the damage they are causing.
October 2, 2021
Correct ā Levelling Up = Big Society = Marxism = Communism
October 2, 2021
= levelling down – unless you have a zil lane pass.
October 2, 2021
Well the London, and others, congestion zone might REALLY increase its charges to suit the wealthy.
October 2, 2021
Ian W, Yes I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the government failing to provide back-up for Wind (another c10GW), and failing to expand electricity generation beyond that in order to provide energy for battery cars and electric homes (another 40GW??), is not incompetence but deliberate. We are being turned into serfs – we’ll own nothing and be happy. By order.
October 2, 2021
NickC
I do not think it is planned, it is just the incompetence of not being willing or able to look forward.
Very few Politicians (our host excluded) seem to be able to see the dots, let alone join them up.
likewise Human nature and behaviour seems to have been totally excluded from any planning.
October 2, 2021
+1 and achieve nothing for climate either. Boris thinks he is a God who can through COP26 stop Climate Change – sure the Climate has changed for billions of years mate and will continue to do so – grow up Boris. Do you really think this Boris or all you just lying for political reasons – surely you are not really that thick are you?
October 2, 2021
+1 I have often wondered the same.
October 2, 2021
@Ian Wragg shamefully correct, but is anyone listening?
October 2, 2021
Anywayā¦it was only idiot governments ( mainly Blair?) who insisted that everyone needed a degree and the misery associated with all of that.
Up until then the grammar school kid going on to university had been a bit of a rarity.
And plumbers and builders were rightly proud of their skills.
I remember a Labour MP bewailing the fact that her brother was a bus driver. How unfair it was and all the b*ll*cks.
Good griefā¦could she drive a bus?
Now, receptionists, shop people are so rude and unhelpful because governments have built a huge chip on their shoulders.
Telephone conversation when I phoned a pharmacy (last January)
Pharmacy. āLo.
Me. Good morning. Are you offering covid vaccinations please?
Pharmacy. WHYāS THAT THEN?
??? You MPs donāt know the half of it!
October 2, 2021
It’s clear that many of the types who used to do manual jobs and trades from 15-16 years old and pick up experience have now drifted through a noddy course at Uni plus a couple of years doping around and ended up on the end of phones in places like this. Probably given the title of Administration Executive but completely hopeless. Should have left school and started work at 16.
October 2, 2021
+1
October 2, 2021
@EH; Yes the Blair Govt has a lot to answer for, using Higher education to take school leavers out of the youth unemployment numbers and at the same time imprint the idea that only those with a Degree can get a (decent) job, from that point on every parent expected their child to attend Uni. But one should ask why there had been so many youth’s unemployed, rather than being employed doing either unskilled entry-level manual work or a recognised apprenticeships, what had changed, and why…
As for that phone call, sorry I don’t believe your account, unless you tried telephoning before Pharmacy hours and got the char lady!
October 2, 2021
I donāt believe that you do not believe me.
You live in the U.K. donāt you?
And why would you assume that a char lady would be rude whereas a Chemist shop assistant would not?
October 3, 2021
@EH; Oh come off it, as you recalled your conversation to us, the words used were nor “rude” under any normal measure, short perhaps but not rude. No idea what part of the country you live in but for many that would be their normal, natural, style of speech, perhaps not in Knightsbridge and Belgravia though…
October 2, 2021
levelling up hasn’t reached you.
October 2, 2021
I find that the young shop staff, waiters, receptionists, bar staff etc. are generally outstanding in their pleasantness, good manners, helpfulness and charm these days.
You’re not still wearing that “Vote Leave” brooch, are you?
October 2, 2021
I donāt think it could be spotted via the telephone!
Do you?
October 2, 2021
Could that be due to Managers actually being there and witnessing how staff treat customers (you know -the people who pay their wages). Whereas at a surgery GPs have no idea what goes on when the person, with a thousand others, visit or phone, they also actually pay their wages -they have not been in for a year or two!
October 2, 2021
“I find that the young shop staff, waiters, receptionists, bar staff etc. are generally outstanding in their pleasantness, good manners, helpfulness and charm these days.”
Which is quite remarkable if they are living in the hell you think the country is, no? And the six million EU citizens who have applied to live in the UK; do they also come up to your very high standards? And the rest of us – are we all also behaving in ways that are acceptable to you while our lives are supposedly blighted by Brexit?
October 2, 2021
“Up until then the grammar school kid going on to university had been a bit of a rarity.”
I had to read that twice. Grammar schools had an excellent record of sending kids to universities – good ones.
October 2, 2021
Not by any means.
You had to make it into the 6th form first!
Then you had to get āAā levels and if they were not excellent you had to either get a job or go to teacher training. Only a genius got to Oxbridge.
This is BEFORE they opened university to the 50%.
October 2, 2021
I must be a genius then! Even if I struggle to remember peopleās names. Lots of bright kids at my grammar school felt they had to get a job at 16 to help the family finances or help in the family business. The bright ones usually did rather well without going to university. Running garages, farms, shops, restaurants, car dealers or other things. Only about 12% went to on to Further Education at all in my day. I suspect less than about 25% even of grammar school children did. Many could not afford the loss of 3 to 10 years of earning and left at 15/16.
October 2, 2021
When I went from Grammar to University circa 40 years back only about 12% went into higher education (including the FE colleges, teacher training and polytechnics) now it is getting close to 50% at “universities”. Worse still most are not even reading sensible subject nor do most even have decent A levels. About half have D,D,E or lower I understand. Then then most come out with a worthless piece of paper, Ā£50K of student debt and delusions as to how valuable they are to employers!
October 2, 2021
+1
Exactly!
October 2, 2021
“Up until then the grammar school kid going on to university had been a bit of a rarity.”
No, the percentage of secondary pupils in general going to University was about 7%, but the percentage of Grammar School pupils going to University was quite a bit higher.
Think about it from a common sense point of view. What would have been the point of Grammar Schools educating pupils up to University entry standards if it were so “rare” for them to do so?
October 3, 2021
Our Grammar school expected us all to do classics. Science, engineering, business, marketing etc?
Heavens no! So more and more left after ‘O’ levels. Then some more after ‘A’ levels.
October 2, 2021
“Iām all in favour of levelling up. Our country needs all the talent it can get.”
We also need plenty of people to do the untalented, perhaps menial jobs, levelling up is more that just talent, it is surely about paying a living wage (not having to resort to benefits, charity or food banks), fair wages for the work done for those with skills, job security (not fake self employment, that saves the employer paying otherwise due taxes), making housing available and affordable etc?
“Levelling up” is very much Labour home turf, they have been preaching it, practising it, since before WW2, the Tories will need to do more than reheat 40 year old polices, many of which have proven to be problematic once put in to practise, such as some privatisations and housing policies for example. Perhaps not in SW1 or Wokingham but in my area the plumber, carpenter & sparky etc. are already regarded as an equal to the accountant, director or Lord, what is more they are often to be found living cheek by jowl on the same exclusive private estates, and all seem to drive top spec BMW’s too!
By the way, back in the 1970s and before, there used to be many way-side transport cafes, were professional drivers could get a decent wholesome meal for a fair price, even have a wash-n-bush up, park up for the night. Then the big hospitality companies were allowed to buy such sites, and if they could not get what they wanted planners and the DfT allowed ‘turf wars’ to start for the passing custom -competition many will no doubt cry, indeed, until the little man is forced out and the “No HGV, Coaches by appointment” signs went up at the sites that remained operational, even if HGV remained welcome such things as overnight parking were often at a far higher cost than before. Also the haulage industry has become vastly over regulated, some of it home grown but much is EU legislation, and no I’m not thinking about the working/driving hours directives but regulations such as CPC certificates that just added additional layers that used to be covered by other licences etc.
October 2, 2021
If this truly is about equality of opportunity, then that’s not a bad thing.
It shouldn’t be about reducing spending in one area to spend more in others.
Nor do we want people denied opportunities they currently have, to switch them somewhere else.
All too often we hear that there is only so much money in the pot, always suggesting that some will lose out. And we shouldn’t reward failing councils, and so on, with unlimited help – that just takes away resources from those doing well, penalizing them.
So far, with this admiinistratiion, all we’ve seen is leveling down as more people are reduced to having a lot less with unfair taxation. If taxation is to be fair then everyone must pay it That should not be an excuse to raise it.
October 2, 2021
Levelling up will be another meaningless soundbite unless the Government calls a halt to massive levels of immigration.
To import either cheap labour to keep wage levels low or skilled labour to save money training our own people whilst taking these people from less well-off countries is simply immoral.
We donāt need more people in our already densely populated country and multiculturalism is not a recipe for social harmony.
October 2, 2021
I like Mr Redwood, I have always have done. He is a voice for reason but even he cannot deny he’s a party man and he’ll at times feel compelled to relegate his true beliefs and due his party duty by pumping out this Socialist trash. I understand why he and other small State libertarians in his party do this.
Levelling up is a deceitful State backed political policy designed to take control of peoples lives. It is not for the State to determine the economic future of each individual, that is the domain of the individual. The State has become a threat and a vested interest in its own right and it will pursue any policy that promotes its own power over how we live our lives. That is fascism. That is Marxism. That is UNACCEPTABLE in a LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
The Tory party is utterly wedded to this trash, extremist politics. It doesn’t BELIEVE IN but it’s hopped on for the ride to protect its own future. The price of that betrayal? The destruction of our moral and free world
Speak out Mr Redwood and Mr Reed Mogg and expose this evil creed before it devours our entire living space
October 2, 2021
Too late ! The Tories have gone full on Corbynista and Red Ed.
October 2, 2021
Dom, we seem to be ruled and pushed around by vocal minorities with governments stand back and do nothing acceptance. The police would be better not turning up to road blocks and letting the people deal with it themselves it is becoming a pinch point now. Lower the potential charge against the people that remove the road blockers to the same sort of free to go slap on the wrist you get for glueing yourself on the road.
October 2, 2021
Mr Redwood – in your many blogs you have really so many ammunition points of what is wrong in the UK that you should be jumping up and down in front of media every single day explaining those points and pointing the finger at govt. to open the eyes of the UK people to our present situation.
Perhaps many/most already know of what is going wrong but will be pleased that it is being pointed out forcefully by someone every day – it would make me feel a bit better that perhaps something mught be done. If the media shut you down, very likely, you should jump up and down even more!
Reply The mainstream media do not invite me. These points are all out there and stated in Parliament to Ministers
October 2, 2021
Dennis, watch GB News Iāve seen John on it twice now.
October 2, 2021
Forget Rees Mogg – one of the chief architects of abolishing EVEL along with Scots Gove. It seems even that toothless sop was too good for England from the party that wouldnāt exist without England. With friends like that who needs enemies?
October 2, 2021
Morning John,
The Job Guarentee does the job for you and with low tax rates and getting rid of some taxes all together. There needs to be a debate on this free from right wing and left wing ideology. Neither of which reflects the reality of the Whole of government accounts.
We need a competition and monopoly commission with some teeth.
To make brexit work we can’t just rely on the central bank to move interest rates that create unemployment when they try and cool demand and always way too early. It has never worked.
It is both immoral and unethical to keep a group of humans unemployed just in order to control inflation.
It is far better if a worker ends up unemployed they are given work at a living wage in their own community to do. Which is far more productive than sitting doing nothing and on the pittance we call welfare. It is not just good for the worker it is good for the local community and local businesses.
Local businesses can hire from the job guarentee scheme. They will be forced to compete for the worker which produces productivity gains for everybody.
There are thousands of jobs that can be done locally on a living wage. Jobs that are currently being done as charity on the false belief that the MONOPOLY issuer of the Ā£ can’t pay for them. On the back of the myth that charity donations don’t cause inflation but government spending on a job guarentee would cause Zimbabwe.
The Job guarentee wage anchors inflation as it becomes the new minimum wage. The government sets the price and let’s it float. The market does the rest. Workers will move in and out of the job guarentee spending goes up and down accordingly always keeping the economy at full employment allowing businesses to plan rather than having a short term view.
Inflation is always and everywhere a lack of competition. Price rises attract their own supply.
Given a quantity expanding firm will always out compete a price expanding firm, then price rises can only stick in an oligopolistic environment.
Introducing job guarentee at a living wage run locally from the bottom up instead of the top down. By the local communities that knows what needs doing that The private sector ignore will be a one off price adjustment and anchor inflation because it works with the business cycle instead of against it.
October 2, 2021
The fundamental basic contribution any government can make to levelling up is to ensure that the building block of education of the highest quality is available to all at whatever level they can absorb it. The best examples are available in the private sector from which templates can be taken. You have to up the quality of teaching and the rewards for that quality. The re-introduction of competetive sport and parallel activities that train participants to interact with others, learn how to lose and win and generally gain a more rounded realisation of their own capabilities. I would even advocate boarding schools for those whose parental support is less than desirable.
If you begin with education you go a long way to remove the disadvantage of being born in the areas in need of being levelled up. Accept that it costs money, a lot of it, but if you can accept very expensive elitist projects that cost megabucks with no levelling element, HS2 for instance, then education is a no brainer.
October 2, 2021
The supply side approach will fail because the private sector will never be able to create full employment on its own. The private sector will run into what is called the “paradox of productivity”.
āWhy canāt it be that higher wages force firms to invest in better management techniques and the most advanced technologies in order to get the most out of their higher cost labor?ā
Thatās known as the paradox of productivity. Productivity improvements just lead to falling prices, so firms try to avoid doing productivity improvements and prefer to try and obtain monopoly power instead. Thatās what a āmarket nicheā is.
Higher wages will lead to some firms failing, which releases people onto the labour market, driving down wages. If you try to hold those jobs up, and force losses onto the other side you end up with an investment strike and the whole house of cards collapses into stagflation.
āAnd why would firms in a competitive capitalistic system ever try to avoid productivity improvements?ā
Compare the cost of a concert violinist to a loaf of bread in the 19th century vs today. Thatās what productivity increases do over time ā because it takes less human time to produce an item, and time is really what everything ends up being priced in.
Productivity improvements ultimately leads to cheaper prices not increased profits. Because thatās what competition is there to do. The profits can go further ā in that they can buy more stuff. But capitalists like to accumulate units of account.
In essence the dynamics of pure competition leads to an oversupply in the market which brings prices down until firms start to go bust to eliminate the oversupply. Therefore market players try to stop competition happening by constantly seeking a monopoly perch on which to extract rent.
Those that believe in free market beliefs say it all sorts itself out. It doesnāt. We have seen many times that it does not fix it.
The system has to force competition onto essentially reluctant players and slashing the pension age and introducing a job guarentee will do exactly that. Make capital compete for Labour for the first time since 1981.
Along with long term investment in infrastructure, green technology, education and R&D and everything else that brings down the cost over the long term of doing business.
Increasing the pension age and using the interest rate to create long term unemployment will never force competition. Capital will continue to try and form monopolies and extract rent.
October 2, 2021
Interesting read Derek – thanks.
October 2, 2021
Productivity improvements = innovation. If you do not innovate, someone else will. Compare the UK car makers of the 60’s and 70’s to those of the Japanese. The Japanese not just innovated, they improved and made cheaper. They increased market share and increased profits.
October 2, 2021
Indeed Mark and after the Japanese came the South Koreans.
Tesla have come from nowhere too.
October 2, 2021
That is mostly nonsense. Wages are an input to production, but they don’t determine profits because they are not the only input. Profits are determined by *total* costs of production, and that is how the modern economy prospers. You can hire a software engineer at a high wage and sell the resulting code at a profit because you give the engineer hardware and software tools that multiply his effectiveness many times.
There is no “productivity paradox”. The software industry, which is just one example, pays very high wages and depends on increasing productivity. Software companies compete mainly on giving their engineers better and better tools for increasing their productivity because that is what makes software cheaper and more effective each decade.
Laborious arguments that “prove” this does not work fail in face of the evidence that hardware and software consumer products continuously get cheaper and companies do not fail as a result. Your smart phone, if you have one, is many times more effective as a computer than an entire computer centre was three or four decades ago, and yet the companies that produce them have not gone out of business. In fact, quite the reverse- they have attracted more and more companies into the market, all eager to pay high wages, all providing attractive employment, all seeing higher and high productivity gains and all producing attractive and profitable goods.
Your claim that in the West wages collapse into rent-seeking was a favourite claim of the USSR back in the sixties and seventies, and so I suppose you got this rubbish from some old pamphlet from back then.
October 3, 2021
Morning Jon,
Hope you are well.
Not at all evidence is all around us everywhere you look. Jobs are a cost of business and they are constantly trying to get that cost down please see HGV driver shortage for details.
Firms must be allowed to succeed individually in eliminating jobs if we are to drive productivity forward, but cannot be allowed to succeed in aggregate if there is to be anybody with any money to buy the output.
Without jobs who is going to have the money to buy your output? Why would anybody bother running a business? When people get made unemployed by productivity increases it effects The whole community please see rural areas for details. The become hollowed out and why The North supported Brexit.
The job guarantee squares that circle and thereby drives the private sector to its most efficient output. Which is what we all want. If Maggie had introduced a job guarentee when she moved the miners and ship builders into more productive work. There wouldn’t have been millions unemployed and large parts of the country. The job guarentee is a living wage transition job. Transition between public and private sector so that aggregate demand does not fall.
The job guarentee ensure the private sector can drop labour and replace it with machinery without affecting the demand side. It works with the business cycle instead of against it. So workers can move between sectors on a living wage and not on welfare.
October 3, 2021
Capitalists want monopolies and captive markets.
Countries have to set up means to prevent them from achieving these.
They do not voluntarily restrain themselves.
October 3, 2021
It is usually called competition.
October 3, 2021
This is what we have in place now Jon
Business is tight. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer A can then pile more and more work and hours on Labourer B because Bās alternative is the dole. So B ends up earning far less than the minimum wage for their hours while Employer A earns super-normal profits, or perhaps even normal profits in a downturn.
Hardly fair is it. We have a minimum wage for a reason.
However that scenario only applies in a system that is systemically short of demand and has no alternative employers bidding for Labourer B. There are other scenarios over the business cycle. When you get alternative employers popping up, as you do in an economic expansion, you get the following:
Business is good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer A piles on the work. Employer C pops up, but doesnāt like the unemployed because they have no idea if they will turn up.
Instead Employer C offers the minimum wage and promises faithfully to be nicer to employees. So Labourer B changes jobs, and Employer A is stuck because the alternative is unemployed people who they have no idea will turn up, let alone work the crazy hours now expected. Then Employer C piles on the workā¦ Rinse and repeat.
Youāll note the scenario is highly dynamically disruptive, yet this is the scenario that plays out pretty much every day in areas like the construction business. It is partially the reason why getting things completed is so difficult. The cultural dynamic is corrosive and workers walk off the job.
Now letās look at economic boom time:
Business is really good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up, doesnāt like the look of the unemployed and starts touting round their alternative offer at a higher rate. Labourer B asks for more money, or theyāll move.
Employer A doesnāt like the look of the unemployed, because they have no idea if theyāll turn up, so agrees to pay more money because thereās loads of work coming in and charges accordingly.
The unemployed has little effect on the behaviour of business.
Now lets replay those interactions with a Job Guarantee in place.
Business is tight. Employer A hires Labourer B at the market determined minimum wage. Employer A can no longer pile on the work onto Labourer B because there is a guaranteed job who Labourer B will move to if ill-treated.
So Employer A has to keep the work at a reasonable level. Employer A now earns normal profits, and may move into a loss, while the worker earns the minimum wage.
Letās do the expansion phase:
Business is good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up offering the minimum wage and has the choice of Labourer B or new Labourer D currently with a track record of reliability on the Job Guarantee. Employer A would be happy to retain Labourer B but knows they now have the option of labourer D.
Neither Employer A, nor Employer C can pile on the work, because the Job Guarantee is known to be decent. So both Employer A and Employer C get the labour they require at a fair deal and stuff finally gets done.
And the boom phase.
Business is really good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up offering the minimum wage because they have the choice of Labourer B or new Labourer D currently with a track record of reliability on the Job Guarantee.
Labourer B asks for more money. Employer A would be happy to retain Labourer B but knows they have the option of Labourer D so they turn the wage rise down. Labourer B canāt get any more money out of Employer C either for the same reason.
Yet still neither Employer A, nor Employer C can pile on the work, because the Job Guarantee is known to be decent. So both Employer A and Employer C get the labour they require at a fair deal and stuff finally gets done.
Importantly Employer Z will tend not to pop up and stay around because policy has been set sufficiently tight that the Job Guarantee buffer will not exhaust. But even if it did the Job Guarantee remains a credible threat to labour services in the private firms.
Nobody can become a parasite business. Competition for labour would ultimately eliminate one of the other players, force their profits down to the new normal, or drive an innovation cycle (doing more with less). All of which leads to cheaper prices, not more expensive ones.
Surely that is how it should be?
The Job Guarantee wage is only paid to people working in Job Guarantee jobs. The more people on the scheme the more government spending. When they move to private sector jobs that payment stopsāāāwhich automatically reduces government spending.
It is an āauto-stabiliserā. Spending goes up when the economy is down, and spending goes down when the economy is up.
So because it is carefully targeted at only the people that need it, and it automatically self-adjusts based upon need, there is no requirement to correct any over spend via taxation on the other side.
The result of that is straightforward. The current low tax rates can stay.
Not only is it a brilliant automatic stabiliser it is a fantastic price anchor also.
A crucial point is that the JG does not rely on the government spending at market prices and then exploiting multipliers to achieve full employment which characterises traditional Keynesian pump-priming.
It works like any Monopoly price setter you set the price and let it float. The market does the rest.
Full employment, brilliant automatic stabiliser and a fantastic price anchor. What is not to like ?
Whenever a business goes under or unemployment happens because of increased productivity. Workers turn up for a job guarentee job the following week. Keeping aggregate demand up and business profits up right across the country especially in smaller cities, towns and rural areas.
October 3, 2021
Jon Livsey, A well reasoned comment demolishing the neo-marxisms of Derek Henry. Excellent!
October 2, 2021
The PM made headway in the so-called āred wall seatsā because of his optimism.
But this success will not last unless he starts to show that he is putting the UKās interests first.
This means making our country energy independent and keeping the lights on at prices we can afford rather than spending his time and our money unilaterally saving the planet.
It means fighting for our fishing grounds and for N.I. to be treated as part of the UK.
It means cancelling expensive vanity projects like HS2 – which will only be used by the elite -and using the money to improve railways throughout the whole country.
It means stopping our massive levels of immigration which lowers wages and is used to save money on training our own people.
It means making the necessary changes to our Civil Service, quangos, institutions and corporates, so they are working for the benefit of the UK.
Etc.
Simply issuing a ālevelling upā soundbite and spending a bit of money here and there will not be sufficient. There needs to be a cultural change.
October 2, 2021
Original Richard – has Starmer said anything like this?
October 2, 2021
Original Richard +1000 (if I could)
October 2, 2021
Richard.
It is called Leveling up because someone coined the term, Great Leap Forward first.
October 2, 2021
Surely JR, your manifesto will have Mises, Hayek and Friedman turning in their graves. How can a laissez-faire, neoliberal Conservative government, enact such, without a road-to-Damascus conversion?
JR, you are supposed to champion unearned income; not earned income! Those who make their money by controlling state and private existing assets and extracting rent, interest and capital gains from them. Telling the unearned income crowd, they have to pay higher wages and provide better conditions WTF!
Wage inflation triggers interest rate hikes by the BoE, they don’t know any better. Interest hikes then increase the interest income of the wage earners who have stashed the cash due to the Covid. Hence increasing their spending power and negating the BoE inflation action.
“The difference between how truck drivers are treated in the UK and the rest of Europe is huge. We arenāt catered for in the UK. There are inadequate or no facilities at all across parts of the UK, particularly in the south, to handle a driverās needs. […] āWe can spend a week or two or longer away from home. This means we are forced to sleep in tiny lay-bys or industrial estate roads, with no access to basic amenities. The larger services on the big motorways are still not equipped with enough parking for large-scale vehicles, and they charge trucks around Ā£30 a night for the privilege.”
” The rest of Europe doesnāt charge for parking. France, for instance, supports HGV drivers with the Routier chain of partnership restaurants and bars ā they provide showers, free parking. Getting into Europe is a relief every time.” (Google > Getting into Europe is a relief every timeā: an HGV driver reflects on UK crisis).
October 2, 2021
If only we had a neo liberal laissez faire Conservative government acorn.
PS
People who own transport companies etc are not examples of unearned income. They are managing and working in complex businesses.
October 3, 2021
Acorn, France charges tolls and eco-taxes for every mile you drive on their Routiers to pay for these parking areas they charge a fortune to provide it. In the UK we pay for our roads over the odds through our fuel taxes and VED (much more than we actually spend on our roads it is siphoned off for other purposes).
Companies charge in overnight costs into their prices as do sub-contractors if they donāt they arenāt good business people. The truck stops are just parking zones with cctv and a few facilities such as toilets, I think it is so because HMRC only has a Ā£26.50 allowance per night for those with sleeper cabs. Perhaps it is time the HMRC rise the allowance on decent truck parks that give receipts for tax purposes for their use and to enable investment and improvement.
Drivers are not forced to sleep in business parks everywhere in the UK I have already demonstrated that people near us park on business estates when there is a decent 600 space HGV truck stop no more than 10 minutes away and just off a motorway junction with CCTV fuel facilities clean and Ā£10 food voucher in the charge of Ā£22.50. Perhaps we should ask these drivers why they are on business parks and not using the nearby truck park!
October 2, 2021
Maybe a if you order a 10% cut in boardroom pay, bonus’s and companies profits to be share out to the other workers in the company, would do more than just hot air, you throw in a tax cut too.
October 2, 2021
Paul – I heard that Huawei is 90% (or maybe more) worker owned and is very successful – any lesson here?
October 2, 2021
Huawei is state owned, and the people own the state and the state are the workers….thats China for you in a nut shell
October 2, 2021
if they meant it they would make discrimination on working and under class accents as protected under discrimination legislation as race, colour and religion are.
currently talking down to working class accents is still routine day to day occurrence, even when the one with the working class accent is better educated than the one doing the talking down.
but they wont do anything like this because they have no conception of the challenges faced by kids being brought up on sink estates with sink schools and all the rest of it.
October 2, 2021
It was very good yesterday to read that a member of the Government, Jacob Rees-Mogg, was advancing basic Conservative values in a recent talk to sixth form pupils. But, appart from an article in the Daily Telegraph, I saw no other mention of it, and it is clear that, like yours, his is a voice crying in the wilderness. This Government has completely stolen New Labour’s clothes, and if there was any doubt about that, it was dispelled by the recent deluge of money onto the NHS and the imposition of unecessary taxation of employment, allegedly to pay for it. Not only is spending seen as a virtue signal by the leaders of both main parties, but so apparently is taxation, and with very few exceptions, the Parliamentary Conservative party supported both in the recent vote.
Only now do we see the appointment of a retired Royal Marine General to review the organisation of the NHS: cart in front of horse if ever I saw one! There was clearly no advance thinking about why the money was required or how it was to be spent.
Levelling up, if by that one means improving the fortunes of people who live away from the South East, will only come from increased prosperity engenderd by commercial initiatives in the areas concerned, and that means that the Government must do all it can to promote entrepreneurial activity in these areas by removing restrictions to employment, reducing the taxation of entrepreneurs and freeing up the movement of goods and services. Sounds a bit like freeports to me, but we have heard no more about them.
Finally, you refer to ‘Inspired teachers’; essential I agree, but are you ever going to get them in a unionised State monopoly?
October 2, 2021
I see China are trying a new type of levelling up by sending 38 military jets into Taiwan airspace yesterday.
I hope this government has a plan to pull all Chinese involvement in the UK when the conflict startsā¦with their behaviour we should start showing our displeasure today with trade sanctions and full acknowledge of Taiwan and exchange of ambassadors
October 2, 2021
When China took over Taiwan in the 17h century (from Japan and others who had an interest in it) it was essentially a colony. As the west had divested its colonies (except the USA retaining Puerto Rico and other islands) perhaps we should ask the Chinese to give its colony independence. Might be an argument for Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia etc.?
October 2, 2021
You need to do a ā180ā on your outlook, Taiwan is China and Peoples Republic of China (mainland) are the revolutionary usurpers
October 4, 2021
Are French governments since the Revolution (leaving aside the few decades of Restoration after the Napoleonic Wars)also usurpers?
The “usurped”Nationalist government in China was hardly democratic,in fact these days you would describe it as fascist in nature.
October 2, 2021
20 more jets today
October 2, 2021
This piece made me smile.
October 2, 2021
Music and arts were previously great success stories for the UK.
Your brexit has scythed down the opportunities for countless of our young in these fields.
The practical difficulties in accessing their former potential audiences drawn from 450 million people are insurmountable in many cases now.
October 2, 2021
Twaddle NLH
Touring has been scythed down by the Covid restrictions far more recently, but tours are now happening once again.
UK artists toured all over the world before you were born and in Europe before the EU was born.
Yes there are some barriers placed in their way by the deliberately awkward EU, but they can be overcome by the tour managers and their professional staff.
October 2, 2021
The barriers have been imposed by your insane Brexit. In an attempt to appease the elderly xenophobes who vote for it, this Brexitist government has made it all but impossible for young musicians to tour Europe. And it is not just musicians – peoples in swathes of sectors from film to architecture to fashion to sport to engineering are all affected as they need the free movement you have stolen.
You has beens love talking about what life was like before the EU. It was basically crap but whilst you may have not moved on in the last 40 years, they all have. They do not do stuff the way you used to do it. They do it in a better way
You have shafted generations of younger people. Including your own children and grandchildren. Some of them probably hate you for it.
October 2, 2021
The EU imposes the barriers.
And it is not nearly impossible to tour Europe.
You are overwhelmed and blinded by your Brexit obsession and lurch uncontrollably towards hyperbole young Andy.
Tours went on all over the world and in Europe well before the EU gave us the delights of freedom of movement in the 1990s.
And as soon as Covud restrictions relent in Europe USA and the rest of the world you will see things going on just like before.
October 2, 2021
Simon Rattle and many others disagree.
“British musicians are being hit by a ādouble whammyā of Covid-19 restrictions and costly post-Brexit bureaucracy that could decimate European touring, according to industry figures and artists who are calling for changes to trade agreement with the EU.
Under the Brexit deal British musicians planning to play in Europe will now have to secure work permits for each individual country on a tour and face further red tape when it comes to transporting equipment and crew.
Naomi Pohl, the deputy general secretary of the Musiciansā Union, said work permits were going to be a particular problem when touring with larger classical groups. āWhen youāre dealing with an orchestra, youāre talking about 70 musicians needing to get a work permit. So itās a massive issue,ā she said.” – The Guardian
October 2, 2021
Covid as he says is the biggest hit.
The Guardian I see is your reference paper.
What a surprise.
PS
Negotiations are continuing to remove barriers imposed by the EU and travelling tours.
I reckon there will be a solution found as otherwise EU businesses and venues will suffer.
October 2, 2021
why only 450m? Most of the 7billion might benefit from our music and arts without trying to fly in.
October 2, 2021
“Music and arts were previously great success stories for the UK.”
They still are. Only Elton John is a failure.
October 2, 2021
And the other idiot Governments that followed, the fake Tories, have done absolutely nothing to correct it. Cameron went one step further and ensured that England, and England alone in the UK, charged its young the second highest fees in the world. Of course only those who have taken meaningful degrees will ever pay it back. My son has spent six years at Cambridge to become a Doctor and has come out with a debt approaching 100K which he will pay back over most of his working life. Meanwhile, many are coming out with meaningless degrees after their three year jolly and now working at the local pizza parlour and will never earn enough to pay anything back. Our politicians, who of course the majority of whom received it all for free before pulling the ladder up behind them, have yet again got the nation’s priorities all wrong. Anyone with half a brain, which obviously our clueless politicians don’t possess between them between them would change it to the other way around, ie. those the country needs, doctors, scientists, etc. pay nothing and only those doing meaningless degrees are made to pay every penny back.
October 2, 2021
Well if your son becomes a GP and can work longer hours than required, he can earn way over Ā£100k in a year. Sounds like a terrific investment to me.
October 2, 2021
Many of the entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses have had to close them because of lockdowns, the hospitality sector has been badly affected, a friend who had a successful catering business specialising in weddings has closed resulting in her 6 employees losing their jobs, she hadnāt received a single booking for a year, 25% of pubs will never reopen.
Will Boris be proud of his achievements, heās always seems to be missing when thereās a problem?
Perhaps itās time to face reality Sir John
October 2, 2021
+99
Very much to the point – well said
October 2, 2021
Levelling up is an insubstantial ‘atmosphere’ , not a policy and engaging it is a bit like fighting mist.
Nonetheless ,John Redwood is right , it starts At school. I wonder why then, he does not support Kier Starmer’s plan to remove the tax loopholes exploited by Private Schools .
About 6% of children acquire this privileged access to opportunity .They are overwhelmingly concentrated in wealthy families .The proportion takes off at an income of Ā£120,000 āand at the 99th rung( incomes above Ā£300,000 ) 60% of children get the golden ticket
It is meaningless to talk about a meritocracy when access to opportunity is bought at the age of 5 and 6; and the problem is getting worse. Private schools have become brutally efficient at delivering exam and interview results and adults in every way equipped to succeed.
To be clear these are good things .The parents who want them for their children are good people. I have seen myself the transformation of ordinary and troubled boys into exemplary and admirable people. But what about the damage to the rest what about the persistent inequality this government claims to be against ?
If you really wanted to level up you would spread these opportunities wider and as we all know that will never happen when the elite have the option to buy success for their children and no stake in the education ordinary people are left with.
October 2, 2021
Leveling-up seems a very ambitious task and if the Government is serious about it then it will need to be very much more revolutionary than prospects at present suggest.
Accepting the whining nature of this point, if we do indeed “train a new cohort of truck drivers” then leveling-up must accept the obligation to assist them when driverless trucks become the norm in what may be only a few years hence. (There are now numerous operations in the USA with driverless vehicles, including Walmart in Arkansas.)
October 2, 2021
This is a good point formula, perhaps we should be training up more people in their mid-40ās as young people are being told of driverless trucks, driverless deliveries by Amazon using drones and little wheely truck things in university trials, and of course the push to get more freight on the rails which all governments want to do. It doesnāt exactly make you feel that youāre joining a leading futuristic industry does it.
October 2, 2021
Agree for the most part except the notion that Wokingham is a community – there is Wokingham within and then there is the rest of the borough which are a collection of dormitories with one big shop in the centre, these are not communities.
October 2, 2021
To most of us ‘leveling up’ just as with ‘build back better’ from this Government is about them imposing a controlling will for every one to be in their very narrow metro left image. That leads into entitlement of taxpayer money, not freedom, not freedom to express, not freedom to achieve. It is a very narrow Socialist view of the World, not a Conservative view.
David Davis the same sort of Conservative as our Host sums up how bad this crowd have got and what most of us think in the Daily Telegraph – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/02/tory-mps-sick-tax-hikes-green-spending/
October 2, 2021
“The attack on the self employed through IR35 was unhelpful, The new tax on jobs is a bad idea. Getting a mortgage is not easy. Government contracts could be made available to more smaller companies to give them a chance of getting one through break down of quantities required through multiple suppliers.”
Sir John you may be part of a dyeing breed, a Conservative! But just that small paragraph demonstrate this is a controlling Socialist Government. It wants to out do the Liberals, the Greens and Labour on how left and dictatorial it can be. In fact it will attempt to out do every nation in the World with its 1984 playbook, all at the expense of the UK economy and the UK people.
The Government taking direction from the Corbyn doctrine, having a priority to trash the economy and the very fabric of the UK so as to build, NOT build back better, but to build back as another EU Socialist State, with controls dictated by the unelected unaccountable centralised committee.
Or in other worlds they stand for everything a Conservative, and democracy despise. Exaggeration? – just look at everything they say they have done and everything they say they intend doing
October 2, 2021
Thereās an interesting column by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian today about how the Tory minority are corrupting our country. From their assault on the judiciary, to their attacks on the right to process, to the further rigging of the electoral system to keep their minority in power – there is no doubt that these extremists in government are undermining our entire way of life.
We must remove them, by force if necessary, before they damage the country beyond repair.
October 2, 2021
To the barracades comrades says wealthy young andy.
Hilarious as usual.
Our very own Dave Spart.
October 2, 2021
Are you running for election Andy?
October 2, 2021
No, he’s running for Commisar.
October 2, 2021
You read the Grauniad – well I never…
October 2, 2021
I’m impressed, Andy. I didn’t know you were old enough to read the Guardian.
But thank you for letting us know that Pro-war Leftie Jonathan Freedland is becoming a conspiracy theorist.
October 2, 2021
Andy. You’d better get your catapault out then.
October 2, 2021
Your remarks about lorry drivers are timely. There are two approaches – the Armed services award additional pay or remove charges for those on active service or living under “field conditions” – in some cases this may be appropriate but more often better transport rest facilities will be better. It will also be essential as our transport fleet converts to electric vehicles which require recharging. I hope that this time (unlike in the digital media and communications revolution) some joined up thinking will result in a better and cohesive national plan.
October 2, 2021
Sir John, your post makes a point about jobs being paid more and have better conditions to attract employees. Why should that be?
I posit that the benefits system is to blame.
There is no longer any real progression in take him pay because Universal credit (and before that tax credits and housing benefit) mean that each job can take home the same amount of income. Why put yourself out to do a hard job when you can work for minimum wage in the local supermarket (doing the newly created delivery roles of which you write)? Minimum wage and Universal credit mean that the newbie shelf stacker takes home as much as the store deputy manager and the HGV drivers stocking the store.
I worked in a petrol station as a teenager (halcyon days) and the tanker drivers were skilled, proud and well remunerated with generous time off for shift allowance. It sounded an attractive occupation and one that gave a really good work life balance in return for hard graft.
Competition for living costs with benefit claimants (who also get free school meals all year now) plus eroding of the generous shift allowances have brought this on us as much as allowing too many Europeans to come and work here.
Levelling up is a noble aim, but life needs wage differential to make different jobs worth doing. Relook at the benefits system.
October 2, 2021
I can confirm that IR35 prompted a move from the UK to Mainland Europe by a number of skilled IT and Telecommunications staff where Tax allowances for skilled “imports” š made the move very attractive compared to becoming an employee (PAYE) in the UK.
Prior to IR35 it was possible to avoid PAYE completely but one could still arrange to be PAYE in one’s own company. All that was required by Government was to pass legislation to set a minimum PAYE salary to be paid by all revenue earning members of a company.
The labour Government forgot that you could not avoid Corporation TAX and VAT on services provided and was just their vindictive action directed at individuals not Paying PAYE and being able to offset more expenses than their PAYE colleagues carrying out similar occupations.
I am sure that Labour MP’s had all the means to minimise their actual employment costs, and in receipt of other benefits too. Being able to vote yourself a pay rise at tax payers expense ( without increased productivity) for one.
October 2, 2021
It was far worse than that. They were voting themselves a pay rise in full knowledge that those actually doing the work, the EU, where doing so whilst enjoying tax free perks not open to the rest of us.
October 4, 2021
As well as offshoring many technical skills, IR35 also hit agency nurses, supply teachers, and anyone who worked as a freelancer. Now we find this includes HGV drivers. We had HMRC refusing to implement it on their own contractors because no one would work for them (search for “IR35 HMRC Exemption, 9th April 2019”).
We’re told we need more nurses, teachers, technical skills, and now HGV drivers. Surely it is passed time this disasterous legistlation was reviewed and revised, if scrapped is too much to hope for.
October 2, 2021
Sir John
I fail to see why youāve not moderated my comment about Ronald Reagan?
Apart from Donald Trump the best President by far of the USA
October 2, 2021
I can’t tell if Reagan or Trump was better as I don’t know which killed more people. Other presidents have killed more, that’s for sure.
October 2, 2021
Well, have a look at this.
The U.S. has more than 33,000 gun deaths per year. In 2017, there were 39,773 deaths by firearms, the highest since 1986. Of these deaths, 23,854 were by suicide, and 14,542 were homicides, 12 deaths per 100,000 people, and seven deaths per 100,000 people.
It’s of note that gun homicides almost doubled between 2015 and 2020. I see that 1986 is referred to as a bad year too.
Who was president then?
October 2, 2021
…and over 700,000 Americans have died of covid19, mainly under Trump.
Reply Deaths per millione deteriorated and shot ahead of the UK under Biden
October 2, 2021
Obviously you have not compared US deaths today to UK numbers. Under Biden a partial success has become a tragic failure.
October 2, 2021
Thank you Sir John.
The US has the anti-Enlightenment vaccine hostility of the Trumpists to thank for that.
October 3, 2021
Twaddle NLH
Low vaccine take up has been in the big cities of America where Bixen’s party have control.
October 3, 2021
What, big cities like Dallas and Austin?
Are you sure??!!
October 3, 2021
You quote just two Texas cities, I was referring to all the other Democrat run ones.
October 2, 2021
Interesting today in the MsM we have Boris’s eco pals carrying out another terrorist campaign at Farnborough Airport. I wonder what the chances are that the will do the same for that over bloated use of the Worlds resources coming up in Glasgow – COP26.
It will be hypocritical if they don’t. But then again like the man that defends them gives them a free pass it is only a CO2 problem when its everyone but the Government and the Terrorists
October 2, 2021
It wouldnāt take much for a couple of people on the department of transport payroll to go and audit the truck stops that already exist and grade them, in a round robin (they can stay overnight in some of the stops and should to see the standard of single bedroom provided from Ā£25 they should travel as single people to see how safe they feel) provide details of the deals at each truck stop, the food, the facilities, how clean it is, what security they have. Find out why certain truck stops arenāt up to even basic 1* facilities, how many trucks per night are the providing service for, it surely isnāt in any truck stops interest to provide poor service so why are some reported to do so, do they have no local competition? Then publish them all on a free website with photos and the information.
All of them you need to be able to pre-book a parking slot as driving hours regulations mean you dont have time to faff around trying to find somewhere at the end of a shift.
Truck Stop check list:
1*
CCTV for Security of driver and load
Clean Toilets
Dustbins
2**
Within RHA/HMRC allowed rate (perhaps this needs reviewing John for certificated stops)
Same as 1 with extra
Cafe for meals or a microwave and ability to purchase fuel and food after 9pm and before 7am
Clean individual warm showers
Fuel and shop stocking necessities for life on the road
More stars for
Laundrettes
Vehicle washing areas, vacuums for inside cabs
Tyre changes, puncture repairs, windscreen chip repairs
October 2, 2021
How can employers provide truck stops? Is this not the remit of the Highways Agency, or whatever they call themselves this week? The lack of facilities for trucks is another item to add to their list of failure.
BTW, a good bit of levelling up would be achieved by sacking this lot, and replacing it with something half way competent.
October 2, 2021
People are just not equal in ability or intelligence. Almost all people want more money for themselves. Levelling up is an intellectual nonsense and was hardly even mentioned (unlike Brexit) at the last general election and is not a longterm vote-winning tactic. So the Conservative Party should just bin the notion now.
October 2, 2021
Levelling up is a choice catch phrase thought up by CCO to impress the new Red Wall constituencies in the north
Apparently Sunak has provided Ā£4.2 billion to help. I should have been more impressed, had not whole swathes of the media reported last month that the money was being directed at exclusively Conservative marginal constituencies.
October 2, 2021
One of the reasons the supply and delivery industry relied so heavily on foreign drivers is the cost of gaining a driving qualification in the UK.
Initial driving lessons are around Ā£25 an hour, with a minimum of 20 hours generally needed to pass a test and probably a great many more for young drivers. So that’s at least Ā£500, probably closer to Ā£1000, in lessons. Then there’s the cost of getting the licence – Ā£120. To buy a reasonable second-hand car, you’re looking at Ā£3000, plus insurance at around Ā£1500 pa.
So a grand total of around Ā£5000, just for an ordinary driving licence. To go on to get an HGV licence, you can double that – so Ā£10,000. Very few British youngsters, without the help of the Bank of Mum and Dad, can learn to drive until they have already got a job and therefore probably made their career choice. (Joining the Army is the only exclusion to this scenario, since they will teach you to drive).
Meanwhile, foreign drivers, who took their lessons and tests far more cheaply and with less stringent conditions in their own countries, could come into the UK and their qualification was accepted under EU Rules. It’s hardly surprising that we now have a shortage of HGV drivers. We did nothing to help young British people take the first step towards an HGV licence by making initial driving lessons affordable for them. And employers weren’t going to do it all the time they had a steady supply of already trained foreign drivers.
So now, when the problem is blindingly obvious to even our myopic Government, why don’t they transfer some of the money they WASTE on Student Loans for Mickey Mouse degrees which have no value and will probably never be repaid, into providing a Driver Training Loan to young people who want a career as an HGV Driver. It can be on the same basis as a Student Loan ….. start repaying when you are earning.
It would take away the problem of funding the initial cost and allow them to stage repayment over a longer term than a personal loan, which most of them would not be able to get anyway.
October 2, 2021
On the āTruck Net UKā forum youāll hear about various european countries army service where after a successful day driving a army truck in a field youāre supplied with a full licence which can be used for HGV driving in the UK
October 2, 2021
One thing never mentioned with the HGV drivers is the amount of red tape that they have to contend with. I would imagine that the long standing shortage was exacerbated with the introduction of CPC. CPC stops people doing it part time and on a casual basis. A HGV licence is useless without it. CPC also hinders small business, for example a small garage that might recover the occasional car would require an up to date CPC.
October 2, 2021
Jame G do EU drivers working in the UK have to have a CPC?
October 3, 2021
Yes, EU directive 2003/59.
October 3, 2021
Who checks they have the correct cpc & licence Hefner? I guess it could be done whilst they are on the ferry by our border force, or is it the company contracting them that is meant to check their cpc? This is interesting. Especially if this directive says they have to have exactly the same licence and cpc points as UK drivers.
October 4, 2021
I do not have answers to your practical questions. The directive had originally been issued to ensure a level playing field between drivers from different EU countries. Maybe UK custom officers are now doing such checks if the UK licence and CPC have become different from what was required before. Which would be another reason why EU drivers are not so keen anymore on working in the UK, the other one being paid from driving a full lorry into the UK but being paid much less or even possibly nothing for returning to the continent with an empty or near empty lorry.
October 2, 2021
A report in The Times today epitomises the problem with Boris Johnson – he refuses to do the job he was elected to do: govern. He says āThereās a shortage of lorry drivers which has been around for a very long time, thatās one of the things we need to fix.” So if this problem has ” been around for a very long time”, why hasn’t he done anything about it??!! Because, he says: āItās a matter for the market. Weāre not going to intervene and set pay and conditions”. And there you have it – just sit back, do nothing, and leave it ‘to the market’. And if ‘the market’ is inefficient and that means there are shortages and the country grinds to a halt, well so be it, because heaven forfend that the prime minister should actually govern the country! The man is utterly, utterly useless.
October 2, 2021
If it’s Johnson’s problem to ensure a supply of truck drivers, exactly what is the Road Haulage Association’s reason for existence?
Is Johnson also responsible for ensuring a supply of soccer stars, TV commentators and prostitutes?
October 3, 2021
Yes, it IS Johnson’s job to ensure that all essential functions in the UK operate smoothly. That is the very basic function of government!! And given that the transport of goods is fundamental to every other aspect of life, it is also part of the good governance of the UK.
The Road Haulage Association is merely a lobby group for hauliers. You would no more trust them to supply truck drivers than you would trust a trade union to recruit doctors. As for your ridiculous reference to prostitutes et al, these are not essential to the UK. Can you really not see the difference?
October 3, 2021
But that is exactly the small – i.e. all responsible overseeing institutions wrecked – State for which you voted.
You have precisely what you wanted in these Tories.
Rubbish, isn’t it?
October 3, 2021
We haven’t got a small state NLH
The size of the State and its spending its taxation and scope of legislation is huge and increasing.
October 2, 2021
I wouldnāt mind betting that every contributor to this site lives in a nice area – as do I.
But I donāt forget where I was born and raised. And I realise there are whole swathes of the country where people live in permanent deprivation and desperation. In crime and drug riddled areas with few decent employment opportunities and poor schools turning out the next generation of people to live stunted and shortened lives.
Levelling up means putting money and leadership into those areas to give people there a chance. We know it works. Community groups have turned around some sink estates with the cooperation of community groups, the police and the local council. But it needs money to bring the right people forwards and to fill the gaps in local services – like education and skills training. For me, thatās what levelling up means. Bringing those areas up so the people there live in the sort of places we live.
Itās not about wasting Ā£150,000,000,000 on a bloody railway line no-one wants or will use.
October 2, 2021
Andy wants it, but his family goes to France which he owns….well some of it.
October 2, 2021
Mike, youād be wrong in your assumption.
October 2, 2021
Ā£150,000,000,000…….now thats a big number
October 2, 2021
Levelling Up is a con and is more about politics, State driven control over people, State intervention and psychological warfare. For the Parliamentary Tory party to endorse this Socialist politics is unprecedented in Tory party history but does show just how far Tory MPs will go to preserve their grip on power. Is there any issue they will not give way on to preserve the status quo?
Biden, Harris and the laughably named Democrats are a direct threat to freedom and democracy in the US. I believe the Tories and Labour represent an equally potent threat to British democracy and civil freedoms
October 2, 2021
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if JR and JRM tore up their carefully worded speeches and went rogue ?
What have you got to lose boys ?
Reply I do not write a text. I do say it as I see it
October 2, 2021
A pleb, you should visit more often and then youād take back your accusation.
October 2, 2021
I don’t find “Nottingham Lad Himself” all that convincing. It all smells a bit too much like Andy and MiC inventing yet another poster so that they can all chat to one another.
It is really *really* difficult to pull off a coordinated chat stunt in a discussion group. It doesn’t take a day before people start to recognize the pattern of one sock puppet talking to another.
October 2, 2021
Definitely a clone troll mate of MiC and Andy.
Some of these allegedly get paid for every post.
The style of writing to very similar.
October 4, 2021
And who pays them? The Russians, the Chinese, the French, Brussels? Please enlighten me, how much could I expect to earn?
October 5, 2021
You tell me heffy.
I thought you must be more informed than me on this subject.
October 3, 2021
Clearly he is just another stupid troublemaker who pollutes this site and is best ignored.
October 2, 2021
Dear John Redwood
I totally agree with your sentiments- Levelling Up has to be about more than how much Public Money is thrown at Wigan, Burnley or Darlington as opposed to Reading, Ashford or Hastings. However, I expect that many of those new Conservative voters living in the North West, the North East and Yorkshire will feel disappointed and betrayed if they do not see a big increase in spending on roads, railways, new hospitals- and new facelifts for their towns. But, you are right in that it also has to do with these voters seeing higher wages and lower taxes- as well as the cost of living being addressed.
The Inflation and Supply problems- that threaten a real Cost of Living crisis- does put real constraints on how Levelling Up (in all its ways) is funded. No more quantitative easing and borrowing- but instead back to cutting wasteful Government Spending to fund it- or even selling off some Public Assets like the remaining stakes in part- nationalised banks. It may be necessary to cancel HS2, which is not going to benefit most of the North of England- or indeed South Wales.
With taxation accounting for close to 38% of GDP there is also little scope for raising taxes further to fund improvements to the NHS, the Police or Armed Forces, etc. though there remains a strong moral case for making China pay for costs inherent in allowing Covid-19 to reach these shores by imposing some whacking great Import Tariffs on Chinese imports. We could compensate buyers paying higher prices by using some of the Tariff money to cut business rates and put a tax-free allowance on profits taxable by Corporation Tax so that small businesses can make/ sell goods cheaper. If the Tariffs lead to retaliation by the Chinese, then given that we buy Ā£45 billion more from China than they from Britain, and that high Import Tariffs will likely halve Chinese imports the result will still improve the UK Balance of Payments- more money stays in Britain and then boosts the economy leading to higher tax revenues that way (if not so much from the Import tariffs).
For Northern and Welsh voters Levelling up means more pay, more Public Spending in their area but lower bills and taxes. Fiscal restraint- at least on wasteful spending (Whitehall should be halved) and Monetary restrainttogether is now likely to the only way the Conservative Government will be able to keep these voters happy. Borrowing more Printed money will lead to Inflation, soaring debt costs and a high Cost of Living- which these voters would be happy to reject at the ballot box at the next Election.
October 2, 2021
Sock puppets aside, there is an interesting pattern that often show up in discussions. When there are practical problems to solve, practical people get on and solve them.
Impractical people, on the other hand, who have never solved a problem in their lives, go all Philosophical on you and start burbling about overturning the entire system and reading Marx.
Marx wrote for the burbling philosophical types, not for the practical people.
October 2, 2021
Totally correct Jon.
October 2, 2021
If Johnson believed in levelling up, heād scrap the Barnett Formula for starters. All he cares about is winning the votes of the red wall hence all his promises to the North. There are many areas in the south which need levelling up but as itās mostly true blue Tory territory (for now) itās of no interest. Hopefully heāll get a shock come the next election. If he ever came out of his deluded bubble, he would know that he has lost the votes of many lifelong Tory voters.
October 2, 2021
There is no need for military support. It’s just a gesture concocted by Boris. By the time tbey have deivered half a dozen loads it will be almost restored and nothing to do with them.
Boris weakness and fakery.
October 2, 2021
No, it’s just what it always was, a spike in demand caused by coordinated scare stories, nothing more complicated.
But it is a seven day wonder; you are correct about that.
October 2, 2021
There are winners and losers and “the haves and have nots”in all walks of life and it will never change so get used to it. Too many are prepared to sit on their A–e and wait for the hand out which the Globalist Establishment are fully aware of and use it to their advantage. Levelling up is the New World Order jargon which is being promoted as we speak.
Food shortages, HGV driver shortages, Power outages all part of the plan. Wake up people.
October 2, 2021
Bingo! Read Greek, Roman, Chinese and Japanese history from two thousand years ago, and what do you see? Everyday enterprise and laziness, success and failure and accumulations of inequality. We just need to do enough to avoid the revolutions and mass murders.
October 3, 2021
PC, Given youāre obviously awoken/woke, what do you actually do to fight āthe GE/NWO planā ā¦ apart from writing sweet nothings on this blog?
October 3, 2021
There’s a basic question: is levelling up about helping up a region, such as the north of England, or is it about levelling up a class, such as British workers?
If it’s about levelling up a region, is transferring public sector bureaucratic jobs from south to north, or constructing railways that will make a loss, really doing the north any favours?
October 3, 2021
You don’t seriously expect any sort of meaningful answer to your very pertinent question from these Tories do you Lindsay?
I’d say that it means “none of those”, nor anything specific that you could describe.
It’s a claimed – but not proven – intention, and certainly not a plan.
October 3, 2021
You forget HS2 is a Labour Party idea started in 2009 NLH
Presumably you supported it then and still do now.
And are you against another Labour party policy of moving public sector jobs to the regions?
October 3, 2021
The āBig Ask surveyā of 9 to 17 year olds āfound that a fifth of children across England were unhappy with their mental health ā but girls were almost twice as likely as boys to think this (25 per cent versus 13 per cent).ā
āThe survey also asked pupils what they worry about, with the highest proportion nationally (41 per cent) saying they were concerned about having enough money to buy the things they need. The second most common worry reported (39 per cent) was whether they will grow up to benefit from a healthy planet.ā
I can honestly say even though my family didnāt have much money and at 16 I was only earning Ā£23.50 per week I didnāt worry about money like they do today. But then again I didnāt have to have the latest trending clothes, shoes/trainers, phones, laptops we lived much simpler lives and I worked three jobs and six days each week to get the things I needed such as driving lessons and extra qualifications at night school. I also wasnāt exposed to social media influencers living it up and showing off or tv programs comparing peopleās houses or showing people that could afford Ā£700,000 for a first buy home, everyone around me was just as badly off and we all strived, worked hard and the majority of the people I knocked around with worked their way out of poverty and didnāt expect other people to provide it for them.