Earlier this week I had a discussion with Liam Halligan from GB News on a variety of topics including taxes, the economy and the Bank of England. You can watch the full interview below:
35 Comments
Comments are closed.
Earlier this week I had a discussion with Liam Halligan from GB News on a variety of topics including taxes, the economy and the Bank of England. You can watch the full interview below:
Comments are closed.
May 27, 2022
Great interview John!
You should send it to ALL your Tory colleagues.
They need to realise that there is a better way, and you don’t need to follow Blairite mush style policies just to keep the BBC and MSM happy.
Your insights about the Treasury are also very illuminating.
I’ve heard Larry Kudlow in the US talk about how central banks and governments are still too enthralled with Modern Monetary Theory and this will lead to disaster.
May 27, 2022
That was a blast of fresh air. Oh how well-placed we could be if your advice were followed!
So H.M. Treasury is likely going to produce “a bigger deficit than you would get with my rather pleasanter policies”! Do your colleagues in Government not even think we might prefer pleasant to dangerous foolery?
May 27, 2022
All I’ve got to add is thank heavens for GB News.
May 27, 2022
hear hear
…and SirJ for PM
May 27, 2022
Ask some of the recent Tory voters in some hole of a pub in Batley what they think of that idea?
May 27, 2022
Are you happy to stick with Boris ?
May 28, 2022
Johnson is a symptom, not the malaise.
May 28, 2022
NLH – you could be right
May 27, 2022
Great interview, thanks for saying this stuff
On the tax on high earners issue… the tax hit senior doctors get due to maxing out on their pension contribution limits if they actually stay on and work more hours are not just counterproductive in terms of tax take, and national economics. The whole mess also takes working hours of the senior medics we need most to tackle the long backlogs of medical waiting lists away from the patients who need it most.
May 27, 2022
Very refreshing to see an interviewer giving some respect to an elected representative and allowing a proper conversation.
May 28, 2022
The interview didn’t need to be confrontational as SJR’s answers were high in quality, presenting excellent solutions with strong evidence.
University students of economics and politics would be better qualified if the 25mins 26secs were a compulsory part of their curriculum.
May 27, 2022
Sir John – advocating for increased benefits payments?
At what level would you set them, you have the Governor of the Bank of England asking employees not to ask for large pay rises, why should benefits recipients get more? Those on minimum wage already had an imposed hike and those who are not working………..
At the Spring statement what was the average pay award to workers (minimum wage hike excepted)? any benefits rise should not be higher than that.
I heard a big government advocate in that interview Sir John, surprising.
May 27, 2022
The current hugely high and still increasing taxes (and indeed the absurd tax complexity) does huge harm to the economy as:-
1. It deters working and investment.
2. It encourages the black market economy which undercuts honest and more efficient businesses
3. It encourages the rich and the hard working to move overseas or engage in complex tax planning.
4. It together with OTT red tape creates endless parasitic non productive jobs.
5. People spend and invest their own money far more efficiently than government do.
We have the highest taxes for 70 years and yet public services are generally of abysmal quality and still declining. The NHS in particular, police, criminal justice, schools and universities, social services, transport, DVLA, the passport office… in particular.
May 27, 2022
There is no doubt, for example, that almost invariably (for a typical user and typical charging) then scrapping your old car and causing a new EV & battery to be build increases overall CO2 yet we have scrappages schemes and grants for new EVs – what is the logic for this?
Also hybrids that can do say 30 miles in the city on battery (to take pollution out of the city) but have a conventional engine for longer distances (and can be fuelled in minutes) make far more sense than an EV that needs a huge expensive and heavy battery of perhaps 14 times the size of so! We have not spare low carbon electricity to charge them with anyway. We are governed by scientifically illiterate donkeys.
May 27, 2022
Agreed. Which is why I ordered a Hybrid. The majority of my personal journeys are short but my business and some personal can be long.
May 27, 2022
Not convinced by hybrids. You have two systems to keep going instead of one (cost me a replacement battery after say year 8), and they both have to be accommodated in the vehicle. The result is you lose load space. I have yet to see any design that matches the load carrying capacity (and convenience and comfort for a dog or two, now expected to jump several feet to get in and out…) of a good ICE estate car. EVs are as bad or worse of course.
May 27, 2022
SDLT is a rapacious tax.
If a person moves to a new home the stamp duty they already paid on their old home should be deducted from tax on their new home, otherwise it prevents people from moving around and kills liquidity in the housing market. The explosion in ugly loft conversions is a direct result of this punitive tax.
May 27, 2022
I agree. Plus I argue that people are buying somewhere to live and the government, for the amount it takes, does little with it. It not even set aside to help homeless people or for social housing.
May 28, 2022
It’s a direct result of lax planning law.
May 27, 2022
What a lovely interview!🤗
May 27, 2022
I thought that too. So nice to sit back and listen to two people talk like adults.
May 27, 2022
SJR responded to interviewer Halligan’s questions with high quality well-reasoned answers; superbly smooth & refreshing in delivery. It added to the value of GB News too. Few other politicians seem to reach anywhere that standard.
May 27, 2022
Can, but won’t.
May 27, 2022
Sir John,
If it doesn’t make sense to have big tax increases at the same time as people are suffering from large increases in food and energy prices.
If it doesn’t make sense to have massive and uncontrolled immigration bringing enormous adverse pressure on the economy, housing, healthcare, schooling, infrastructure and social cohesion whilst proclaiming to have a “levelling up” policy.
If it doesn’t make sense to pursue the pointless, unnecessary and unworkable Net Zero Strategy which, rather than “saving the planet”, will make us poorer with expensive and intermittent energy and resulting in severe lifestyle restrictions and military insecurity.
Then surely there must be something we haven’t been told?
May 27, 2022
I actually enjoyed this discussion . I think I must be more auditory equipped for understanding problems than the written word and I cannot argue with anything which you said as it seems obvious , but there again these are the thoughts which go through my mind when I worry about the economy and my place in it. We reinforce what we think and contra arguments are bitty and out of context
May 27, 2022
I often listen to your interviews on GB News and Talk Radio, JR. Always a voice of reason and common sense.
Shame the government fails to take onboard the excellent ideas.
May 27, 2022
I was watching this excellent interview thinking ” how would this have gone had it been a BBC interview ?”
Firstly, the interviewer would have his/her own left of centre agenda and would constantly interupt to make their own point of view clear. Secondly, the interviewer would be determined to get a sound bite or two which could be used on the news under the headline “Senior Tory criticises Government policy.”
Thirdly, every effort would have been made to paint Labour/SNP is a very good light and you would not have been given time to argue against the policy.
A very good interview but unfortunately the government are not in listening mode when those with real experience come out in favour of doing things a little differently !
May 27, 2022
A most enjoyable and illuminating discussion. Knowledge and decency.
It illustrates in comparison what we must endure observing just how far from detail and reality is our PM, how he cares about nothing but his own position and power.
May 27, 2022
Good interview John but the Left now control all and everything. It’ll take another Thatcherite revolution to bring them down
May 27, 2022
Sir John
How refreshing to have an interviewer interview you and keep on interrupting you. I could relax, listen to the question and your answer, and collect my own thoughts on the matter.
Oh. And well done by the way.
May 27, 2022
” . . . and NOT keep on interrupting . . .
May 27, 2022
This should be a BBC training video in how to interview a politician. Liam Halligan did a first rate job in drawing out a cogent set of trains of thought and argument, and plainly Sir John enjoyed the experience and delivered accordingly. The conversational style and encouragement to develop lines of thought works well. It’s a standard politicians should aspire to, rather than the aggressive preaching, shouting match, or stonewalling a gotcha so prevalent in our media and politicians.
May 28, 2022
Are you ever asked on the BBC these days? I don’t watch the BBC, I don’t have a licence.
Reply Only to talk about partygate which I do not claim any expertise on.
May 28, 2022
All grist to the proper conversative mill Sir J, almost diametrically opposite to this goverment & it’s policies.
Drill/mine/frack/store until more nuclear/hydrogen/wind/solar/tidal/hydro is proven & available.
Fiscal drag and inflation => superior tax receipts, hence reduce energy/fuel taxes (manifesto), reduce NI, CT and repeal IR35 constraints for businesses/entrpreneurs. Get that growth going or we’re stuffed!
Sort out EV Gigafactories for our car industry, whats left of it!
Cut out those costs we all know are in wasteful government depts, NHS, gold plated pensions and pet projects.
May 28, 2022
For a longer interview with John Redwood on the ‘green revolution’, energy policy, carbon and related sujecys, on which JR’s 2021 short book on the subject, see his discussion with Mark Littlewood of the IEA uploaded on 8 March 2022 to Youtube on the IEA channel: 58 minutes. Well worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq6Z91Baeis&t=1416s