It was refreshing to hear the PM’s speech yesterday. The world does not owe us a living. The heroes and heroines are all those who get up early and go to work to make sure we have water, power, broadband, food and other supplies. The anti growth coalition opposes practically everything that can keep the lights on, keep us warm, and keep us fed. They are the importers friend and the person on low incomesĀ nightmare. They stand in the way of doing and producing more for ourselves.
For too many years a combination of EU membership, EU rules and UK political bias against UK manufacture, UK fishing and farming and above all against UK produced energy has made us increasingly import dependent. Foolish CO2 accounting has forced companies and individuals into producing less here toĀ get our C2 count down, only to import things that have a higher carbon count in their place to prove we have reduced our CO2! We have been retiring our gas fields, failing to renew our gas generators, closing our coalminesĀ and blowing up our Ā coalfired power stations, in order to import manufactures from China and Germany that rely much more on coal.
Every time there is a proposal to extract more of our own gas, especially onshore, our own coal, or produce more of our own energy intensive goods there are protesters. Any road scheme to cut congestion which would reduce fuel use for each journey is likely to meet an army of protesters who do not seem to understand it is lorries and vans that keep them in food and Amazon parcels. Lix Truss was right to champion the producers, the workers, the strivers over the protesters, the strikers and the job refusers.
I look forward to a fight back for freedom and commonsense.
October 6, 2022
Good morning.
Whoās that ?
š
And I look forward to someone actually putting their words into action.
October 6, 2022
Good ideas, but a disunited Conservative party.
It’s not just ‘protesters’ that are an obstacle to change, it’s also some Conservative MPs.
October 6, 2022
whats that about parsnips?
October 6, 2022
As in not buttering any?
Very much agree!
Hopping off to Prague.
Calling for European unity.
Unending support for the US and NATO in Ukraine.
Hmmmm!
October 6, 2022
European Army …anyone
October 6, 2022
Lix . Have you never typed slower than your brain, thinking another sentence ahead?
October 6, 2022
Lix neo-con boots!
October 6, 2022
From Trussās speech:- āThese enemies of enterprise don’t know the frustration you feel to see your road blocked by protesters, or the trains off due to a strike.
In fact, their friends on the hard Left tend to be the ones behind the disruption.
The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes.ā
Well yes but āthe anti-growth coalitionā and ā the enemies of enterpriseā clearly includes and is (or was) driven & encouraged by Blair, Brown, Cameron/Osborne, May/Hammond and Boris/Sunak. With the idiotic war on harmless, beneficial and vital CO2, vast over taxation, currency debasement, absurd & misguided over regulation, idiotic employment laws, road blocking, endless government waste and a bonkers expensive and intermittent energy agenda (Kwasi was even the misguided energy minister driving this lunacy until recently). Roads are rather more likely to be blocked by local councils, this paid and encouraged by central governments to do so. So will this stop under Truss.
Not much sign Truss will be that different plus 18 months to two years is very little time to turn the tanker round. Especially when her party is stuffed with green crap socialists who clearly want to bury her. She cannot even ditch Net Zero it seems, so weak is her position and perhaps her thinking.
October 6, 2022
“With the idiotic war on harmless, beneficial and vital CO2, ” – Lifelogic
They are so very concerned about CO2, but still building over all green space. If CO2 was the real concern, why not protect trees, for example put in the conservation laws from the country nation-wide saying that if you cut a tree down you must replant a similar one within a certain distance – and the circumstances under which they can be cut are limited. Insist on green gardens for council properties, and encourage property owners and farmers to build hedges with tax breaks or use the same to encourage brownfield development rather than green…
…or is CO2 not actually that much of a concern?
October 6, 2022
Why to take private jets to and from Blackpool or Australia. Why encourage people to trade in old cars for new EV cars when this too increases CO2 overall and why burn imported wood at Drax rather than coal as this does the same!
October 6, 2022
Why subsidise EV cars, why subsidise EV charging stations, why subsidise Drax ….its taxpayers money
October 6, 2022
I am utterly disgusted with the results of 12 years of Tory rule. I cannot say it loud enough or long enough. They have RUINED Britain! Brexit gave you a massive opportunity, along with an 80 seat majority and you have used it to run Britain down and change it beyond all recognition. Blair turns out to be the lesser of two evils where immigration is concerned, and the Tory claims of fiscal responsibility is a joke, but not a very funny joke!
October 6, 2022
I agree – Google the Nigel Farage video I am disgusted with what the Conservatives have done to Britain.
October 6, 2022
Thanks LL. Just watching his video now. He reflects my views, and no doubt that of millions of voters. I do hope ALL the main parties get a bloody nose at the next GE. None of them can be trusted to care for the UK and its people.
October 6, 2022
How do you think you will achieve this with FPTP? You might get a couple of Reform MPs. And then what?
Itās because of FPTP that the country has the hard-left Momentum within Labour and got Corbyn as leader, and similarly within the CUP the hard-right āfree market believersā and la Truss as leader, both extremes as incompetent and hardly representative of the electorate, whether left- or right-wing (remember 81,326 people voted for Truss out of a total voting population of 47 m potential GE voters).
You might feel cosy in your small fish bowl here but there is a much wider world outside.
October 6, 2022
@Heffner: I don’t expect them to get MP’s. As you say, the FPTP system is an advantage to the main 3, and as they have the power, they are able to hang onto that advantage. UKIP got millions of votes and 1 seat, whereas the SNP got far fewer votes and lots of seats, BUT it did shake up the Tories, if none of the other parties. They started listening to the electorate. We need that again. If the LibLabCon cartel lose millions of votes and nothing changes, then the main parties WILL be in serious trouble. It is within their ability to start putting the UK and its voters first and stop the rot. Eventually, the voters will vote against them. Look at Italy! I predict many European countries will be forced to vote against the established party betrayers.
October 6, 2022
So you now accuse PM Truss of being hard right.
Heffy…you are truly hilarious.
October 6, 2022
Shirley and LL. I totally concur. I am sickened by what this nation has sunk to. Sick of our politicians listening to the lefty woke idiots who seem to have managed to manipulate weak liver lily ministers into doing things that are just plain bloody stupid. Any party that WE CAN TRUST to deliver a real sensible grass roots Tory manifesto that we know will be carried out would wipe the floor in an election. The problem is we haven’t got those people in the right positions and your party is split with those who can see the writing on the wall and those who can’t. It’s absolutely unbelievable what has been going on. May and Johnson were a complete waste of time and we’re totally untrustworthy and what can we expect from Truss who is already doing Uturns?
October 6, 2022
If only Farage had a party with some credibility and unified direction that stayed around long enough to vote for in important elections.
October 6, 2022
Dixie, +1, and Nigel is very sharp on the issues and has courage and capability to MAKE a SOUND CASE on the issues as he sees them.
His performance on The Munk Debate with Mark Steyn was most impressive.
What personality defects in the minds of conservative party politicians precluded the possibility of using Nigel’s knowledge and talents to fast forward the Brexit process?
October 6, 2022
Shirley M, +1, wholeheartedly agree with your comment. I have been unable to vote for a conservative candidate at any election, local or General, for many a year because of their unconvincing stances and leftward wokeward drift. I gave up writing during the Major years and resorted to imploring the ‘conservatives’ to Make The Argument. None did.
October 6, 2022
The main problem being that most of the CONS dirty work is irreversible, no matter who we elect in the future. Most of the deliberate damage done to the UK is irreversible and will be a permanent reminder of the CONS deceit, dishonesty and betrayal.
October 7, 2022
The damage is NOT irreversible. All it takes is someone with the b.. with the backbone to do what the majority want and not u-turn as soon as the lobbyists and screeching media apply pressure.
October 6, 2022
Stop imports! Grow our own food! Blame the EU for everything, ignore the 12 years and counting that the Tories have been running this country. Think youāre fooling anyone, Mr Redwood? Not even yourself, I suspect
October 6, 2022
Well said Sir John! Can I also suggest we stop paying to feed and house the lazy lefties and Illegals.
So called benefits should only be a support for three months and then stop.
As for the migrants, we must put them on old cruise ships fve miles off shore and drop minimum rations ( like the ration packs for soldiers) from helicopters.
etc ed
October 6, 2022
No, take that cruise ship to Calais and refuse to depart.
October 6, 2022
I hate to say it but, you’re a bit late to the party. Many here, all right or centre right of politics, including myself, have been saying this. Nonetheless, welcome to the club.
š
October 6, 2022
Silly to claim 12 years Lenny when dislocation from the clutches of the EU only started 2 years ago.
October 6, 2022
Peter 2
Please define stroppy lefties which you keep using, thank you
October 6, 2022
How is that in any way relevant to this exchange billy?
Stop making yourself look silly.
October 6, 2022
Highest taxes for 70+ years alreday and yet it seems we are to suffer income tax rises of Ā£21bn despite Budget.
Average households Ā£1,450 worse off after āfiscal dragā stealth raid, says IFS. The average household will be Ā£1,450 a year worse off as a result of the stealth raid. The typical basic rate taxpayer will pay an extra Ā£500 in income tax and National Insurance per year by 2026, while higher rate earners are facing a Ā£3,000 annual increase.
Reported in the Telegraph today.
This is on top of much higher energy bills due mainly to the net zero religion and about a doubling in mortgage rates. Plus fiscal drag on all the other many taxes. IHT, CGT without indexation, Pensionsā¦ on top of this and sales taxes like VAT, Stamp Duty, Insurance tax all rise automatically anyway. Plus wages rising by about 5% less than inflation but benefits probably by inflation. Not much of a plan for growth is it Truss and Kwasi? Is this a government for the hard working majority?
October 6, 2022
It feels more like a plan to ease us into recession! No spending power, no faith in the future, continuing waste, handing out Ā£billions to the nuclear powers, space programs and dictatorships – even countries with over 100 billionaires.
October 6, 2022
L L
I thoroughly enjoy your contributions, so much common sense from you!
Isnāt it funny that people who disagree with your views want to silence youā¦.
I was on the committee of the Wimborne and district conservative club in the 1970ās but I no longer believe anything that a politician utters
October 6, 2022
With a very few exceptions you cannot trust them, their manifestos nor even their āCast Iron Promisesā.
October 6, 2022
Thanks.
October 6, 2022
It didn’t take nearly 50 years to conclude that, did it?
October 6, 2022
LL, I wrote here many times before, we cannot afford the Tories in office. It is unbelievable but true that they are worse than Labour!! Worse than Corbynās projected extreme left wing spending! No wonder May could not beat him at her election. The Tories keep income tax rises low thinking people are not noticing the taxation on everything else!
I am an absolute loss how the councils can be so expensive with their community charges for the little we all get. Tories promised a freeze, Javid broke that promise with inflation busting increases, then the councils had whopping handouts during covid when no staff were working and no one could get hold of them!
At the moment everything is Putinās fault!! Or the Ukraine war- which they could seek an end to!! The election is coming and there is no way back for the Tories. Again, unbelievable waste of an 80 seat majority.
Truss wants More EU unity against the democratic wishes of the nation!! How about the annexation of N.Ireland to EU, far more important than annexation of regions in Ukraine!
October 6, 2022
Vernan Bogdanor today:- āFew can doubt that the Prime Minister is embarking on a new course. Boris Johnson was an interventionist premier. He liked to compare himself to Michael Heseltine ā but, as he put it, a Brexity Hezza. The Johnson administrationās answer to Britainās problems was more spending and bigger subsidies. Ms Truss, by contrast, believes that Brexit can only succeed through a more liberal economic policy: de-regulation and slashing taxes. The heirs of Michael Heseltine have been replaced by the heirs of Margaret Thatcher.ā
No sign of deregulation or slashing of taxes as yet alas. Not even any net tax cuts just some proposed tax increases abandoned. No sign sign of any cuts in expenditure either or the ditching of the green levy taxes, HS2, the pointless degree or the vast net zero market rigging.
October 6, 2022
The problem is that many of us have given up watching or caring about such speeches because they’re all just waffle and nothing said is done. On balance, would we trust Truss to keep her word on anything having already U turned on a tax promise?
October 6, 2022
She is about the only small hope we have a avoiding the terror of Starmer/Sturgeon/Davey government.
October 6, 2022
That ‘terror’ diminishes by the day. It is all relative.
October 6, 2022
LL,
No she is not. She is already out bidding Labour wishes for more EU! Get rid of the Tories so a true Conservative party can emerge this lot are beyond saving.
October 6, 2022
Hope
Your problem is there is no true Tory party to turn to, the majority of the existing lot (I exclude our Host) appear to want even more left polices, with more government control over more of our lives and want us to pay ever more for it !.
October 6, 2022
+1 Joe. Trust in the CONS has been destroyed, by the CONS.
October 6, 2022
LL,
Oh please, Truss today wants more European unity!! A remainer PM wanting European unity! We voted Brexit!!
JR should be very worried. And, no, we do not want European energy solution either Truss, we want independent energy security. The EU has already threatened to cut electric to Jersey, what part did she not understand that EU is not a friend of Brexit Britain!
October 6, 2022
Hope, +1,
Do politicians simply yearn for seats at grand conventions surrounded by other ineffectual and soon to be forgotten nobodies?
I cannot wait to cast my vote to help sink this bloated and useless party.
October 6, 2022
a response to an argument about how many fish could they take from UK waters?
October 6, 2022
Circumstances meant I saw no television yesterday John but I’m going to have to try and watch her speech. She’s up against it and trying to change the ways of the party and much of the country won’t be easy and she hasn’t got long. She needs people like yourself behind her to keep the woke net zero idiots away. She has to be given a chance and for that all MP’s must unite the party again. It’s now or never and we all have to suffer at the hands of the Labour loons if you fail. Suella Baverman will be of great assistance too.
October 6, 2022
Like Suella Braverman, Ms Truss says some of the right thinks but will it all be hot air as it has been with every “Conservative” government since Thatcher? Even Thatcher did not cut the state back sufficiently, closed very many good grammar schools, buried us further into the EU, did not even get real and fair competition into the virtual state monopolies of healthcare or education.
When will taxes and regulation actually be cut Truss? Even when/if they finally are it will take time to work.
October 6, 2022
4 ex 10 already this morning, give the megaphone a rest please. Maybe you need another hobby.
October 6, 2022
He makes good points nig. I expect your one of the opposition to change.
Yesterday the BBC interviewed people about the speech, I would love to know where they get these people from.
Invariably they are foreigners or dole dodgers. Never your average Joe, trying to make a living against all odds. Train drivers on 100k wanting a cost of living rise.
Three cheers for Liz, she has a mountain to climb
October 6, 2022
yes – but she needs the heavy lifting sherpas ! Tearing the Party apart will condemn it to more than one GE defeat. The members who voted for Truss must redouble any efforts in the constituencies to oust the negative MPs who cast such a shadow over what ought to be a formidable Party and set of beliefs. It is this growing level of mistakes in Central Office or the voting locally that has been positioning the poison to reach the H of C.
October 6, 2022
New Junior Doctors at the NHS get paid under Ā£30K less tax/NI/commuting costs/student loan repayments and then they have interest on their student loans of perhaps Ā£10KPA leaving them about enough to rent a bedsit and nothing left at all for food, heating, lighting, leisure, council tax… so 25% drop out in the first year and about 50% drop out completely.
October 6, 2022
After 3 years nursing degree usually at the age of 21 graduate nurses are on nearly as much as a doctor after six years? Are you sure? The current starting salary for a Band 5 Nurse in the UK is Ā£27,055 per year (minus tax and pensions).This is according to Agenda for Change, and the Ā£1400 pay rise announced in July 2022 and backdated to April.
October 6, 2022
a.-tracy
The problem is too many statistics show too may various levels of pay, the BBC only this lunchtime suggesting that a basic qualified nurse was earning Ā£32,000 pa.
Having had family members who used to work in the NHS, each level has a banding of about 5 different levels of pay, which gives an automatic increase each year, (on top of any general annual award) until you are at the top level of that banding, unless that has recently changed.
Would be interesting to see the actual and official scales and bands published for all to see.
October 6, 2022
Alan, https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/pay-scales-202223
There are plenty of sites, but employment sites are best as they also indicate the overtime rates, weekend and evening/night rates, the bands, scales and benefits in kind. The cost of all the benefits in kind needs topping up. It’s what the HMRC expect from a private business so they can charge class 1A NI on it. A private company can only give Ā£5 tax-free for an overnight meal allowance, a private company can’t buy a public sector pension equivalent.
October 6, 2022
a-tracey
Foundation Doctor Year 1 Pay. FY1 1st Year Ā£29,384 England Ā£26,462 Scotland Ā£25,563 Wales Ā£23,553 NI
October 6, 2022
LL, I found this, https://www.bmj.com/careers/article/the-complete-guide-to-nhs-pay-for-doctors. FY1 The Foundation Programme is a two-year work-based training programme which bridges the gap between medical school and specialty/GP training.
There is a lot more to it than the basic you quoted, with weekend, shift allowances, overtime; 1A, 1B, 1C nodal point increments.
Can you clarify is this FY1, the fourth or fifth year of training, FY1/FY2 two years on the job supervised training?
October 6, 2022
If you do not like it mate its time you deleted the app, nobody is forcing you to read the common sense expressed .
October 6, 2022
Nig,
‘ 4 ex 10 already this morning…’
He can’t help himself. He will just plough on regardless.
October 6, 2022
Nig: You are the biggest bore because the problem you moan about has the solution is in your own hands. Stop reading the blog and stop expecting LL to change to suit your personal preferences!
October 6, 2022
From time to time our host who provides this platform at his own expense notes that some post far too much too often which takes his valuable time in moderation.
Lifelogic’s continual and voluminous venting of the same comments would seem therefore to take up our host’s time and perhaps also have the effect of limiting what other comments get through in good time.
Lifelogic isn’t just a bore but has bad manners as well to demand so much attention.
October 6, 2022
For heavens sake LL, she’s been in the job for a month!!She’s had to face the loss of a great monarch and the carping of disgraceful number of her supposed close colleagues. There are some dreadful people actually talking of changing the leadership!!!
It’s time that the privileged smart set stopped scheming and learned the meaning of loyalty….. to the nation they are supposed to serve and not to some cabal of whatever persuasion
October 6, 2022
I agree but time is short & we need action not just hot air.
October 6, 2022
So get out of your armchair, get on the stump and put your body where your mouth is. Stand for election and show them how things should be done.
But then you’d have to actually live in tour country wouldn’t you …
October 6, 2022
The very things that you highlight, the majority of the main ares of concern are all being restricted almost strangled to death by the green crap methodologies that seems to have completely taken over this country.
The systems that creates a 15 hour working week that can qualify for benefit top up. As with energy we have to produce more at home and create a much stronger internal markets release all the shackles that restrain companies to enable them to expand employ more people and pay the wages, and taxes and still make a good profit.
Companies that do not have a good internal customer care understanding, cannot provide a customer service excellence effectively to their external customers. Companies that do have very few problems in maintaining and attracting employees.
October 6, 2022
Correct.
October 6, 2022
Sir J,
I think a bit of UK incompetence and business mis-management also led to the decline in UK manufacturing. Think of the strikes and shocking quality of UK made cars in the 70’s, or the sale of UK business to foreign buyers, or the rush to send every student to university rather than maintaining technical colleges.
October 6, 2022
Most people should surely learn on the job while being paid – with day release, night school and online training. Many more should start work at 16 not at 22+ and with Ā£50K of debt – plus interest increasing this at Ā£3,500PA!
About 75% of universities & places should be closed down the lecturers released to get more productive jobs. No one with less than about B,B,B or perhaps A,B,C at A levels should be going to university. If they cannot understate their “A” levels what is the point? They surely should get a job or resit if they think they can do better.
October 6, 2022
Lifelogic
Certainly agree with many of your points, universities are good for the few not the many, too regard going to university as simply a delay to going to work, because they do not have a clue what they want to do.
Good to hear in Liz Truss speech that the Government spends “your money” this should be highlighted time and time again for the benefit of those who want the government to be responsible for everything.
October 6, 2022
But Universities are principally businesses, education is secondary to the need to make money. And more money is made by prioritising foreign students over UK ones. I know someone refused entry to a “top” uni for a science course with A*,A*,B as they were told UK students must have A,A,A.(N.B. No stars) Go figure!
October 6, 2022
Well if people are paying the full rate it is a good export industry and should not be rationed anymore than a book shop should refuse to sell a book. The problem is the soft taxpayer loans for often duff & worthless degrees (that so often become bad debts or grants).
October 6, 2022
Foreign students rarely go home. It’s yet another route to immigration and they are taking better paid jobs that should go to British graduates.
October 6, 2022
What do you class as soft degrees – media studies, film and TV production related subects for example?
October 6, 2022
Foreign students are a great way for Foreign Nations being able to compromise any University research projects of which there are many.
When will we learn that money, money, money is not the be all of everything !
How many foreign students do have in the UK paying about Ā£25,000 per year ?
October 6, 2022
Dixie not sure I would use the word soft but so many things like the ones you suggest are best learnt on the job or with day release or similar. Anything that does not need at least ABB at A levels perhaps.
October 6, 2022
Alan:- According to 2020/2021 statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, there are currently 605,130 international students pursuing their degrees in the UK. The number has experienced an increase from the previous yearās statistics which encompassed a total of 556,625 international students.
The total number of students enrolled in Higher Education institutions in the UK currently stands at 2,751,865, across all institutions.
In 2021, 32% (the majority) of the total number of international students in the UK come from China, meaning there are roughly 143,820 students from China in the UK. The numbers don’t seem quite right – but thats what was reported!
October 6, 2022
If you think giving 132,000 Chinese a fine education in our universities is good for us – I have to disagree.
October 6, 2022
I must be old-fashioned but I have the apparently odd notion that our Universities are there for UK citizens to study, and hopefully excel?
October 6, 2022
Me too, Mickey. Like everything else, the Brits are the lowest priority with this government. other than as cash cows for their virtue signalling largesse and the disgusting amounts of taxpayers money thrown at dinghy ‘passengers’ to keep them housed, warm and fed and the hard up Brits just pay for it.
October 6, 2022
+1
October 7, 2022
M T
Likewise my thoughts as well, but its all about the money, even in education it would seem !
No matter that we are educating our competitors, some of who’s governments appear to help fund their students education here.
October 6, 2022
@Lifelogic,
‘Most people should surely learn on the job while being paid ā with day release, night school and online training’ – well said!
‘Many more should start work at 16 not at 22+ and with Ā£50K of debt ā plus interest increasing this at Ā£3,500PA!’ – well said!
‘About 75% of universities & places should be closed down the lecturers released to get more productive jobs’ – v. well said.
‘No one with less than about B,B,B or perhaps A,B,C at A levels should be going to university. If they cannot understate their āAā levels what is the point? They surely should get a job or resit if they think they can do better’ – well said.
Also, we have to remind kids who aren’t academic that academic isn’t everything. There are nerds who have been to Oxford and Cambridge who would lose money running a post office. (Named entrepreneur Ed) isn’t academically bright. But he has a tonne of intuitive / creative / entrepreneurial / practical intelligence! In other words, different types of intelligence.
You’re spot on, sir. I’d also add, it’s sooo important for young people to do something exciting for at least a year that has nothing to do with work. Go travelling around South America. Learn Spanish. Help preserve a rare butterfly in Guatemala. Write a book. Fall in love. Whatever. This feeling of being alive and adventurous is essential in proper relationships later on in life and also propels one forwards for the spirit and adventure of setting up one’s own business, being the leader of one’s family, not getting bored by life which can turn one to addictions and so on.
October 6, 2022
I have to agree. Recently witnessed a lad of 16 asked to express a third as a percentage. The look of horror mixed with confusion said it all …the silence had to be believed. Finally the questioner had to say 30% would do but 33% better. He then said I thought you got a 6 in Maths ( GCSE)? No, I got a 4 (which is a Pass) to which the response was ‘did your mother take the exam for you?
October 6, 2022
I have also had experience of maths GCSE’s being worthless. When taking on a new apprentice I used to give them a maths test and always started with a very easy question, ie. what is 10% of 100. The majority of applicants couldn’t answer it without use of a calculator and this particular career needed good maths skills!
October 6, 2022
I always used to give people a few simple maths test and get them to write a letter of complaint or similar some efforts were appalling even when they had fair GCSEs in Maths and English – you really cannot trust GCSE much at all.
October 6, 2022
I also blame the Old Etonian Tory toffs (not knocking everyone who went to Eton and just exaggerating my point) in the establishment who over-focused on The City of London as the way forward for the UK economy and to preserve their capital (which is fair enough but not to over-do) when they should have been focusing more on a balance between keeping the City of London strong but also the High Tech sector – something like trying to help create the British equivalent of Silicon Valley.
October 6, 2022
So I blame both left and right (and the liberals).
If we’re going to get our economy back on track and with an even stronger high tech sector we have to be ruthlessly critical of our own people (Tories) – not just Labour / the socialists (who are becoming more and more irrelevant – along with the liberals).
October 6, 2022
EdM how do you know the government hasn’t been promoting a stronger high-tech sector around the regions? I’ve been reading business reports saying that they have, including Manchester and Liverpool? Do you work in the Tech sector? The figures, which combine the valuations of the UK’s public and private technology companies, puts the value of the UK tech industry at more than double that of Germany and almost five times larger than France and Sweden. That’s according to data from Dealroom analysed for the UK’s Digital Economy Council.29 Mar 2022.
October 6, 2022
Hi, I stared my career in the Tech sector (non-sales but supporting sales put together solutions for servers, storage and business software), which I thoroughly enjoyed . And then into advertising and the digital marketing sector which (digital marketing) is sort of connected to Tech.
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info. But I still don’t want anyone getting complacent about just how important Tech is (I am surrounded by friends and family who work in The City of London – and know nothing about the Tech sector and how important it is – well, they do know it’s important but they’re far more focused on The City of London so I guess this triggers me somewhat ..).
October 15, 2022
The Government, whether Labour, Coalition or Tory, has not been doing much to promote the start-up Tech sector.
Individuals are responsible for the relatively successful UK start-up sector. The only thing such ācreatorsā can get is a Ā£500 to Ā£25k Start-Up Loan that has to be paid back over a period of one to five years at a 6% interest rate (as of January 2022). Compare that to the money that was distributed to various providers of PPE and tests during the pandemic ā¦ and cry.
Unfortunately only 89% of these start-ups survived more than a year, 42.4% more than five years.
With that in mind comparisons with other countries are quite difficult as France for example only considers a start-up as successful if it passes the three year mark, in Germany the criterion success is based on the turn-over and number of employees.
The UK is/was known to be a very fertile ground for start-ups particularly around some universities. Whether the UK start-up tech sector has a value more than double that of Germany and five times that of France and Sweden is, I guess, quite difficult to pinpoint without having access to the proper registers of companies. For example would you consider the hundreds of companies that registered on gov.uk Companies-House website in 2020 as biotech start-ups because they were selling Chinese tests to the public?
October 6, 2022
Letās hope it wasnāt just words from the PM about the anti growth coalition and getting shut of all EU laws, we have had to put up with the anti Britishness now for decades from the leftists parties and the brain dead followers , we can only hope we are on the verge of a new era weāre the U.K. is put first
October 6, 2022
Indeed we need action now Truss, not yet more worthless hot air (while actually still travelling in the wrong direction) as we have suffered under Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Boris and their dire Chancellors. The current mess (high inflation, falling real wages, doubling energy bills, absurdly high taxes, under supply of properties, mortgages doubling, open doors to large illegal low skilled & criminal immigration, a dire NHS… is not the fault of Truss but mainly of the idiotic extended Covid lockdown and Sunak’s manifesto ratting, general incompetence, endless waste and his deliberate currency debasing.
October 6, 2022
I’d like to see the PM list perhaps a starter for 10 EU laws that she intends to close.
October 6, 2022
More unstinting optimism from Mr Redwood, as was the case from the lips of Tory party members I know who attended Theresa Mayās first conference speech as leader. For the rest of us itās a case of āwe donāt believe youā anymore and it really is looking like āThe Death of Britainā.
October 6, 2022
The death has been observed over at least a decade, the current medicine needs to be taken to have any chance of survival.
October 6, 2022
The death of The Queen may be used by historians to mark an inflection point between the long,slow decline of the New Elizabethan Age and the short,rapid decay of the New Carolingian Age.
The UK(or rather it’s oligarchic rulers) has banked everything on globalism but as Vladimir Putin pointed out last Friday:
“Russia is not alone,anti-globalist liberation movements are taking shape in countries around the world and this force will be the one to determine the geopolitical reality of the future.”
Look at the rapid coming together of like-minded countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization(now accounting for around half the world’s population),a new wave of anti-colonialism in Africa and even ,this morning,Saudi Arabia’s decision to ignore the US with the OPEC+ output cuts,effectively backing Russia.
No amount of ruritanian gold braid and perfumed flummery (or money printing) can save us from these trends.Hopefully,the main brunt will -ultimately-fall on the Establishment but,until they are swept away,they will undoubtedly do the utmost to protect their interests no matter what the cost to you.
October 6, 2022
Today’s post is a searing indictment of British government policies over the last 12 years. The ‘bias in UK politics’ was led and encouraged by the party running the government, who capitulated to well-financed global lobby groups. Nothing in the speech Liz Truss gave to the WEF at Davos last year inclines me to think she will actually be any different. Regardless of whatever ideas she may now have been advised to dangle before the public, the people she has aligned with follow the long-standing ‘limits to growth’ agenda of the Club of Rome. Let’s see what she does, not what she says.
October 6, 2022
I wish her well but the party’s been captured and it seems embraced by Marxist progressive ideology, Covidism and the entire panoply of cultural Marxist ideas that seeks to politicise our world, demonise some and rewrite history for the purposes of shaming, blaming and captured, that won’t end well for freedom and the free person
Oppose and criminalise the poison of progressive ideology or change the party’s name to Labour. Otherwise it’s a descent into an abyss of warped Critical Theory infused public policy in which all that we have known to be true and good becomes evil and bad
October 6, 2022
I believe that many more of us āneed to fight back for freedom and common senseā. Common sense doesnāt seem to be as common as it used to be.
October 6, 2022
+1
October 6, 2022
ā I look forward to a fight back for freedom and commonsense.ā
You and a great of deal others, Sir John, hope for thatā¦ but a great number of those who obstruct progress are in Parliament. There is a greater grassroots push for what you speak of, but often their pleas fall on deaf ears.
Think of the lockdown years, schools closures, forced jabs or no job etc. Groups of doctors and scientists wrote numerous times to government and didnāt even receive a reply.
October 6, 2022
She actually sounded like a Conservative.
But the problem is that well over half of the MPs sitting on the “Conservative” benches in the House of Commons are LibCons or Green-Cons (or both). And they won’t allow any Conservative policies to be implemented. They wanted Sunak and “steady as she goes down” and are now throwing their toys out the pram.
October 6, 2022
Those MPs are there because Central Office casting – the candidate selection process – put them there. That is where the Conservative Party has been captured, at a level close to the top. That’s the level where infiltrators such as Common Purpose now, or Roosevelt’s Communist sympathisers in the 1930s-40s, like to operate. It works.
October 6, 2022
YEP !
October 6, 2022
R. Grange
Totally correct.
Nothing will change.
October 6, 2022
“Steady as she goes” – slowly down the drain
October 6, 2022
Bring it on!
The country desperately needs a change of direction. 2 years and many opponents, though, as you will very well know. Best of luck.
October 6, 2022
In the news today, the RCN recommending strike action from nurses over pay. Shame they’re not on the benefits list, otherwise their pay would increase with inflation.
They’re not going to impact non-emergency treatment they way. Well, my understanding is that isn’t taking place already, and there is a lack of capacity for emergency care. So are we going to see a strike taking place, and people die? Or will the government capitulate?
If nurses have a bad deal, why not resign? No doubt the desperate NHS will re-engage them on better terms.
October 6, 2022
Uprating rates of pay in-line with a transient high-rate of inflation is a bad idea. I would suggest that government workers receive only a modest pay-rise with additional support given in the way of a COLA bonus, which would also take account of the massive support already being given to households.
October 6, 2022
My daughter was in hospital last month with a serious problem. She spoke to some of her nurses, who told her they were being paid Ā£600 per 12 hour shift.
During those shifts, they occasionally ‘forgot’ to give necessary medication to her and other patients in the ward, and ‘forgot’ for 5 days to ensure she was wearing a required preventive device.
Just saying.
October 6, 2022
Agency nurses I assume.
October 6, 2022
Probably. I know a good number of nurses who retired at 50 on an excellent pension and now work as agency nurses and are also self employed part time. They are never short of opportunities and do agency work as and when they feel like it. They don’t need to work full time anymore.
October 6, 2022
Just a note without too much identifiable information. I was sister of a unit at a well known university hospital. There were problems, shall we say with a contract . I had to finish my time there. I went back as an agency nurse .After running a unit and using years of respectable and collected experience, I wasn’t even allowed to give out medication in the same hospital . Whilst this was happening I worked a night with contracted overseas Nurses who made 13 drug errors in the one shift . I reported the matter and was given the sack !
October 6, 2022
I doubt your example is all that unique. Keep singing off the same hymn sheet, even if it is praising Satan.
October 6, 2022
Dave, I read that the nurses got a Ā£1400 pay rise in July 2022 backdated to April the current starting band for a graduate nurse at 21/22 years of age is Ā£27,055, that is the minimum and doesn’t include allowances and location weighting. Then there is a fantastic pension (what % of pay is that worth – 25%?) + Full pay if sick (what % of pay is that worth?), back in 2015, a starting nurse’s salary was Ā£21,692 basic. I absolutely think nurses should be paid well for what they do, they shouldn’t have to do bank nursing because they can earn more on the bank because the pension contribution on that work is much lower, so the hourly pay is greater; that should be an option for them from the start of their career, a higher pay with nest, where they can then choose to add to if they want to or not.
Inflation https://www.statista.com/statistics/270384/inflation-rate-in-the-united-kingdom/
from 0.04% in 2015 to 2.59% in 2021
October 6, 2022
@a-tracy, it does seem odd that those that work mainstream industry and services have their remuneration quoted gross(that then has all the deductions applied), while those paid by the taxpayer it is always net. Then when the talk turns to comparisons ā¦
Governments must STOP all their Ponzi schemes.
October 6, 2022
Ian, it is very frustrating because it runs the jobs down unnecessarily; they only ever quote unqualified nursing staff’s wages.
Then Tube workers with a new Ā£1500 tax-free perk – a free oyster courtesy of Mr Khan, well taxpayers from all around the country who have to pay TFLs subsidies!
Full sick pay cover is worth a lot of money, probably another 5% of the annual gross wage. You try to buy a full sick pay cover policy from day one of sickness if you work in the private sector to top up SSP – you can’t; they usually start after one-month sickness and don’t cover mental health or bad backs, they cost around Ā£240-Ā£360 don’t cover you for three months, only cover Ā£1500 for a fit 30-year-old none smoker. Then they exclude: As with all types of insurance, itās essential to find out what youāre not covered for. That way, there wonāt be any nasty surprises if you make a claim. Cover generally wonāt pay out if you: Get sacked from your job, quit voluntarily, or deliberately take out a policy knowing youāre about to be made redundant. Have a pre-existing medical condition. Take time off work because of back problems or stress and anxiety.
None of these extras is appreciated as hidden benefits in kind (they don’t pay tax on the benefits in kind either).
October 7, 2022
You suggest ‘Full sick pay cover is worth a lot of money, probably another 5% of the annual gross wage.’ So you claim 1 in 20 work days are taken off – sick?
October 8, 2022
MT – no, Iām saying that if you try to buy any sickness insurance cover even a little like the public workerās sick pay cover, which isnāt actually available on the open market as I explained because they donāt cover the most often used excuses for sickness, the cost of that insurance would be at least 5% of the gross pay. Google it.
If you donāt have sick pay insurance you get SSP covered by the employer not the government who funds āfull sick payā for everyone working for the State.
October 6, 2022
Plenty do resign and sign up to Agency nursing.
October 6, 2022
Good morning Sir John
Thank you well said, but as always while most Conservative thinkers and supporters are in agreement the Parliamentary Party is riddled with Socialist ideals and personal ego. The lack of a wish to serve continuants and the Country plays second fiddle to ālook at meā
October 6, 2022
Welcome, yet again, to the Lifelogic blog. It’s beginning to look as though LL has taken back control. Not one of your pseudonyms is it JR?
October 6, 2022
I note ‘A levels’ are beginning to move up the Lifelogic Bingo chart.
October 6, 2022
LL is certainly repetitive but I find the contributions quite entertaining, even if I don’t always agree, and I think the blog would be the poorer for his absence. If only posters putting other views forward could be as entertaining.
October 6, 2022
Entertaining, certainly š āKeep on āthe good workā.
October 6, 2022
Unlike your endless cheap sarcasm heffy.
October 6, 2022
Peter 2
who is now playing the Troll
October 6, 2022
Well seems like you as usual billy.
October 6, 2022
I trust that you will be keeping a close eye on developments in the ‘European Political Community’.
May I suggest that HMG, in many policy areas, is now entrapped in a Gordian Knot of one international agreement after another. It’s time that the government not only stopped signing them but also extricated itself from any that stop it responding to the wants of the electorate.
October 6, 2022
Europe Political Community ā¦a new secret elite political organisation, a new āBilderbregā, to agree the shape of Europe behind closed doors
October 6, 2022
Like the football analogy of Championship – a feeder for the Premier.
October 6, 2022
She’s still planning to sign more like the WHO treaty giving them control over us being put into lockdown in the future. She can then meet her promise to not impose any future lockdowns because she won’t have the authority to do it.
No legally binding international agreement giving away our sovereignty should ever be signed, full stop.
October 6, 2022
+100 Christine. Any treaty that supersedes our own government (and democracy) should be put to referendum for electoral approval.
October 7, 2022
Too many voters in this country have been brainwashed during the covid pandemic to believe that governments, pharma and international organisations have their best interests at heart. I know many people who still think lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations are a good idea. Therefore, a referendum wouldn’t be welcome by me. We should never give up our sovereignty for any reason.
October 6, 2022
ECHRs is still supreme over UK law
October 6, 2022
Has no Conservative got the balls to insist this renounced immediately?
Well, Sir John?
October 6, 2022
Christine, you are quite correct. Repulsive deals are afoot.
October 7, 2022
Liz Truss has committed the UK to joining part of the EU’s Permanent Structured Co-operation (PESCO) for the military, leading to fears it could eventually be dragged into an EU army.
The Prime Minister has been warned not to allow the UK to be dragged into an EU Army by accident after she signed a military deal this week at Emmanuel Macronās European Political Community (EPC) summit in Prague.
October 6, 2022
The IMF hit the MsM with their comments yesterday. Paraphrasing, All Countries must raise interest rates to tackle inflation Then emphasised in not doing so undermined āGlobalisationā
In the UK increasing interest rates increases costs and with the many that are employed and being paid by the taxpayer ā they just ask and get a pay rise to keep pace. Self cancelling project. A recipe for disaster, in the making.
The IMF aim for āGlobalisationā suggests they are worried the status quo of the mighty (Countries/Big Business) and the need for them to be protected from competition must be a World aim. A very Left Wing Socialist view of free enterprise.
We should all be afraid of these unaccountable idiots having a political voice.
October 6, 2022
It’s a sad fact that the voting public has gone soft and even the late, great Margaret Thatcher would struggle to win a General Election today. We know that the Conservative Part has responded in kind, and many of the new breed of Conservative MPs are not made of stern stuff like our host. They would probably try to ensure that Margaret wouldn’t even get onto the leadership ballot paper.
We are therefore lucky that we have Liz Truss in post. She is not in the same league as Margaret but, unlike Sunak, she is, at least on the same wavelength. The problem is that almost every Journalist is looking down their nose at Ms Truss and they are already treating her in the same way as the American media treated Donald Trump.
In other words, whatever she does, in their eyes she will be wrong. That will make winning the next election harder.
October 6, 2022
Nonsense -the Daily Mail and Daily Express are Truss groupies.
October 6, 2022
Why do you want growth? Is this to better people’s lives? If people want to better their lives, they can do that without government intervention.
Or is the objective for growth so the government can collect more tax for it to spend and waste?
October 6, 2022
Growth as neo-feudalism to keep those who are accustomed to be kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
I’d much rather see sound money.There’s no real growth without sound money(a distant memory in the UK) anyway, but a return to sound money would require extremely drastic cutbacks-not least amongst the vast glasshouse-dwelling bureaucratic class.
October 6, 2022
Reading an article by Henry Hill (deputy editor of Conservative Home) yesterday, he named the person at the head of the anti-growth alliance – Liz Truss.
One good thing she said was she was against “the vested interests dressed up as think-tanks”. Good. She can start by ignoring the output of the Institute for Economic Affairs, the Tax Payers Alliance and all the other mouthpieces based in 55 Tufton St.
October 6, 2022
You know Peter, I can sit in the middle and straddle the political divide, a lot of my family were old-fashioned Labour, I’d hesitate in calling them socialist because they aren’t interested in the current socialist preoccupations but I grew up listening to them. I read the Guardian daily, check out the Daily Express because it’s free just to annoy myself really and its preoccupation with Megan & Harry. I thoroughly enjoy this blog, I used to read LabourList and Con Home but stopped a while ago. However, why should Truss ignore the IEA and the Taxpayers Alliance? Just because they disagree with you? How are they any less relevant than left-wing think tanks like the Joseph Rowntree and even the infected OBR?
October 6, 2022
I actually sit very much in the middle as well. I read from a range of sources (and comment), much of which I disagree with much of the time, as putting ones views and assumptions under challenge is a healthy thing to do.
If Liz Truss was taking as much notice of the Joseph Rowntree foundation as the IEA, fine, but I don’t see that. What I see is the influence of policies from a narrow groupthink that are already proven failures. Reagan enacted them during his presidency in the 1980s, and the consequences were a much increased US national debt and fiscal deficit, problems the US struggles with to this day. By the end of Reagan’s two terms, he had ended up needing to reverse much of what he originally did. The US has the advantage of being cushioned by a combination of size and issuing the world’s reserve currency. The UK has neither of those advantages, and the market response to the Chancellor’s statement only reinforces that.
As for the OBR, it was set up by the Conservatives in 2009 when in opposition and formalised when Cameron became PM in 2010. If it is a left wing think tank, then it is a left wing think tank that has been under Conservative party control for its entire existence. Personally, I value an organisation independent of party politics running the numbers and producing party-agnostic output. With my maths, science and engineering background, I’d prefer more nuanced, detailed output with assumptions, ranges and probabilities all included (show me all the working, the graphs, the charts etc.), but I’m also aware that the mathematics involved isn’t for everyone, and I’m maybe unusual in that respect.
October 7, 2022
Interesting; thank you for your reply.
The JRF was very much for the energy bailout to the general public, I think this more than any small change to the upper tax rate, which I don’t even believe would be a Ā£2bn loss – Osborne dropped from 50% to 45% in 2013 with an Ā£8bn tax boost the following year, I think the reversal was only because it would have resulted in some offset this year which would have reduced taxes this year and they need the tax in the last quarter to pay the energy bailout. Perhaps a tax drop of this kind will come after the start of the new tax year then we get a more accurate picture of the result of.
A Ā£20bn to Ā£30bn cost to bankroll every bodies energy with up to Ā£650 extra for benefit claimants on top of the Ā£400, the Ā£150 they had in April, the other top-ups and back payments you don’t think any of those changes Truss made were after taking notice of think tanks like JRF. I’m a bit authoritarian in regards to funding people to behave badly, people that can’t look after themselves and their offspring with their benefits shouldn’t be given independent houses to live in; they need to be helped to look after themselves and small accommodation block communal share facilities should be arranged to keep their costs down and teach them how to cook before you say I don’t know these people I know lots of these people, I see them with their lottery tickets, bottles of gin, their top of the range phones, their holidays when they’re saying they can’t feed their kids, their boyfriend that is just staying a couple of nights but lives there full time.
She’s only been in the top job a few weeks, and the pouncing on her started! It’s ridiculous, and unpleasant, and they wonder why people don’t want to go into politics unless they are the Oxbridge political class.
My husband and son are maths wizards; they sometimes have to help me with all the reports in the newspapers, like those tweets saying the bank spent Ā£65bn of taxpayers’ money, which my husband said were lies and explained it to me clearly and calmly.
Yes, I know how the OBR was set up and who is running it thanks to Guido Fawkes’s blog, it really surprised me, but then I never felt Cameron was a conservative. Osborne used to speak small c conservative but act globalist in many respects. I was actually sorry to see him leave politics, but at least he didn’t do a Hague and turn on all his views. My husband thinks the OBR is a waste of time and tells me why, but I don’t want to disoblige John’s hospitality.
October 6, 2022
“The anti-growth coalition” neatly corrals those opponents but 8-syllables are too much of a mouthful to fit within snappy soundbites.
October 6, 2022
how about the Luddities, the Wreckers, the Bolsheviks?
October 6, 2022
They’re shorter Mr Taking, but fuzzy on targeting. If ‘The anti-growth opposition’ becomes used often enough to stick, some media headline might eventually shorten it.
October 7, 2022
‘Tory MPs’ instead? Is that still fuzzy?
October 6, 2022
Weather permitting I go out for an early morning walk, and I could tell Liz Truss that long before seven o’clock around here the traffic is building up and there are people on foot heading off to their day’s occupations, plus the dog walkers and joggers, and we do not need any silly slogan about “Getting Britain Moving” because it is already moving. It was very different during the lockdowns, then there was very little road traffic – which actually made for much more pleasant walks – but we are well on the way to having come out of that naturally without any misplaced injunction from her. And as I have mentioned before her representation of the UK economy as being chronically sluggish, and now almost in a state of stagflation, is grossly inaccurate:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/10/01/what-will-the-obr-predict-this-time/#comment-1344792
“As said before a growth target of 2.5% a year is nothing special, it is just the average since the war … “
October 6, 2022
I recently visited Central London for the first time in several years. Walking from Waterloo to St Paul’s along the South Bank and over the Millenium Bridge the embankment was thronging with people. Crossing the roads I was astonished to see how little traffic there was. Mostly buses and taxis, with just a handful of other traffic. I guess driving in London has been priced out for almost everyone. I think there was more traffic in the 1960s.
October 6, 2022
Not many people are happy to pay Ā£15 a day for the dubious privelege – and when I stop laughing I’ll type…. The Congestion Charge.
October 6, 2022
“Foolish CO2 accounting has forced companies and individuals into producing less here to get our C2 count down, only to import things that have a higher carbon count in their place to prove we have reduced our CO2!”
That’s been obvious for a very long time but for some reason even (apparently) intelligent people can’t seem to understand it. None of our political parties (including your’s I’m afraid Sir J) seem to have the courage to stand up and shout “The King has no Clothes”
Most people can see the blindingly obvious, most especially when they are sat at home with the heating turned off because they are worried about paying their energy bills. Now’s the time to start telling them what they already beleive – that ‘Net Zero’ is a huge creative accounting fraud.
If the Tories can find the guts to tell this truth, maybe it will help us to believe in them again.
October 6, 2022
”According to new data, less than 3% of todayās smart meters fulfil their promises of customer savings. Smart meters are failing to lead to lower bills and consumers are getting a rough deal.” net-zero-watch
October 6, 2022
Whilst I have my doubts about Liz Truss and her policies unless the PCP gets behind her there will be a lot of out of work MPs come 2024 – which might actually be a good thing. A dose of what the voters are up against and feel might be a good thing.
October 6, 2022
Some early successes will be crucial to win support, as you doubtless recognize, particularly after the maladroit handling of the special fiscal operation.
Successes are improbable though, with the government being knocked off course by MacMillanesque events, not least from labour unions, and the fact the anti-growth coalition has its muster within your parliamentary party.
October 6, 2022
I note there have been damaging train driver strikes in Belgium too.
October 6, 2022
The headline from the IFS (just who is this ‘leading think tank’ organisation) this morning says: “For every Ā£1 given (sic) workers by cutting tax rates Ā£2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculates”.
That is a misleading Guardian headline, half the story. Income taxation for ‘workers’ is a combination of Income tax and National Insurance contribution. The personal allowance has risen by Ā£3000 this year. Do the IFS know next years plans for benefits already? The threshold rate hold for three years was a Sunak plan not a Kwasi plan.
They talk about cuts for the richest combining Tax and NI but not for the lower paid, I read 70% of people earn less than the average wage of Ā£31,000. They claim the poorest benefit by just Ā£13 but the poorest get their tax rebate + a LOT more from our very generous benefits system UC, WTC, CTC, and lots more hidden top ups to the lowest paid incomes, that is why they don’t go out to work to earn.
October 6, 2022
The basic personal allowance is Ā£12,570 for 2022/23, it did not rise by Ā£3000. Indeed it is fixed for the next few years.
Please clarify any claims along those lines. Successive Chancellors try hoodwinking us like that without your help.
October 6, 2022
MT – the personal allowance for national insurance has risen Ā£3000 pa. The quote was about ‘workers’ a worker pays two taxes Income Tax and National Insurance. The national insurance % has also dropped from November 2023 from 13.25% to 12%.
The quote said āFor every Ā£1 given workers by cutting tax rates Ā£2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculatesā. – – – “workers”
October 7, 2022
Thanks for that – I imagine workers can’t wait for Nov 2023 to see a reduction. I wonder what Council Tax, Gas and Electricity will cost by then?
October 7, 2022
MT, it starts this November 2022 for the rest of this tax year and the following years.
October 6, 2022
Truss hasnāt got a majority in Parliament to get through any of her growth agenda, Tory MPs will simply vote with the opposition against them. This will apply to tax cuts, benefit cuts, planning reform, fracking, and a host of other policies. However she might be able to get through her policy to increase immigration.
October 6, 2022
The Tory MPs should check with their members and electors before fooling around Roy. We managed to get rid of the last Tory MP in our area who tried that.
October 6, 2022
Abolish the ruinous, invasive and sinister Socialist control of private companies using ESG and progressive conditioning. For a Tory government to impose this Socialist crap is beyond the pale.
Have some respect Tory party and condemn ideas and beliefs that it doesn’t believe itself
Expand the moral and civil space, crush the size of the State and give us back our freedoms.
Oh and CRT is a disturbing and extremist ideology that is causing harm to others. It must be made illegal as per Badenoch
The unions and Labour are out of control and have become a concern
All of this can be achieved in the next few months
October 6, 2022
āFoolish CO2 accounting has forced companies and individuals into producing less here to get our C2 count down, only to import things that have a higher carbon count in their place to prove we have reduced our CO2!ā
There is no climate breakdown/emergency/crisis. Everyone should check the data for themselves and not accept the hysterical outpourings from the BBC.
Both temperature and CO2 are at very low levels in our 500 million history since the start of the Cambrian explosion and in that time there is no evidence of temperature following CO2 concentration. Unsurprisingly temperature is rising slightly since we have just exited an ice age just 11,000 years ago, but not by much and it is equally likely we are heading for another ice age as warming to the much higher average global temperature experienced over the last 500 million years.
Over the last 800,000 years CO2 levels have dropped 9 times to 180ppm, just 30 ppm above the level below which plants, and hence all life on earth, cannot survive.
At current increases of atmospheric CO2, anthropogenic or natural, of around 2.4 ppm it will take 150 years to double atmospheric CO2 to 840 ppm, which is still well below the optimum level of 1000-1500 ppm for plant growth and well below toxicity for animals, including humans.
October 6, 2022
āI look forward to a fight back for freedom and commonsense.ā
Iām not convinced when the PM continues to state she believes in Net Zero and appoints a graduate of modern history and a remainer to review Net Zero.
Net Zero is an economy destroying wild goose chase. Affordable, reliable fossil fuel energy is being phased out without a replacement.
Nuclear is ignored and Chinese made renewables installed with no plan for grid stability and long-term back up. The result will be expensive and intermittent energy and we will be dependent upon coal-fired China for our energy, raw materials and goods.
October 6, 2022
Ah, the new catch-all expression to please a particular kind of hare-brained people: Ā“the anti-growth coalitionā.
October 6, 2022
I know,I know!For some reason when I hear that ridiculous expression,the name of a late 1970s punk band,The Anti-Nowhere League(whose members included Animal,Magoo and Bones) comes to mind.
At least their name was (I presume) tongue in cheek).
And at least May gave us some entertainment with her set falling apart behind her.
October 6, 2022
Good words today, and a fair assessment of Lizās speech, however she is sending the wrong signal by attending the Europe Political Community ā¦sheāll be signing agreements and treaties on our behave today
October 6, 2022
Let’s not get carried away with this Glen
We have a war in Ukraine, a global energy crisis that is hitting Europe & UK particularly hard and the Dollar is kicking the backside out of both the Pound and Euro. I voted to leave the EU (Brussels) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be talking to our neighbpours. I’d be deeply worried if we weren’t, most especially when we have someone like Putin living nearby.
October 6, 2022
@ IanT – there is no objection to talking to neighbours (included Mr. Putin with whom earnest discussion should have been had long since). The question though is why additional to bilateral and multilateral forums (which include the Council of Europe, NATO and a good number of other like specialist bodies), does the U.K. need to consort in the Europe Political Community, an Evil Empire dominated creation dreamed up by a man in respect of whose friendship “the jury is still out”.
The risks would be much mitigated if the U.K. ever sent representatives not imbued with the silly notion that we have a duty to continually sacrifice ourselves to pull others’ chestnuts out of the fire. Let the Evil Empire look after its own.
October 6, 2022
+1
October 6, 2022
I would maybe agree with you Ian, if the EU were not always ‘on the take’. We help them freely and openly, but all they do is threaten us with one thing or another and only ‘help’ when they get lots of UK money/fish, or 100% control of any agreement.
October 6, 2022
And what would the Media being saying this morning if she hadn’t been there?
“UK excluded from emergency summit with heads of forty three European Heads of Government”
October 6, 2022
Beth Rigby shouting across Downing Street
“Do you know what’s heppening in Europe Prime Minister?”
October 6, 2022
@ IanT – we really need a leader who dances to the MSM tune?
And the rejoinder to Beff could be “Do you know what is happening here? Thought not! “
October 6, 2022
I think the EU countries should be talking to Putin, and warning that further advances in Ukraine will be responded to by major assistance with modern weaponry.
October 7, 2022
Kiev has already had a lot of our modern weaponry, MT. What are you suggesting we send, nukes?
October 6, 2022
we can and do talk to neighbours, but why consider this cosy little 2nd Divison club for outsiders?
October 6, 2022
The French at the Europe Pantomime Community (EPC) today, have agreed to take back the illegals crossing the channel, the same day without any fuss; as everyone knows they came from France in the first place
October 7, 2022
Well, its winter Glen they don’t want the UN on their backs for facilitating the boat people in bad weather! Mind you the UN let France get away with all sorts of bad treatment of refugees like keeping them in empty offices with a lack of bathroom facilities, sleeping in tents in underpasses and fields. If Britain did that we’d be hauled up as Patel was over putting them in old fashioned barracks!
October 6, 2022
Off topic, a letter I sent to the Maidenhead Advertiser on Sunday morning has appeared:
“Cynical betrayal of unionist community”
“As members of the so-called “Conservative and Unionist” party hold their annual conference in Birmingham their cynical betrayal of unionists in Northern Ireland continues.
Just a month ago Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney publicly declared that whatever happened Northern Ireland must forever remain part of the EU Single Market for goods.
While the UK government’s published proposals for reform of the Northern Ireland protocol all require that Northern Ireland should no longer be part of the EU Single Market.
Now there is rising optimism that a deal can be negotiated, so clearly one side or the other has indicated its willingness to back down; I think I can guess which side that is.
Fourteen months ago the government said that it stood ready to pass new UK laws to protect the EU Single Market, creating export controls on goods crossing the land border.
As something like half of the goods crossing the border have been produced in Northern Ireland, not brought in from outside, that would have been a more effective solution.
If Liz Truss was sincere in her stated intention of sorting out the protocol problem, with or without the agreement of the EU, then she would have introduced that legislation.”
October 6, 2022
Just a day after an uplifting speech by the PM, Ms Caulfield, Nadine Dorries have take to the MsM and are threatening that the party will divide unless Liz Truss does things their way. I guess they mean lurch left and give up Tory principles.
October 6, 2022
Ian B: Yes, sickening to behold. Accusations of lurching to the right, being radical, plans a mistake, cruel to hold back Benefits increases. As far as I know there is no holding back Benefits increases announced yet & does not need a knee jerk reaction or decision. If these clowns & not just those mentioned, don’t get on board, and soon, as they keep saying, they will lose the election. They are half way there already because without unity they are going nowhere. And as for ‘radical’, I think if they were more in tune with the public they might just see that there are a great many who are looking for exactly that.
October 6, 2022
Gee, it’s almost as if Dorries has been promised an ill-deserved peerage and doesn’t have to worry about winning another election.
Li Truss won’t want to spend too much time on CCHQ process re-design right now but she might want to give an hour over to the matter of candidate selection, ensuring that associations have the freedom to select from a long list of proper Conservatives..
October 6, 2022
Absolutely SW – because it’s very clear that CPHQ is incapable of doing it.
October 6, 2022
@SW,. It should be the constituants that choose a candidate, not a gang leader buying loyalty. After all who is an MP supposed to work for?
October 6, 2022
What about the World Economic Forumās food innovation hubs that world leaders are buying into? The Netherlands has announced it will host the worldwide coordination secretariat. The WEF plans to take over food production and distribution. Meanwhile Dutch and Canadian farmers are losing their land and we have our own government paying farmers to re-wild rather than grow crops. Donāt you get it yet that we are heading for a Chinese-type social credit system? Control the food supply and you control the people. Being self-sufficient is a pipe dream whilst we allow the current crop of political parties to control our lives. Until they drop their net-zero religion I donāt believe anything will improve. Itās all part of the long-term plan for us and itās not pretty.
October 6, 2022
Liz Truss’ speech wasn’t bad, indeed it was rather good and there is only a little of it I disagree with. Indeed most voters would like the words she said. However that is not going to overcome the multiple problems with her.
Her biggest fundamental problem is people, most importantly voters, just don’t like her personally. People don’t even sympathise with her. Many people used to tell me Boris Johnson was very unlucky with the problems he had to deal with- one could say Liz Truss is just as unlucky but nobody I know says that of Truss. That is a similar problem to what Labour had with Ed Miliband. Although I don’t agree with Ed Miliband, technically he wasn’t a bad Party Leader and he was more thoughtful than other Labour leaders have been, voters simply didn’t like him and there was nothing he could do about it and so he lost badly.
Next problem is Truss is not up to the job. She ran a leadership campaign indicating she wouldn’t subsidise fuel prices and when she won she did exactly that. It was foreseeable except by her. She has backed down on the announced reduction of highest rate tax and her enemies have just moved on to another demand upon her (re Universal Credit) and so she has lost her remaining claim to virtue, that of resolution and determination.
She has also faced not only commentators but also many Conservative M.P.s determined to bring her down practically immediately – Trump-like but with even less justification than him those M.P.s are not willing to accept the result of the leadership election, in their case for ideological or personal reasons. Some M.P.s seem to have begun their campaign to be next Leader.
So Liz Truss is not viable and the best thing to do is let her carry on for a year while we suffer the worst of the economic crisis and let a new Leader (preferably Boris Johnson who Starmer complains sees politics as part of the ‘entertainment industry’ which explains in part why any opponent finds him exceptionally difficult to deal with) take credit for improving the situation next year.
October 6, 2022
Solar farms currently in the pipeline will remove a whopping 150,000 acres of farm land from food production, in addition to the 100,000 acres of rural land lost each year to housing and industrial developments.
Not much commpn sense there.
October 6, 2022
Being a pale green imitation of Labour will never get the conservatives back in power; you have an opportunity to be different, go for gold not green. Emissions do not need to be reduced to save the planet
October 6, 2022
maybe the planet doesn’t need saving?
October 6, 2022
Agree – lets endorse fossil fuels and start making things again using cheap energy to reduce costs and actually help people and business
October 6, 2022
Dear Sir John:
The Prime Minister says that the Government will be making unpopular decisions. That sounds politically naive. All policy decisions bring drawbacks as well as benefits, losses as well as gains and often losers as well as winners. If there is no downside, no decision has to be made.
Good decision-makers will properly research the negatives as well as the positives before plumping for action. Good politicians will embrace the negatives. They should be able to explain and persuade most of us why the positives outweigh them and, if possible, what can be done to mitigate losses.
Otherwise, a lawyer-led Opposition and the less thoughtful media will be free to focus relentlessly on the negative, undermining the decision and making it “unpopular”.
Let us see how ministers approach the multifarious implications of decisions over benefit uprating, the Sheffield-Doncaster airport and, for instance, a potential Vodafone-Three merger.
October 6, 2022
Stabbings in Bishopgate this morning while resisting a robbery, 4 injured sent to hospital
Sadiq Khan: “The good news is, it’s not a terror attack”
The perpetuators escaped.
The quality of the Political Establishment we have to tolerate
October 6, 2022
So thats the good news, what exactly is the bad news?
October 6, 2022
Honest is the best policy. Robbers are bad ones.
Robbing idiots wield knives trying to terrorise innocent others to avoid being captured.
Politicians who regard aggressive stab wounding as a non-terrorising attack are also daft.
Sadiq Khan is ineffective at driving down crime.
Perhaps he would be better employed driving a bus.
October 6, 2022
Yes but, for all the good ideas, we are going to lose the next General Election because of what is going on in the mortgage market. The drastic increase in interest rates is going to cause repossessions, disappointed first time buyers, broken buying and selling chains, and lots of gdowning. There are – and will be more – very angry people, far more than issues like the 45p income tax rate, bankers’ bonuses and not fully inflating benefits will cause.
The independence of the Bank of England, aided and abetted by some Chancellors, has been a disastrous failure and it’s time to end it. Interest rate policy should be to raise Base Rate by 0,25% every month or every two months, with inflation coming down gradually. I want house prices to crash but it must be a slow crash to reduce suffering. In parallel, there must be public substantial spending cuts. The cuts outlined by Sir John a couple of days ago are welcome but are – I think – fairly small beer. We want more on eliminating railway losses, various measures to stop the NHS wasting money, a bonfire of Quangos, a reduction in regulation, Civil Service employment and London Office space, and assistance to illegal immigrants. Above all, the economy must be run in such a way that the private sector has adequate working capital to take advantage of export opportunities and to implement import substitution.
One thing we should not worry about is the sterling/dollar exchange rate. It will do us no harm if sterling is temporarily low, helping exports (including tourism into the UK) and deterring imports (including overseas holidays). Give the J curve effect a year to operate and our trade should be well in the black in a year’s time.
October 6, 2022
Just to reinforce my main point, for a Ā£100,000 mortgage a rise in interest rate from 2% to 6% increases annual interest by Ā£4,000 or Ā£333 per month. On a Ā£300,000 it’s and extra Ā£1,000 per month. Small wonder there are so many angry people.
October 6, 2022
I liked much of what came out of the party conference. The timing error ref the 45 pence rate reduction to 40 pence was fed on by much of the media way beyond its significance. It was a political error not an accounting one.
It is now down to the Treasury, the Home Office and the PM to produce on their shopping lists. This government will be judged on what it does not on what says.
October 6, 2022
I’m sure that Liz didn’t say that as a result of the mini budget pension funds would have collapsed if the BoE hadn’t bailed them out. Andrew Bailey said”pension funds would have had to be wound up the next day if the bank hadn’t stepped in”.
No apology from Truss or the Conservatives, remember Liz said “we have your backs” , if she thinks that’s looking after us then she’s a fool. she would have done the exact opposite of what she was trying to do. She needs to go.
October 6, 2022
Stephen, it was public sector pension funds, the private sector funds have been allowed to sink as have all isas! The public sector just looking after its own.
My husband told me that the BoE bought up the gilts to stop a run on them; they now hold the assets and will sell them when they gain in value.
October 6, 2022
@ Stephen Reay – I cannot find the quote you attribute to Governor Bailey.
The often sagacious Frances Coppola has a new post at her Coppola Comment where she says The Bank doesn’t have any mandate to prevent pension funds going bust. And anyway, the type of pension fund that got into trouble isn’t at meaningful risk of insolvency. There was never any risk to people’s pensions.
Rather she suggests the Bank was worried that the pension funds defaulting on swaps might materially and adversely affect banks, being the counterparties to the swap deals and thus at risk of serious losses on derivatives. Even more seriously in terms of systemic risk, much swap activity is centrally cleared, creating concerns about clearing houses and possible contagion spreading to banks. As Coppola says,the Bank intervened to stop the bleeding before it became a haemorrhage.
October 6, 2022
It might be wise to sign up as many LNG RV tankers we can before the EU does. They can regasify and plug into local distribution zone pipelines.
There are LNG tankers booking cargoes and tramping around waiting for desperate customers with no storage for the coming winter.
October 6, 2022
That’s because LNG is so expensive as compared with piped natural gas, previously available at prices that industrial economies could manage. No chance of much GDP growth on LNG.
October 6, 2022
Good talk, but will we see any action urgently. And I don’t mean meetings held to discuss the ideas. Orders must be issued to impliment change.
But will they? In two years will we be where we are now and still on the road to ruin. Will anyone be punished if they stand in the way.
October 6, 2022
Sir JR
So we are back on the old boat blaming the EU and importers.
What about the ever increasing problem of our own low productivity
October 6, 2022
Our country has been deliberately reformed into a low wage economy, so low productivity is only to be expected, If we can’t get enough people willing to do responsible jobs for minimum pay we just import a few more hundred thousand who think UK minimum pay is extremely good if it gets them into the UK, and then once here they get better jobs, and the low paid jobs become vacant again for even more immigrants in the never ending ponzi scheme. Sir John knows this. Why don’t ALL politicians know this?
October 7, 2022
True – we see low productivity everywhere. In the NHS, Railways, Royal Mail, Civil Service, DLVA, H of C, GP patient care, average road speeds, RNLI, HMRC….
October 6, 2022
The first order of business today at the Europe Pantomime Community (EPC), was to establish a budget, a logo, a new building, a president, staff, a seat at the EU, UN & NATO and a commitment to closer cooperation on net-zero and finding a pathway to confederation
October 6, 2022
Glen,
You are talking about confederation but actaully have no clue as usual
October 6, 2022
Thanks for your feedback, but I just copied the word āconfederationā
āā This idea resonates with the proposal of a European Confederation put forward by FranƧois Mitterrand in 1989, to which the French President referred, and which Enrico Letta (President of the Jacques Delors Institute) recently reframed. The proposal entails establishing a European political space, beyond the European Union, which may constitute a first step towards membership or, according to a countryās preference, an alternative to it.āā https://institutdelors.eu/en/publications/la-communaute-politique-europeenne/
October 6, 2022
Take no notice Glen
billy is an EU fanatic.
October 7, 2022
Peter 2
who is playing troll?
October 6, 2022
For once, even Dorries is correct – no-one has voted for this nonsense, all driven extreme right-wing think-tanks funded with dark money, for whom the government are merely pawns of. They have infiltrated the BBC with the Chairman being a director of one of the most unaccountable of all them, the Centre for Policy Studies. They have openly taken credit for this governments’ key mini-budget policies, and regularly appear on the BBC masquerading as impartial, when they are anything but.
October 6, 2022
Liz Truss isnāt afraid to speak the language of Conservatism ā and it is kryptonite for the Left.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/06/liz-truss-isnt-afraid-speak-language-conservatism-kryptonite/
A good item Sir John
“The world does not owe the UK a living. We are too dependent on imports and therefore on the goodwill and loans of foreigners. The new UK can be a shining example of enterprise and freedom, where people will want to invest more and create more jobs, because we have a government that believes in the power of enterprise to help people to more prosperous lives.”
However, this Left is not just in the LAB,Lib,SNP scrapy coaltition – but is walking around proporting to be Conservative
October 6, 2022
Sir John
Thank you for your unflagging efforts, but I have to ask why, after twelve years of conservative government, the UK has the highest carbon taxes in the G20.
I hope that you can allow this link to the relevant 2021 OECD report:
https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/carbon-pricing-in-times-of-covid-19-what-has-changed-in-g20-economies.htm
October 6, 2022
Mr. Redwood, itās too late. Leakers, a bakery in Bridport for generations is closing down next week. 9 people to lose their jobs. Business taxes lost etc. The Market House pub and restaurant is also shutting its doors.
So, before the energy rises bite, the inflationary increases already suffered are putting businesses out of business. And this in the first week of October. Heaven knows how many businesses will be left standing by the New Year.
Well done! Your government of the last 12 years has been such a wonderful success. What, if anything, have you achieved or done right? Taxes at their highest for 70 years giving us useless public services. You should all resign. Every last MP and come up with a proper way to run government.
October 6, 2022
Would you invest millions in automation billy when you had a plentiful supply of cheap labour?
October 6, 2022
Bravo! At least we have started fighting! Iām sick of just being rolled over! We need to abolish sanctions against countries w are NOT at war with and we CANNOT afford to fund other peoples wars!