In the early days of the pandemic the Chancellor saw the need for a massive fiscal and monetary boost to offset the worst features of the draconian lockdown imposed. I supported him and these policies, urging additional help for some small businesses and self employed.
As the vaccines and treatments became available the Chancellor spoke up for fewer restrictions to get more people back to work more quickly. Again I supported him. We did need to do that, as the huge support was not affordable indefinitely.
At this point the Chancellor was the most popular Minister in the government. We were all impressed by the bold responses to a dire economic situation forced upon him by a national emergency he could not control.
Then all went wrong. The Chancellor accepted the self defeating Maastricht austerity policies dictated by the EU rules on debts and deficits. He compounded the error by thinking a huge tax rise in April 2022 before the economy had made sensible gains above the 2019 level would cut the deficit. They will slow growth, deter investment and cut confidence. This will reduce revenues from taxes generally.
It is no wonder his popularity has tumbled. If he does not change tack soon he will find out what it is like to be really unpopular come April. With higher tax rates imposed economic performance will deteriorate and he will not have good options if he sticks with his austerity mantra.
January 10, 2022
Good morning.
Taxes had to be raised somewhere to pay for the government’s largess during the lockdown. A lockdown I might add, that was totally unnecessary as many of those that were deemed high risk were not workers.
Popularity that is bought with gold does not last and yields nothing, as our Chancellor seems to be finding out.
January 10, 2022
The trouble is that raising tax rates, from the already absurdly over taxed position we have in the UK, will not raise more revenue in the medium term. It just decreases the tax base and leaves businesses and people less money to invest and less reason to invest in the UK. Not helped by the fact that government is so wasteful, misdirected and incompetent at spending it (Eat out to help out as a prime example). It will however push investment in tax planning up and in people moving overseas.
Sunak’s first act as Chancellor (even before Covid) was to cut entrepreneurs CGT relief by 90%. This to demonstrate just how anti-business this socialist PPE graduate was. The fool is still taxing landlords at over 100% on profits that they have not even made – thus damaging supply, job mobility & hitting tenants badly. He also has done nothing to index CGT again nor deal with the absurd rates of stamp duty. Another tax that is not related to profits.
He would be wise to get out of the treasury quickly if he can as he has created a huge inflationary, anti-growth, expensive energy, cost of living mess.
January 10, 2022
Be a true Tory Boris or you’re out: Former Cabinet Minister Lord Frost says PM is the ‘right leader but has the wrong people and policies – in the Mail yesterday.
He need to do the complete opposite of anything his wife suggests and return to the small government, climate realist, Boris of old.
January 10, 2022
The only policy Lord “Protocol” Frost has ever successfully delivered is the dismantling of the United Kingdom. You really want advice from him?
January 10, 2022
I do not take “advice” from him, I just agree with him and others when they are talking sense.
January 10, 2022
Frost was never he prime minister. You cannot hold him responsible for Boris’s balls ups.
January 10, 2022
your usual obsession with PPE conveniently forgetting MBA at Stamford.
January 11, 2022
The problem with PPE seems to be the type of people who aspire to such a first degree!
January 10, 2022
Not so LL. They have raised ENIC which is a tax before profits and one that employees do not see. It also comes on the back of IR35 and I am sure that a lot of companies have taken on workers who were once on contracts. They will now see the costs of those workers rise.
Remember – Companies do not vote in General Elections.
January 10, 2022
Not just that taxes stop investment. Taking people’s money means less spent in the everyday economy, thereby cutting jobs, wages, taxes, profits and company taxes and increasing the benefits bill. The lower paid tax payers will spend all their money in the economy, whereas simply cutting taxes for the rich and giving them money for such things as having windmills on their land etc. at high cost to ordinary folk will produce nothing at all except inflating asset prices to no good effect and even higher everyday costs as we are seeing in the ‘free of charge’ wind energy, which costs the ordinary Joe dear. These fools do not seem to have the first idea about business, or how to run an economy, but then, as they have never done such a thing, how would they know? We need to be shot of amateurs, which is what most politicians are.
January 10, 2022
You often make that point. What, exactly, are you talking about?
January 10, 2022
Our politicians having become addicted to the crack cocaine of politics quantitative easing , tried to come off it with tax and spend policies but the tax bill is proving unpopular. What they don’t have the character for is to call a halt to their wild spending, and with the public now accustomed to the tsunami of public spending its going to be the markets that force us to go cold turkey , and its going to be mighty unpleasant.
January 10, 2022
Iain
I very much agree.
January 10, 2022
Government paper shredders are being fired up but politicians will be reminded of their overreach at the next election because the internet never forgets.
January 10, 2022
You don’t have to rise taxes you can restrict and cut expenditure i.e HS2 and Foreign Aid…and payments to the EU – unlike the people, government have a choice
January 10, 2022
MARK B. +1
January 10, 2022
That may not be a legitimate assumnption. Rapid economic growth brought about by investment , start ups, reshoring and re-domiciling tax and manufacturing along with growing more of our own food and generating domestically more of our own energy migh produce a larger tax take than increased taxes
January 10, 2022
Hand outs are usually popular with recipients and taxes are usually unpopular with those who have to pay them.
Politicians can try to mitigate this by persuading taxpayers that increases are unfortunate but necessary or prudent.
In Sunak’s case people just see endless cost of living increases and more taxes as well. So it is a difficult sell.
January 10, 2022
A very difficult sell indeed when A. higher tax rates will not raise more revenue anyway (quite the reverse) and B. The government wastes billions already on HS2, test and trace, worthless degrees, the net zero lunacy, the appallingly inefficient NHS, bloated and misdirected government activity and millions of other things. Taxing people to pay for restaurant meals for others (after large collection and admin. cost too) was totally insane Rishi!
January 10, 2022
Yes, they’re pretty self evident.
But stuff doesn’t just “go wrong”. Politicians, by their sometimes disastrous dogma make this inevitable.
For instance, Make UK, the industry body representing 20,000 manufacturing firms of all sizes from across the country, said that while optimism among its members had grown, it was being undermined by the after-effects of the UK’s departure from the European Union.
One year on from the end of the transition period, two-thirds of industrial company leaders in its survey of 228 firms said Brexit had moderately or significantly hampered their business. More than half of firms warned they were likely to suffer further damage this year from customs delays due to import checks and changes to product labelling.
According to the 2022 MakeUK/PwC senior executive survey, Brexit disruption remains among the biggest concerns facing industry bosses for the year ahead as Britain’s departure from the European Union complicates the fallout from Covid-19 and the rising costs facing companies.
I don’t think that the ERG care two hoots, however.
January 10, 2022
what other excuses were they likely to quote? – the inevitable disruption caused by the 27 will have effects.
But what you understate, being an old whinger, was the –
20,000 manufacturing firms of all sizes from across the country, said that while optimism among its members had grown….
January 11, 2022
Grown, from the utter despair of late 2020.
January 12, 2022
nice response but still nonsense.
January 10, 2022
Industry doesn’t like change and trade bodies often complain to government about it.
You might consider two thirds said no negative effects or only moderate effects.
They have been used to one system for decades, so I’m not surprised at the result of this particular survey.
But it really only means that imports from Europe now have a similar system to imports from the rest of the world.
Many companies have imported from both areas and should be able to manage the change.
January 10, 2022
Being captured by the pro EU Treasury of course he will follow their rules.
One of the reasons he won’t remove VAT on energy is because he would need their permission.
Government agencies are actively working against the well being of the British citizens and we have a vote.
January 10, 2022
We have a vote, yes, but what use is it if the parties only put forward pro-EU anti-democratic candidates?
January 10, 2022
There are other parties out there, not just the LibLabCon-men. I will be voting Reform UK next time, as Boris and his band of merry traitors have, sadly, proven to be a complete failure. I genuinely can’t think of a single government policy which I either approve of or which, if right in principle (eg. Brexit, freeports, gene editing ..), this government has properly implemented. Can you?
January 10, 2022
These so-called ‘pro-EU anti-democratic’ candidates are British citizens keen on doing ‘something’ (the quality of which can surely be discussed, no question about it) for their community. So what do you intend to do?
Prevent them from standing? Become a member of a political party to help choose some better candidates? Or just moan on this blog?
January 10, 2022
+1
January 10, 2022
Indeed. You like you pension handouts and I loathe paying taxes to fund them.
January 10, 2022
State pension is not a handout if the recipient has paid their taxes throughout their career. UK pensions are poor compared to many countries in the EU. Older people resent introduction of TV tax and won’t vote Tory if prescription exemption is cancelled.
Congratulations to our hardworking MPs on their £2k pay rise.
January 10, 2022
State pension is a handout even if the recipient paid taxes throughout their career. None of those taxes went into surplus for their future benefit, but were all paid out in the year they were collected, by governments that typically couldn’t balance the books and had to borrow yet more to pay for those election bribes.
January 11, 2022
you are describing government mismanagement of funds. The agreement with NI is a state pension in return for contributions so it is not a “handout”
January 10, 2022
+1
January 10, 2022
Have you children. I don’t so I loathe any allowances relating to them. Actually I don’t because I am more charitable than you.
January 10, 2022
Andy
Do your Parents or Grandparents get a State Hand out/Pension Andy ?
January 10, 2022
I loath paying taxes to fund your child allowance handouts.
January 10, 2022
What about the NI payments, and pension contributions that you have to make for your employees?
You observe radio silence on the issues I would have thought you loathe?
January 11, 2022
Don’t think he’s got any employees. He said he would fire them if Brexit happened. Haven’t heard any different. Like the barbers’s cat he is full of wind and p.
January 10, 2022
Me too. I loathe paying taxes for public sector pensions – which are far too generous. The MPs pension scheme being the best example.
State pensions, of course, are a different matter. They are not pension handouts. People have paid taxes and NI all their working lives to pay for the state pensions of those older than them. But, you know that. You just like being silly.
January 10, 2022
Nothing ‘prudent’ about Sunak – quite the reverse. He is a tax, borrow, over regulate and piss down the drain merchant.
January 10, 2022
So true
January 10, 2022
But surely…what he has actually done is destroy many, many businesses with the totally reckless policy employed by this government?
The govt. has followed the WRONG policy throughout.
Driven by fear?
January 10, 2022
Interesting thought, Everhopeful. ‘Fear of whom?’ would then be the question. Perhaps it was fear of getting slayed by the media in the event of half a million Covid deaths (said Neil Ferguson). But within a short time the government was paying the media millions for lockdown stay-safe advertising and NHS glorification. Then Johnson didn’t need to be afraid of negative publicity in the media, surely. I wonder if there are others who have a hold on him so strong that he’s afraid to go against what they say.
January 10, 2022
+1
Exactly what I have been wondering since Johnson caved!
January 10, 2022
Driven by fear of their of own creation driven by expensive propaganda, lies, bogus fear modelling and absurd adverts. Exactly the same with climate alarmism and the net zero agenda lunacy.
Interesting figures from Iceland on the dailysceptic.org suggesting just how ineffective (or even counter productive) the vaccines seem to be against the latest variants. Interesting to hear a sensible NHS doctor politely explaining to Javid why his demand for all NHS (and care home) staff to be vaccinated is wrong headed. No sure if the unimpressive Javid was actually listening. One Tice LBC about 10.30+ yesterday.
January 10, 2022
The delightful and surely correct Prof. Sunetra Gupta today. (Why do governments listen mainly to the wrong and often totally deluded and alarmist experts?)
“Masking children is illogical and unethical. By curbing the activities of healthy young people we could be prolonging the Covid epidemic.”
January 10, 2022
+many
January 10, 2022
Ah, yes, brexit, you mean.
January 10, 2022
There is an advert on the box for a perfume called ‘Obsession’.
January 10, 2022
Dear Everhopeful–Easier to be relaxed and brave now that doesn’t seem quite so serious but not too long ago there was plenty to be fearful of. Of course the Government has made mistakes in a close to a surprise mission impossible. Too many seem to want to think in terms of clear success or failure but there was and remains a whole lot of both.
January 10, 2022
Agreed. It was an emergency situation and I was prepared to cut the government more slack than usual.
January 10, 2022
+1
Absolutely.
January 10, 2022
Agree but not driven by fear; driven by stupidity upon the advise of spads
January 10, 2022
The Chancellor would become very popular if he openly declared war on waste within all departments of government. How many times is it spoken about, but nothing sums to happen. The man who controls the purse strings dictates policy and direction. Should not be interested in all the madcap schemes that are proposed only that what is proposed is necessary and affordable to the people who will be paying for it. The taxpayers. Rocket science it is not. Lower taxes generate more tax for the Chancellor, less in more.
January 10, 2022
Sums should read seems
January 10, 2022
Certainly from the current hugely overtaxed position (and with so much of government expenditure totally wasted/misdirected or directed to vested or corrupt interests) then lower, simpler tax rates and much deregulation will raise far more tax, increase productivity, living standards and grow the tax base for future years.
January 10, 2022
Ah, the myth of the restaurant napkin thought experiment, the Laffer curve, rears its head.
If lower tax rates always raise more, why not cut every tax to 1% as that will raise more than now, but them cutting to 0.1% will raise even more than that, but then cutting to 0.01% will raise even more than that, and so on… The failed Kansas experiment shows the Laffer curve for what it is.
What announcements on tax changes (such as the Stamp Duty Holiday and the previous top rate income tax cut) do is primarily not generate new revenue to be taxed that would not have been before (how many people would really have decided to go through the cost and hassle of a house move just to save a bit of Stamp Duty that just ended up being added to the purchase price anyway?), but they change when a transaction happens (move this year, rather than next to save a bit – a perfectly rational individual decision). There is a short term gain, but a long term loss overall. Then those who argue on ideological grounds for a cut point to the lower levels of revenue once the higher rates come back in while ignoring the fundamental reasons why (transaction shifting) because those reasons contradict their narrative.
Same with the income tax cut. What happened was that many who would benefit from it engaged in income deferral (shifting income from one tax year to the next in order to pay the lower rate – again a perfectly rational individual decision, but it doesn’t generate more revenue, it generates less). If I’d been an investment banker awaiting the annual bonus paid in March or a Premier League footballer, I’d have done the same thing – “Hi boss, can I push back being paid a week or two until the 6th of April please”.
Same with Corporation tax and all the games that multinationals play to shift profits around.
Reply Silly arguments. Too low a tax rate collects less and too high a rate collects less. the curves are different depending on the tax. Every time the UK has cut higher Income tax rates the take has gone up. Ireland collects a lot more Corporation Tax relative to size of economy than we do by having a lower rate.
January 10, 2022
To reply:- exactly there is a Laffer “point” to raise most tax above this you raise less and below this you raise less – also increasing one tax decreases others (high stamp duty and income taxes gives less employment so lower NI, CT and VAT) . What matters most is what governments actually spend (be it raised by taxes or from borrowing) and how efficiently and well directed this is spend it. The current government spends far too much and does so appallingly inefficiently in general – see HS2, net zero and test and trace!
Note the Laffer point is the point to raise most tax and not at all the ideal point for the maximum benefit of the people – this is far lower. The aim should not be maximum taxation. Also most tax this year means less tax next as it deters investment, gives people incentives to move, do more tax avoidance, work less, go black market and gives then less money to invest too. This should probably be no more than about 25% of GDP not nearly 50% as now. It would however be 25% of an economy that might well be circa double the size – so tax raised could be similar.
The aim should be the elimination of essentially parasitic unproductive jobs so many are. The aim of recent governments seems to have been the vast creation of parasitic jobs in tax planning, law, regulation, compliance and bureaucracy. In the state sector and through OTT regulation & taxation/complexity in the private sector in compliance jobs.
January 10, 2022
Peter, but the stamp duty holiday stopping didn’t follow through on your statement read https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/personal-finance/2022/01/07/house-prices-updates/ surprisingly when stamp duty rates went back up- house prices went up further.
If lower tax rates don’t work why does Ireland fight the EU wanting to raise their tax rate advantage?
January 11, 2022
Ireland is raising tax revenue on profits made in other countries and then shifted to Ireland using various accounting measures. While this means more tax income for Ireland, the reduction in tax paid in all the other countries where the profits are actually made is reduced, and reduced by more than Ireland collects, so the overall tax paid by a company goes down (and as I said, I understand this behaviour, it is a perfectly rational response to the opportunities presented by a broken international tax system).
Those profits should be taxed at the prevailing rate in the countries in which they are made.
January 11, 2022
That would mean a multi national company having to produce perhaps a hundred sets of account a year.
One for every country they trade in.
Trying to extract and calculate the proportion of total company profit in every single market would be a very complex task.
The EU sensubly allows companies to declare a corporate HQ where profits on sales are aggregated and corporate tax is paid.
Take Rolls Royce as an example.
The cars are made in the UK but sold all over the world.
Would you think it sensible for them to pay corporation tax in every country they sell a car in?
January 11, 2022
Peter2, are you aware that they have to do that now anyway? Go to the Companies House website and see how many Google entities exist in the UK, for example.
You’ll find that pretty much every company that operates in the UK has a wholly-owned subsidiary incorporated in the UK (often several or many). In many countries you can’t transact business and/or employ people without one. Those companies file accounts every year, and that includes the profit made (or, often, not, as it’s been shifted elsewhere through accounting measures).
Yes, I do think that each company should pay corporation tax in each country where they operate based on the real profits they make in each country, not the minimal/trivial amounts they can get away with now due to the games that their accountants play.
January 11, 2022
Wrong
They don’t pay corporation tax in multiple zines.
And it would be madness to force companies who trade in many export markets to pay multiple tax bills in every country they sell into.
January 12, 2022
Peter2, no, you are wrong. You wrote:
“That would mean a multi national company having to produce perhaps a hundred sets of account a year.” – They have to do this now.
“One for every country they trade in.” – They have to do this now.
“Trying to extract and calculate the proportion of total company profit in every single market would be a very complex task.” – This information is in the accounts they produce now, it’s just that they employ accountants to employ spurious mechanisms such as “Brand IP licensing costs” to shift it all around to minimise what they pay.
It’s perfectly possible. What’s needed is a willingness on the part of the politicians to eliminate the opportunities to play games with the international tax system.
January 12, 2022
I know what I wrote.
You are agreeing with me, apart from trying to say producing 100 sets of individual accounts each year and extracting and dividing the profit element from each trade tonthe agreement of every tax authority in every nation a business sells into would be easy.
Have you ever run a trading company?
January 18, 2022
P2, You know what you wrote, but you do not appear to know what you are writing about.
Any company selling in different markets will have a set of accounts for each of these, as it is very likely that due to different currencies and market strategies the price of the original products may differ from one country to the next, if only, e.g., to reflect the different costs of transportation.
Which means that it is relatively easy (as you have already told us many times) that in this age of computerised accounting/bookkeeping individual accounts could/can be produced for each market.
Are you not involved in some exporting business and familiar with different markets? If it really is/was the case you should know that.
Preparing individual accounts is therefore not an intractable problem, far from it. What is one is the lack of incentives to make companies trading on the international market report and pay the relevant tax in every individual countries where they sell their services or products.
What is lacking is a will for a real level-playing field, difficult to get when so many (of the usual) people benefit from a skewed one.
January 11, 2022
House prices are affected by more than just Stamp Duty rates. The current levels of mortgage interest, including long term deals, also impacts prices, especially if the projection for the future is for interest rates (and therefore mortgage payments) to increase. It is rational behaviour to buy a house now at a higher purchase price with a lower monthly mortgage payment (if you lock in on a long term fixed rate) than to wait a year or two when the rates (and, therefore, monthly payments) will be higher, which impacts affordability calculations, the amount that can be lent etc., and therefore has a dampening effect on prices irrespective of Stamp Duty levels.
There is always more than one factor at play in the market.
January 12, 2022
Correct.
January 10, 2022
I suggest you read HMRC’s report and comments on the last year of the 50p rate. Their description of the income declared at that rate that year was “artificially low”, not just compared to subsequent years, but to previous years (which had the same top rate) as well. Why was it “artificially low”? The obvious conclusion is because individuals with the means to do so were given sufficient notice to plan around it. Like I said, perfectly rational individual behaviour. The reality is that, if the Laffer curve exists at all, nobody knows where its peak is (and given the sorts of behaviours that can go on in tax planning like shifting from income to dividend payments and such like, along with other economic factors, it’s probably impossible to ever calculate).
Your comment about Ireland simply supports my last sentence. The level of Corporation Tax in Ireland is in no way a reflection of the profits companies make in Ireland compared to elsewhere, it’s a reflection of the accounting and legal structures that allow them to game the system to get away with paying as little as possible, something governments and politicians have failed to deal with for decades. (Although at least Joe Biden is trying to do something about it.)
If a company is extracting capital from a country by making profits, those profits should be taxed in that country. If a company doesn’t like the level of Corporation Tax in a country, it doesn’t have to do business there, it can leave it for others to make the money.
January 11, 2022
Nonsense
Income tax paid by the top few percent has grown greatly since the top rate was reduced.
In Ireland a low rate of company tax has resulted in a huge growth in tax revenues in Dublin.
Does tobacco tax at very high rates achieve a reduction in use of tobacco?
Why are high headline percentage rates so attractive to you if they fail to result in greater revenues?
January 10, 2022
The relationship between tax rates and tax revenues that you describe would come from a straight line, whereas the Laffer Curve is, err .. a CURVE. You must be very stupid indeed not to understand the difference between a straight line and a curve, so perhaps you need to go back to the Ladybird book of economics which will explain to you, in language that you will hopefully understand, that the Laffer Curve demonstrates that there is an optimum tax rate which maximizes tax revenue, and that if tax rates are increased above a certain level, then tax revenues will fall, and that above this level cutting taxes INCREASES revenues. Your failure to understand this, and your brainless attempt to deny it, merely proves your ignorance and stupidity. You are not worth responding to again.
January 11, 2022
You fail to read and understand what I wrote in response to the statement “cutting taxes increases revenue”. Such a statement could imply a line, but it could also be a curve of some description, just an exponential one rather than something closer to, for example, a Laplace distribution.
As I pointed out, the Laffer curve is a theory that has been shown to fail in practise (the Kansas experiment) and nobody knows where on the curve UK tax rates are anyway. There seems to be an assumption by many on this site that, if the Laffer curve exists and works, all tax rates are on the right hand side of the peak, however such assertions are invariably unsubstantiated.
January 11, 2022
Kansas is a red herring used by people who like high percentage rates of tax and like to try to tax the wealthy out of existence.
Somewhere between 1 and 100 there is a rate that must optimise revenues.
If you were a self made multi millionaire at what point would you look at moving to a country with much lower rates of tax than the UK if taxes on income and capital gains and corporations were increased?
January 11, 2022
Kansas was Laffer’s theory put into practise (Laffer was paid as a consultant). It was a financial failure.
The idea that there is one rate that will optimise revenue is, in my view, naive, since there are many moving parts in any modern economy, each of which interacts with others, so changing one lever (tax rate) has a domino effect.
Why is there an assumption that people with wealth would always look to leave a country? What a sad view of people with wealth.
January 11, 2022
Different places and different economies require different rates of tax.
You would no doubt expect ordinary people to go to a cheaper local shop to buy their food and yet you seem shocked when a multi millionaire then behaves in exactly the same way.
I’m assuming you want to maximise revenues without watching enterprising people and the very wealthy disappearing off to other nations taking jobs investment and their taxes with them.
Behavioural economics is a vert interesting subject.
PS
I note you dodged answering my key question.
January 11, 2022
I invite the reader to consider the curve as to ease of evasion and avoidance against take.
This is not the Laffer “curve” but something quite different, and I would say with far more relevance.
What should responsible government do in the light of that?
What does this one do?
January 11, 2022
Evasion is illegal and carries big penalties.
Avoidance is making decisions to minimise your tax bill within the law, allowed and acceptable to HMRC.
Investing in a pension?
Saving in an ISA?
Making donations to charities?
Making allowed levels of gifts each year to your children?
Buying an electric car which has lower benefits in kind car tax for company car owners?
Are you objecting to things like these examples NHL?
January 11, 2022
Putting up buildings which are fire death traps is illegal, and so is dumping sewage in rivers and seas.
Your point is?
January 11, 2022
You have made no point NHL
The enquiry is still ongoing on that situation.
We shall see what the outcome is soon.
Again you move off to another area and totally fail to answer my question
January 10, 2022
“he will find out what it is like to be really unpopular”
Is he bovvered tho?
January 10, 2022
Yes he is, for he (allegedly) covets Blue Boris’s job and must know his present approach risks seeing relinquishment of all his claims.
January 10, 2022
Does he visit food banks, poundshops, charity shops, surplus stores and walk the streets of ‘Big Issue’ sellers?
January 10, 2022
If I were married to a billionaire, I wouldn’t be bothered about my popularity. Politics is just a game for him, surely.
January 10, 2022
Appease Labour’s public sector, their unions and their lobbyists while smashing the private sector in the guts. It is that simple.
It is the act of a party in government who will abuse our nation and its people that they would expose us all to the poisonous ideology of those some call the Left
The legacy left behind by the Tories time in office will form the foundations of an all powerful Socialist authoritarian State that embraces digital ID, Social Credit and electronic cash.
I am convinced that the Tory party actively works with Labour and their associated partners across the State to formulate strategy towards the aim of building a status quo from which there is no going back but in public portraying themselves as the antithesis of Labour. It is an act of appalling deceit
January 10, 2022
Agreed, DOM. “Appease Labour’s public sector, their unions and their lobbyists while smashing the private sector in the guts. It is that simple.” What happens when they run out of private sector money?
I hear that up to 25% of public sector workers are off sick, or isolating. I would like to see a comparison with the private sector, where full sick pay is not the norm and there are no ‘jobs for life’ with generous pensions (which are mostly taxpayer funded anyway).
In my previous career, I lost count of the public sector workers I met (especially nurses) who retired at 50 on a very good pension and went on to do self employment and agency work. The generous pensions could be one reason why so many leave the NHS.
January 10, 2022
Shirley.
Indeed the NHS Pension is exceptionally good when compared to most organisations, and in particular the self employed who have to fund everything themselves.
Likewise full salary sick pay, guaranteed for 6 months minimum is a nice addition as well.
Likewise guaranteed annual wage rises within each pay band until you reach the top of your band.
Good luck to them, but I wish they would stop moaning about their lot, they are very fortunate when compared to many who work elsewhere.
January 10, 2022
Don
Your first paragraph sums up this rogue “Conservative” Government perfectly.
January 10, 2022
You offer many sensible ideas and proposals in your Diary. It is unfortunate for us, and will be unfortunate for the government, that Johnson and co (including Sunak) do not listen to or act on what you say.
January 10, 2022
+10
January 10, 2022
Oldtimer
True.
That is the arrogance that infects the leader and his cabinet.
In times of trouble you need a helping hand and where that comes from matters not a jot.
A phone call that is all it would take.
“Hi Sir John how you doing, can you give me ten minutes of your time to discuss a couple of things?
I would welcome your input.
There, that is so difficult, not
January 10, 2022
Agreed. It’s time for the Spartans to openly voice their concerns and demand action.
January 12, 2022
They prefer being toy poodles wearing a muzzle.
January 10, 2022
The Chancellor was popular when he was throwing money around, now he is not; he is not .None of this simple equation has anything whatsoever to do with Maastricht.
John Redwood has always wanted less lock down more borrowing and less taxes . His “less lockdown” period included the entire time when the population was entirely unprotected and was wrong .Now the population is protected with even better vaccines and treatments coming on line this year, he is becoming right-ish.
On his desire for me, and my children to accept more debt . It would be helpful if he could tell us to what proportion of GDP he would be happy to let debt increase …110%…120%? Otherwise its all just a bit “Please Sir can I have some more “.
Reply No, I want more growth which will cut the debt. £50bn less deficit in the first half of this year than Treasury forecasts thanks to higher growth.
January 10, 2022
If I may John, haven’t you been arguing that because interest rates are so low it’s OK to increase borrowing? What about when the debt has to be re-financed and interest rates have increased dramatically? Then the government of the day has the problems of having to pay back the debt or re-financing it at unaffordable rates as well as pay the day to day bills.
And what will cause interest rates to rise? Well that would be the legacy of borrow and spend governments telling the money markets UK confidence has disappeared.
January 10, 2022
Newmania. Better vaccines? Really? Will they go through full trials, unlike the present ones? Will they NOT cause severe side effects and even death, as the present ones do? As for treatments, there were already successful, safe treatments available but our NHS in their wisdom failed many thousands of very sick people by not using them!
January 12, 2022
What a load of crap.
January 10, 2022
I’m not a fan of Sunak, for a number of reasons, one of which is my concern that he will be soft on immigration from the sub-continent. But it has been reported that he, long with Shapps, has been opposing the damaging assault on air-travel by Johnson and Javid – so credit to him for that. Yes, I want him to get taxation right but I do wish that he, and more ministers, will start giving more, routine consideration to our Balance of Payments.
January 10, 2022
Yes, Sunak is unelectable in my view because of immigration concerns, and Johnson is also unlectable for the same reason, as are most of the so called Tory party. Johnson has said that all illegal immigrants here should be given an amnesty. Yet the idiot electorate still vote for Johnson, Stamer and their kind, in huge numbers.
January 11, 2022
FPTP ensures that votes for new parties are wasted, so far as representation goes. Do you remember UKIP getting 16m votes and not one MP? It did the fine job of scaring Cameron into promising a referendum though.
As new parties are pretty much sidelined, regardless of votes made, then we are stuck with the pro-EU anti-democratic candidates offered by LibLabCon, which is a manipulation of democracy and the only reason we were stuck in the EU for decades. The EU’s anti-democratic nature has been adopted by UK political parties.
Constituencies need to be given more power over the choice and retention of MP’s, and if they claim to be Brexiters to get elected, and then suddenly become anti-democratic remainers once elected (and vice versa), the constituency should be allowed to force a bi-election.
January 10, 2022
And then by magic, it is announced he is in favour of reducing the isolation period to five days, an obvious attempt to buff up his ‘freedom’ credentials should a leadership race start.
No doubt an MBA from Stamford displays both talent an aptitude but married to a billionaires daughter means he doesn’t need to work and experience in a hedge fund is hardly grounding for one of the great offices of State.
He is totally ill equipped to push back a pro EU Treasury and saddled with a spendthrift PM who tells whoppers for a living it is no surprise he is, in my view, turning out to be pretty useless. Saying that where are the alternatives?
January 10, 2022
The decent alternatives (and there are several, including Sir John) are sitting on the back benches.
January 10, 2022
Like you, JR, I was pleased with the chancellor, initially. But as you, then it all went wrong. Did the blob get to him? The Treasury I believe, are supposed to be made up of a lot of young remainers (? don’t know for sure) , is the chancellor not a small ‘c’ conservative after all? Don’t know.
But Dom’s comment about working with Labour… certainly holds water. A previous PM’s institute advises governments and boasts of having representatives in all areas of life… don’t know, but things are definitely going in the entirely opposite direction of conservative!
January 10, 2022
And in other news Lord Frost is proving to be the soul/conscience of the Tory party. No doubt taking advantage of the fact that politically he is fireproof and acting as a messenger for many MPs too scared to speak out or hopeful of getting a job on the payroll.
Maybe the latter MPs should be reminded that retaining your seat is a pre requisite and that letting your constituents down as you are at present means that you won’t have any job, let alone one in government.
January 10, 2022
And so HS2 chunters on. What ever happened to the war on waste?
January 12, 2022
but we ‘ve found several ancient burial sites, Roman sites etc.
Must be worth £100bn or more of anyone’s money, surely?
January 10, 2022
This illustrates the strength of the civil service in the Treasury. Sajid Javid was under their influence and got pitched out PDQ in 2020.
Sunak has gone down the same road and this has to be due to lack of experience and taking what looks like a safe route to keep his parliamentary career intact! Boris is now under the same spell for the same reason, but he will hit the buffers shortly if he does not get grip on the situation. He must have lost his resolve under a pile of nappies!!!!!!
January 10, 2022
A bit harsh, the Chancellor has no scope at all to operate independently, ultimately he does what the PM tells him to do. I suppose he could resign in protest but that’s about all. The fact he’s being held hostage by the PM was amusingly signalled in the budget when after announcing some whopping tax rises he delivered a little homily at the end on how he was really a tax cutter.
Reply The tax rises cam from the Trasury
January 10, 2022
He’s being held hostage by the Treasury.
January 10, 2022
Our hosts second paragraph makes no sense, less restrictions caused more infections, resulting in what become known as the ‘pingdemic’ (and the same problems are now occurring due to the need for daily LFTs [1]), causing far more disruption to the wider economy than all but the first lock-down did (many retailers were never busier, as shopping went on-line), and why, just to save the hospitality and sporting industries by the looks of things.
[1] and most will be ‘fully vaccinated’
January 10, 2022
Off topic
Standby for a queue of RIBs from France as high pressure has settled over the UK and is likely to remain for the next 7 to 10 days. Wind strength around Calais is forecast to be ‘Force 2 or less’ for several days.
Thankfully it won’t be very cold as the windmills will not be producing much electricity either.
What a ridiculous mess from a bunch of ‘Green’ ministers in both meanings of the word!
January 10, 2022
GR
You are using sensible foresight, the Government and all of its Departments will be taken by surprise, having not learn’t any lessons from the past.
Start counting for 2022.!
January 10, 2022
As sure as day follows night, some already arrived. Have seen an informal report timed early this morning with an estimate of 70.
January 10, 2022
What Maastricht austerity rules? Would that be the one that says a country’s debt to GDP ratio should be less than 60%? The rules that say governments should not continually address their failed economic policies by running to borrow yet more? The rules that the UK already breaks, as do many of the EU countries anyway?
And what austerity mantra? The government has continuously increased national debt for the past 20 years, so the only austerity it is imposing is on the next generation that will continue to pay for this generation’s waste.
January 10, 2022
No, this total lockdown for the workforce was always unnecessary. Work on figures. How many full time workers under the age of 45 died or even were seriously sick, over and above the normal number? The government could have allowed only the vulnerable and aged to voluntarily self-isolate and move onto Universal Credit for a limited time. Instead, chuck cash anywhere and everywhere.
He showed his true colours at that moment. Socialist.
January 10, 2022
@SJS; “The government could have allowed only the vulnerable and aged to voluntarily self-isolate and move onto Universal Credit for a limited time.”
Except much of the (skilled) working age population is still over the age of 45…
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of working age people affected by the lock-downs carried on working, some from home, many in their usual places of work. Even those most affected by the restrictions, how many pubs and restaurants started to offer delivery or take-away products for example. Whilst in retail I know of one large shop that was fully staffed through out their enforced ‘closures’, dealing with the increase in on-line orders, using their redundant sales floor to socially distance their warehousing and mail-order operations.
Tell me, how would you suggest extended families should have lived, half the household being “vulnerable and aged”, the other half being of working age and thus forced to carry on working? You also appear obsessed by deaths, but then so was the MSM, the real problem was the total number of people in hospital, and yes many were under 45, and will now be those who have long-covid, many of them previously young fit and active people.
January 10, 2022
Like every other Labour Chancellor Sunak found it popular and easy to print, borrow and squander £billions whilst SAGE, Johnson and the Public Sector unions placed the entire country under house arrest and did their level best to destroy the economy.
And like every Conservative Chancellor, he will find it difficult and very unpopular to raise taxes to pay for the destructive policies he supported. And that’s before we get onto Johnson’s other high-profile, wasteful schemes: primarily HS2 and the Net Zero lunacy.
The only surprise is that, for a man with leadership ambitions, he didn’t work this out beforehand. Did he think we’d forgive and forget? Or just forget? If so, he’s even more detached from “ordinary” people than he already appears.
January 10, 2022
O/T but look how the Australian government works.
Don’t bow down to celebs/elite/Chinese/establishment types.
They at least fight back against hypocrisy.
January 10, 2022
SJS +1.
January 10, 2022
SJS. Really? My crystal ball says that the only who will come out of this well will be Novak himself.
January 12, 2022
He might win another title – BUT any remaining public respect has crashed and burned.
January 10, 2022
Choice between high tax Conservatives or high tax socialist Labour. Sophie’s Choice.
Every now and then the electorate decides that high tax Labour are the least worse option.
2024?
Our choice is as poor as they are offered in the two party American system, at £80K plus per year we really should be able to find (and vote for) some better, independent politicians rather than the muck served up by the parties.
January 10, 2022
Our poor choice as that with the US is contingent on the First Past the Post Electoral system particular popular with globalists who have only two parties to control both of which subscribed to their policies and deny the people their’s (populism).
January 10, 2022
This government doesn’t care about what people think. They are mere puppets and unworthy of support. The whole democratic system is crumbling as we now live under an elective dictatorship – no doubt also part of the grand plan.
January 10, 2022
Mr Sunak has repeatedly shown poor political judgement.
We must remember as the pandemic was starting he was delivering a Budget which was woefully inadequate. Furlough was exceptionally easy to abuse. Millions of people were left without any help at all.
His eat out to help out scheme helped one thing: the virus. This helped lead to Alpha and another surge. His supporters were clearly behind the threats to those not returning to offices.
The refusal of England’s ministers to impose sensible restrictions ahead of Christmas is currently causing chaos in hospitals, schools and with other services. It is also killing people.
The growing Tory Brexit pensioner cost of living crisis again shows Mr Sunak to be wanting.
As billionaires go I am sure he is a nice enough chap. Man of the people he isn’t. He demonstrates the woeful lack of talent in the current Tory party with all of the 4 great offices of state currently held by fools.
January 10, 2022
You blame ‘England’s ministers’ for not imposing further Covid restrictions ahead of Christmas. The Welsh government did that. As of the most recently published coronavirus.data.gov.uk figures, England had c. 1,900 cases per 100,000, Wales c. 2,400. So it looks like you’re wrong again, Andy. ‘England’s ministers’ didn’t do such a bad job, it seems.
January 10, 2022
In this country in the modern age you cannot have large numbers of people dying untended in the streets, as might have happened with earlier episodes of deadly plagues, or even dying in ambulances while waiting to be admitted to hospital, and therefore with rapidly rising numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths there was no choice but to very largely shut the country down to try to control the spread of the disease. If the disease had been allowed free run as some suggested then the overall numbers of excess deaths may not have been huge, because many of those who died from Covid were in any case close to the end of their lives for other reasons, but the manner of too many of the deaths would not have been acceptable. Once it had been decided that large sectors of the economy should be put on standby there was no choice but to provide incomes for those who depended on those sectors for their livings or the whole economy would have collapsed and we could have had mass starvation added to the harm cause by the disease. I don’t see this as government “largesse”, I see it as an organised, civilised, society providing necessary subsistence to keep its population going through a crisis, minimising the damage caused. And because we still have our own national currency we can decide when and how to pay ourselves back, we will not have international creditors banging on the door demanding immediate repayment of their loans.
January 10, 2022
Sweden has a lower overall excess mortality rate than the European countries which locked-down.
It was never just about Covid. Of course there was a choice – protect the vulnerable or place the entire country under house arrest. The Government made the wrong one.
“What’s the name of the country in yellow? I bet they had very strict lockdowns to achieve this outcome” – Martin Farnell tweets the latest European comparison of excess deaths in 2021, with low-restriction Sweden coming out lowest.”
You can see the tweet with the details on The Daily Sceptic website.
January 10, 2022
Now we have a situation where people have had serious illness go either untreated or undiagnosed. They won’t be dying in the streets, just quietly surrounded by loved ones.
The government and the media overhyped this. Had they played it straight and told people the truth, that, although very serious, it affected a percentage of the population and, if you call into that percentage you should self isolate until a vaccine is found.
January 10, 2022
Denis, there was an alternative choice in March 2020. Sweden took it. They’ve now been shown to have had better Covid outcomes than us. If you’d like to look at the international data at https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths, you’ll see that Sweden has had fewer Covid deaths per million than the UK since summer 2020, after similar total numbers in the months before that. The Swedes didn’t trash their economy either. Theirs was the major economy in the EU least affected by the Covid crisis.
Their Chief medical person, Anders Tegnell, asked to be judged on his decision not to lock down in a year or so’s time, not right away. I think he did the right thing.
What you call our government’s ‘civilised’ approach in 2020 now looks like ignorance and barbarism, to which we should never return.
January 10, 2022
Dr Mark Woolhouse, a member of SAGE, has just published a book, The Year The World Went Mad, in which he argues that lockdowns did more harm than good and failed to protect the vulnerable. He is not alone in the medical and scientific community in taking this view. It has been dreadful that our politicians and media have simply accepted the government narrative without question and have denigrated those who have taken a different view.
January 12, 2022
You – well Dr Woolhouse, makes a fair point.
Discuss?
January 10, 2022
There would never have been huge numbers (or even many at all) of under-45s dying in any way or place. They make up the bulk of the workforce.
January 10, 2022
Simon Clarke qualified as a solicitor and then worked on policy in health and education. Zero financial experience. what chance have we got?
January 10, 2022
I think the Chancellor will become increasingly unpopular as he tries to pay for the government’s expenditure on covid, especially as more vested interests become apparent and the fortunes made by those with connections to government are revealed.
If things are as bad as I suspect, even taking popular cost cutting measures will not help.
January 10, 2022
One other thing: you might wish to take a look at the price at which the government has been allowing NatWest to buy back government-owned shares and compare that with the 248p price today.
January 10, 2022
Look too at what Natwest charge on “agreed” personal overdrafts too. One size for all, good or best credit risk 2.81% per month equivalent to 39.49% EAR. It seems this is due to the FCA when under the current BoE Gov. Bailey. These rip off rates 25+ times base seem to be reserved only for UK customers of the bank – the ones that bailed the bank out with their taxes! Oversea customers do much better.
January 10, 2022
Or why this government instructed all banks to stop paying dividends out to private investors (that’s you and me) at the start of the covid emergency 18 months ago
January 10, 2022
The buy-back happened on 19/03/2021 when the share price was around 186p. Natwest paid £1.1 bn for 590.7 m shares, which makes a share worth 186.2 p, the price quoted on the LSE at the time.
So what’s your point?
January 10, 2022
And of course at the same time as reducing pensions, raising taxes and breaking promises, MPs have awarded themselves a substantial pay rise. Animal Farm it continues to be.
January 12, 2022
Without the ending?
January 10, 2022
Decisions that come from the Chancellor are not necessarily of his making. He has a small army in the treasury and it is they who a likely to still be thinking as they did when they took instruction from the EU. Do they accept that we are a sovereign state divorced from EU strictures. With a Conservative government in place do they automatically offer Conservative financial policies or does the Chancellor have to fight them for change.
We know that high taxes kill enterprise and often produce less tax revenue. We know that excessive regulation has much the same effect. When is anyone in government going to show the initiative to do the opposite, free of control from the EU or from implied penalty from a totally useless US President.
Boris’s government has shown flashes of real inspiration in its life that have worked, why is it failing to learn from them. Covid has necessitated radical financial decision and management vaccination decisions outside the thinking of existing institutions. These have worked quite spectacularly when measured against EU and our civil service performance. The lesson is glaringly obvious and the sooner it is applied to life in the UK post Brexit the better for us all.
January 10, 2022
“He has a small army in the treasury “. Ten thousand permanent index linked officials up against a handful of temporary ministers.
January 10, 2022
A recycling from JR’s 02/09/2019 article. Not long after another Conservative Government was put in place with still a 78-MP majority today. So who is responsible for such a situation after more than 11.5 years of Conservative governments? Useless MPs?
January 10, 2022
Anyone who gives away money at no cost is usually popular.
Anyone who taxes those who work more is not usually popular
Anyone who wastes your hard earned tax paid money is not popular
Anyone who raises or introduces more new taxes is usually not popular.
Anyone who deliberately increases the cost of living is usually not popular.
Anyone who raises the cost of borrowing money is not usually popular.
Anyone who reduces interest on savings or investments is not usually popular.
Anyone who allows minority groups to make the rules for the majority is not usually popular.
I could go on, but I think you get the drift !
January 10, 2022
Apart from those who receive more than they pay.
Apart from those who don’t pay the taxes.
You will please one group or another. I don’t want to see my lads’ mortgages go up, on the other hand I’d like a little bit more interest on my savings – enough to keep pace with inflation.
January 10, 2022
I seem not to be the only one, Sir John, who is picking up that your posts are becoming increasingly critical of virtually everything that the government does. I’m depressed that you and colleagues who think like you seem to see what the rest of us do, are aware that you’re being totally ignored by ‘your’ government and yet seem more concerned about keeping your seats than getting together to form a much-needed genuinely ‘Conservative’ party. History is likely to judge you harshly for watching our country being destroyed
January 10, 2022
Just from a practical point of view, it would be VERY demanding, time-consuming and costly to set up a new Party that could actually gather significant numbers of votes and win Parliamentary seats – you have only to look at the sad story of UKIP and nowadays Reform to learn the lesson.
January 11, 2022
+1 The system is rigged against new parties, and LibLabCon like it that way so it will never change.
January 10, 2022
How unjust you are. More can be done from the back benches of the Governing Party than from the front bench of an opposition party. That was how the Referendum was won, how Mrs May was got rid of, and how Brexit began to be done.
January 10, 2022
And it is also how England has been spared the dictatorial fate of Scotland and Wales.
January 10, 2022
It is not Sir John’s government. He can see the pending disaster as can others in his party I am sure. Unfortunately, our system of government is broken and there are few checks and balances on the PM and the Cabinet, unlike those in the USA. All he can do is argue and persuade. This will start off small and slow, but as the next GE draws closer the mood will very much change.
January 10, 2022
If Mr. Redwood left the Tory Party – along with others – to join a new ‘Real Conservative Party’ – he would lose his seat. He knows this, which is why (I assume) he doesn’t do it but tries to effect change from within.
January 11, 2022
+1
January 12, 2022
You don’t know much about respect for Sir John in Wokingham.
Even if he took over the role of Monster Raving Looney, he’d still be in with a fair chance of winning.
January 10, 2022
I think every Tory party member, every Tory supporter and a small number of Tory MPs are indeed frustrated …..and its starting to show
January 11, 2022
+1
Come the May elections we will see that frustration turn to anger and perhaps action.
January 10, 2022
Mr Johnson says that his hero is Churchill.
But I judge a man by his actions and it is apparent his real role model is Blair. Get a Chancellor you can control and blame all the bad things on him. Personal popularity is the goal. Policies are secondary as long as they lead to the primary.
The Tories have wasted a golden opportunity. Opposed by a party whose slogan was effectively “We don’t believe in people’s votes, but we desperately need yours” and an aged Communist who befriended terrorists Mr Johnson achieved an enormous majority. That will now have disappeared as a result of lack of reform, broken manifesto promises and tax rises.
A new leader and a new direction is urgently required. Sadly, Mr Gove was right.
January 10, 2022
This is a very popular slur but it is possible to admire an historical figure without wanting to be them.
A more likely model for the PM is Disraeli.
January 10, 2022
Johnson just needs to hang in there until 2024. Whatever happens, he has won ! He either stays PM or, gets the boot and can sell his memoirs for a nice tidy sum and look forward to life on a PM’s pension.
January 12, 2022
Like Trump did, he has demeaned the highest Office Of State.
It will take quite something to re-dignify it now.
January 10, 2022
The only way the Chancellor will get away with increasing taxation will be if he is seen at the same time cutting back on expenditure – such as HS2 – and cutting back on the number of public employees working for the ever expanding civil service, quangos etc..
But it won’t happen because this Government, or indeed our Parliament, is not in control.
January 10, 2022
It’s a very simple problem with a simple solution. In recent years, the unelected forces e.g. media, civil service, education, charity sector etc have promoted minority causes.
The government has been swayed by this movement. This does not sit well with a democracy.
There is too much emphasis on minority and not enough on majority.
A government that chases minority causes will lose.
January 10, 2022
“A government that chases minority causes will lose.”
There are two good historical examples of your maxim: Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone.
When Benn was given to understand by his parliamentary party that he wasn’t bright enough to be their next leader, he went outside the parliamentary party to build a rainbow coalition of minorities: feminists, CND, IRA, PLO, Black Power, union militancy – and anti EEC. He ditched all the beliefs he had had as Wilson’s Crown Prince – pro nuclear, pro EEC, pro technical revolution etc. It didn’t work, and he was stuck with his “integrity” till the day he died.
It was the same for Ken Livingstone. Neither of them ever became Labour leader, let alone PM.
REPLY
January 10, 2022
You’d think wouldn’t you.
Unfortunately the millennial generation and their successors are swayed by the impression that a beneficiary is helping minorities. Ergo being munificent to minorities might sway the minds of more than just the minorities.
That is why our large multinationals pander to such silly and irrelevant causes (that and the middle aged white man at the top of the organisation or department is scared of being cancelled so goes overboard).
Conservatives know that their demographic will vote for them anyway so concentrate on these causes, not the needs of the many.
The only way to show them they are wrong is to vote for someone else or none of the above.
January 10, 2022
Off topic, I have sent a little letter to a range of national newspapers, as usual backed up by references, albeit without any great expectation that any of them will publish it.
“Will nobody on the UK side ridicule this claim from Maros Sefcovic?
“The Northern Ireland Protocol was the most complicated part of the Brexit negotiations, and it is the foundation of the entire deal. Without the protocol, the whole system will collapse.”
So apparently our entire relationship with the whole EU revolves around how to manage a trickle of goods crossing the land border into the Irish Republic.
How big is that trickle of goods? About 0.2 per cent of the total flow of goods imports into the EU Single Market, but enough for the EU to get into a stew about the serious threat to its integrity.
And how carefully would those goods be checked if they came into the Republic from the United Kingdom by sea, rather than over the land border? About 3% of the trucks would be inspected.
This problem has always been a nonsense, just as the official position of the Irish government that “any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border” is nonsensical.”
January 10, 2022
A different version for the Irish Independent:
“According to your editorial today:
“Comments by Commissioner Sefcovic some days earlier were very cogent. He said the Northern Ireland element of the deal was central to it and the UK action risked bringing down the entire EU-UK deal on future trade and other relationships.”
I wonder whether you have any idea how ludicrous this claim will sound to anybody who is aware that the trickle of goods crossing the land border into the Republic amounts to about 0.2 percent of goods imports into the EU Single Market, hardly enough to pose any serious threat to its integrity, and in any case if the same goods were to enter the Republic by sea instead of by land only 3 percent of the trucks would be inspected?
It may have seemed clever to the Irish government to build an enormous insurmountable mountain out of a tiny molehill on the border, and perhaps it boosted the amour propre of some of those involved that the EU so readily took up that cause rather than dismissing it as the arrant nonsense that it was, and still is, but it was hardly a constructive way forward and it is now increasingly difficult to see it coming to any good conclusion.”
January 10, 2022
There has to be consequences and penalties for breaking solemn guaranteed pledges in the manifesto….pledges that were listed on the front page – does the leadership think we’ll forget
January 10, 2022
‘the draconian lockdown imposed’. I may have strong disagreement from some but the lockdown and almost all of the measures (apart from protecting the elderly and vulnarable) were unnecessary, causing untold financial, social and health harms. All because our Government, assisted by the other parties, got it spectacularly wrong on very poor advice. The hole the Chancellor is in was dug by himself and the PM together with all those who assisted in getting the country into such a massive financial hole.
The Chancellor should now adopt the suggestions you have made Sir John, sensible ideas for growth and cancel IR35, HS2 and immediately introduce a simple short tax code to replace the current nightmare. This country is full of entrepaneurs. Let them loose.
January 10, 2022
He has been taken hostage by his remainiac department.
January 10, 2022
Sir JR,
With all due respect to your great knowledge about the EU fiscal rules.
There are currently no functioning rules about Eu fiscal deficits or size of government debt as the whole policy has been suspended till further notice
January 10, 2022
The rules have to be suspended bill because members like Greece and Italy are nowhere close to meeting those rules.
January 11, 2022
Peter 2
They were suspended because everything else made no sense, whether that was Italy or Denmark
January 10, 2022
It’s easy to be popular when you are doling out money! And given that businesses were shut and people were off work due to government restrictions, the necessity for these bailouts was a no-brainer and this was not a case of Sunak displaying good judgement: he was just doing the bleeding obvious (and copying every other country).
Now that judgement *is* needed, he is doing everything WRONG. He is putting up taxes when he should be cutting them, he is wasting money and he is failing to protect businesses and consumers from unnecessary costs. The man is clearly an idiot and a complete failure as Chancellor. I would NOT want him as prime minister!
January 10, 2022
Have you noticed how the very people who say we can’t take the EU tax off energy bills, or the green levies, because it would help the rich, are also the ones saying we have to give the proceeds of that tax to the rich because we have to make a start somewhere in the Green revolution?
Anyway, who do they mean by the rich?
January 10, 2022
Mr. Redwood, as you are familiar with these matters, could one suggest a review of government borrowing for a future blog?
January 10, 2022
So . . . . . .
You don’t see Dishi Rishi as the next leader then.
January 10, 2022
P.S. It is a shame no-one in government have done anything about the Civil Servants ruling their Ministers.
January 10, 2022
If it was this government’s aim to trash the country, they have succeeded.
January 10, 2022
Wasn’t it lucky the Health Secretary was able to get some impromptu professional advice to counter what he usually gets.
January 10, 2022
Covid on longer on the hour news on TV BBC or SKY…..maybe its gone away