This was an article commissioned by the Telegraph on Wednesday
Conservatives believe people should keep more of their own money to spend on themselves and their families. We want to help people on their individual journeys to success and greater prosperity. We want government to make life easier for all those who can make their own way in the world, with lower tax rates and sensible rules. We want to live in a successful economy where low tax rates generate more tax revenue from the extra incomes and business they bring. Then we can be generous to those who need help and cannot earn their own living and we can afford great quality public services. We want everyone to have the opportunity to own their own home. We would like many to own a share in the business they work for or be able to set up a business of their own. Government should not tell people how to live their lives, but should help people with great education and with public order.
     It was refreshing, exciting to hear the new Prime Minister put all this across in the language of today’s age and for today’s challenges. How right she was to draw the stark contrast between those who glue themselves to the roads to stop people getting to work or to prevent ambulances getting to patients, and those who leave home early in the dark to ensure the rest of us have milk, bread and emergency services that morning. How correct to contrast the politicians who want to prevent us getting out more of our own gas with the needs of the rest of us who have gas boilers and want to keep our families warm over the winter.
     There is indeed an anti growth coalition. It is a coalition which despises all those who go out to work in the private sector to make and deliver life’s necessities and to keep our utilities running. It sees the businesses that supply us with clean water, heating fuels and broadband as the enemies that should be taxed more then nationalised. When they were nationalised they were starved of investment as it all had to compete with the cash demands of the NHS. The anti growth protesters seek to impede or prevent new homes, new factories and above all new energy supplies , whilst backing ever more illegal economic migrants who of course will need new homes, and more utility supply to have a decent life here.
      The protesters who try to disrupt the lives of those who work hard to keep our society functioning are backed by an army of left wing party politicians. They include the nationalists that want to bust our country apart. They use devolved government not to help their electors but to grandstand against the national government. They include the Lib Dems who do not ever want us to get out more of our own oil, gas or coal. They blocked more nuclear power as well when in government . They would leave us without heating or hot water on days when the wind does not blow. They of course include the Labour party, bound to the Trade Unions who think now is a good time to engineer as many strikes as possible. These strikes on the railways threaten their own members jobs. The railway needs more passengers, not less, to generate the extra fare revenue to be able to pay their wages. Striking means more people do without the trains so more trains run empty yet the Unions expect yet more subsidy for a service people do not want to use or are prevented from using
     To Liz Truss Conservatism is allied to freedom and fairness. She is right that we need a new balance in policy between those who do and those who complain. We need to let all those who turn up for work, undertake the training and look for promotion to keep more of what they earn. We need to say No, not give in, to all those who want to block every new private sector idea, impede the new investments, the new mines and gas wells, the new fields of food and new factories to make products for the NHS and other customers. 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.
F
October 7, 2022
Good morning.
Anyone who believes that work should always be made to pay gets my vote. But words are just words. What we need now are deeds. Apart from the non-story over the %45 tax rate and the governments embarrassing climb down due to non-conservatives in the your party Sir John, it seems to be trying.
And neither does the UK own it anything. Hence why I believe we need to end, or massively revise, Overseas Development.
Your fighting the good fight, Sir John. It is just such a shame that it has taken 12 years and 4 PMâs for it to finally permeate most, but alas not all (see above) of those in your party.
Let us hope it is not too late.
October 7, 2022
Work does indeed need to pay and by a decent margin over benefits. Why work 40 hours a week only to be 50p per hour better off after tax, NI, commuting, work clothes, lunches, student loans, pension contributions and child care costsâŠmany might as well not bother and spend more quality time with your children perhaps have another couple too. Many are behaving quite rationally given the idiotic system government has put in place.
October 7, 2022
Well said
Need to pay people decent wage. But at same time, we’ve lost our work ethic to a degree which is about working cause working is good for one! (And part of work ethic is trying to find a job you love but that requires a lot of effort and risk etc).
October 7, 2022
LL Actually those young people in my family who have gone to University and got medical degrees are much MUCH worse of than cousins who bred like rats on benefits.
Wages ARE chasing index linked benefits.
Reverse Darwinism.
October 7, 2022
+1
October 7, 2022
@Lifelogic
Maybe an answer is for the benefit claimants to receive their inflationary increase but to make all benefits taxable ?
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits
October 7, 2022
A Truss Tweet an hour ago ~ âWe have taken decisive action to support households and businesses with their energy costs â and weâre working to make sure the United Kingdom is never in this position again by tackling the root cause of the energy crisis. That means producing more energy here at home.â
âThe root cause of the energy crisisâ is net zero dear, great to hear you are going to ditch it. Ditch the CO27 attendance too & save the money and the wasted energy and hot air.
October 7, 2022
Lifelogic, the system is bonkers, but how would you do things better?
There is a basic amount people need to live on. Then there will always be a taper between this and the amount people can earn from employment. If you reduce the taper rate as you suggest, you trap many more people in the system and increase welfare costs. If you cut the basic amount, you put people into real poverty.
October 7, 2022
You can’t implement traditional Conservative policies when the formula for fighting elections is above all to appeal to the nastiest third of the electorate, because even those policies simply aren’t nasty enough for many of them.
You’re falling into The Despot’s Trap, that is, of being led by the mob, rather than having them follow you.
Just listen to Suella Braverman, for instance.
October 7, 2022
Your Labour needs more than this third you hate to vote for them in order to win.
So please keep on saying and doing what you do do NLH
The voters are watching.
October 7, 2022
MB,
Agreed ‘words are just words’.
Of equal concern is the lack of unity in the Conservative party. There is no guarantee that the party will always support this government and time is running out.
October 7, 2022
I do believe you are a true conservative, Sir John. Unfortunately, I also believe that the majority of your MP’s are not! Experience of your government, and the actions of the last 12 years prove me right. The majority of your party is anti-UK, anti-white, anti-conservative, pro-EU, pro-green, pro-socialist and too eager to appease every other country and every minority in existence, and please everyone but the Brits. We are just the cash cows to fund the largesse spent on everyone else. If we do finally have a genuine conservative for PM, will she be held back by the undemocratic non-conservative betrayers of the UK in your party. Will the benefit recipients gain more money from the government than the taxpayers who fund those benefits? Those in the private sector won’t be getting rises in line with inflation but will be expected to fund it for everyone else.
I also suspect there are some in your party/NHS management that are willing to sacrifice the elderly in our society to save money for and make room for the immigrants. Was it really an accident that covid sufferers were sent to care homes. Was it really necessary to impoverish pensioners while hurling vast amounts of money at dinghy ‘passengers’? I have direct experience of the NHS in our area ‘encouraging’ the elderly to refuse life saving and life extending treatment.
I wish I didn’t have to be so scathing and pessimistic about your party and your government, but you know to fix that, don’t you! Unfortunately, I doubt your party will even try!
October 7, 2022
Do they even have time to turn the tanker round before 2024? This even if they tried. Do we really have to the appalling policies of a Starmer/Sturgeon/Ed Davey Gov.?
Ed Davey, Cameronâs appalling energy minister whose policies are very much responsible for the current huge energy problems – far more so than Putin.
October 7, 2022
We are expecting power cuts this winter. I’ve worked in the industry for 40 years.
I’ve watched the conservatives over the past 12 years dismantle our power stations and fuel supply
All done at the already of the UN climate change lobby.
We are governed by a bunch of shysters who put ever other cause before protecting their own people.
You deserve to lose just on power cuts alone.
Predicted foe at least 5 years but just laughed off.
Answer build more useless windmills.
October 7, 2022
From a Q&A session with the Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar (currently the world’s largest producer of LNG):
Q:Do you think Europe will be able to wean itself off Russian gas?
A:No.They are going to have to come back.
Front cover of October’s Business New Europe Intelligence report:
“Energy Crisis:Europe’s Industry Shutting Down.”
October 7, 2022
Well said.
The last people on earth they care about are the “hard-working British families” they so like to patronise on the run-up to every General Election.
October 7, 2022
To signal the true change that will save the Tories in 2024 there needs to be hard action in the Channel migrants.
The Sun complains today that Liz Truss is silent on the issue.
October 7, 2022
Will the benefit recipients gain more money from the government than the taxpayers who fund those benefits? Those in the private sector wonât be getting rises in line with inflation but will be expected to fund it for everyone else.
This, Sir John is the messaging your party must adopt on benefits. Why should benefits recipients become relatively better than the non-benefit population? (the extra ÂŁ1,200 should be deducted from any percentage).
October 7, 2022
I believe benefit recipients should pay tax on their benefits, even if the total benefits have to be increased. It would ‘educate’ the benefit recipients as to how much tax is taken from the working population. Some families get an enormous amounts of benefits, far more than most people can possibly earn, and the tax liability would be enormous too. It would be a double edged sword, in that it may put them off work forever, but this could be overcome by removing unemployment benefits after say, 12 months, but retain the benefits that are available to workers. I know of many people who refused job after job because it was lower pay than their previous employment, even though they had received generous redundancy payments. They were not prepared to prove their worth to a new employer and gain merit rises. Meanwhile the government was paying them benefits, and even paying their mortgages so they gained a valuable asset at the expense of the taxpayer! I don’t know whether this still happens, but as many MP’s are talking about paying mortgages for benefit recipients than it probably is.
October 8, 2022
All benefits & benefits in kind including special tax reductions, social rent & subsidised rents should be added to a P11D even non-taxable benefits.
This data should be made available to those that are advised that of the need for increased benefits. This should be compared to wages available in the area. Then perhaps more rounded policy judgements can be made.
If mortgages are paid for benefit recipients then a first charge should be placed on the property for the assistance and be repaid before other capital payments are allowed.
We should close all tax exemptions for the uber wealthy not available to the proles. All should pay inheritance tax including the royals. Non dom exemptions and rules need to be abolished.
Suspend net zero and try leveling playing field between the plebs & plebs & elites.
October 7, 2022
Have you noticed how you can’t see what the benefit payments are per week now? The government hides them, you have to put in all your details first. ÂŁ24,180 for a single woman with a child (and that’s without all the extra free school meals, free school uniform, furniture for the house, extra UC for all sorts this year, extras for ADHD etc. more in London).
The NLW = ÂŁ18,500 for a 37.5-hour week.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation loves to give a minimum wage based on the whole of the UK regardless of the cost of rentals and housing around the UK. They say a single person needs to earn ÂŁ25,500 pa and a couple with two children ÂŁ43,400. So you can bet that’s what the benefits are paying.
October 7, 2022
I have to agree, and I believe the majority of people do to! Somehow the vast range of destroyers get their view extolled by media and allowed centre stage. ‘The majority of your party is anti-UK, anti-white, anti-conservative, pro-EU, pro-green, pro-socialist and too eager to appease every other country and every minority in existence, and please everyone but the Brits.’
How has this statement come to reflect your party so accurately Sir John?
There are terrible mistakes being made in Central Office, and within constituency member organisations when these fifth columnists are allowed to work their damage.
October 7, 2022
Shirley M
I can confirm your final point about encouraging elderly people to.refuse life extending treatment etc. Out of the blue, just after the start of the covid era, I had a phone call from my gp practice who asked me about my wishes if I should catch covid. Bearing in mind that I had no prior warning of this call, I was asked to decide if I want to be put on a ventilator if I needed one or if I wanted to be resuscitated if my heart stopped. I definitely got the impression I should say no to both as I am older and have a medical condition which means I am immunosuppressed. In my view, this kind of decision should not be an instant snap decision.
Sir John
Sadly, this morning the climate minister on Sky News stated that the government are strongly committed to net zero and are looking to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. He also said that The UK has a strong and diverse supply of energy. This rather destroys the notion of sensible government.
October 7, 2022
Cliff, I had an even worse experience with a new doctor at our practice. He asked me to attend an appointment to discuss my medication but in reality it was to ‘discuss’ a DNR. Very little discussion and no change to my medication (told me to take whatever I wanted!) but he was very aggressive about the DNR and made it sound like resuscitation would kill me anyway (no need for that as I would have agreed if he had been more pleasant about it) but he upset me so much and I felt I was being pressured, so I said I wanted to think about it. He then said he could sign it without my permission and he would if I refused! He set my health and mental state backward by a very good margin. I did get over it, but he put me under a lot of stress and made me very angry, which is counterproductive unless he actually WANTED my condition to deteriorate.
October 7, 2022
PS. I also received a letter from the NHS, saying that if I caught covid I ‘might’ be suitable for treatment (treatment not specified).
October 8, 2022
Shirley M
What a truly horrific story.
Is there any wonder so many of us are scared stiff of going into hospital?
October 8, 2022
Thanks Cliff. Fortunately, I have never ever been hospitalised, and would now do anything to avoid it.
October 7, 2022
“This rather destroys the notion of sensible government” Sensible Government? That would be nice for a change.
UK’s King Charles and Truss should attend Cop27, says the daft as a brush Alok Sharma So why on earth did Truss retain this deluded dope?
King Charles should keep out of politics especially on this highly political issue as:-
1. He is clearly completely wrong & deluded on Climate Alarmism as he is on Organic Farming, talking to plants, Quack Medicine and most other things.
2. He is a complete hypocrite on Climate Alarmisms spending over ÂŁ1million a year on personal private jets, helicopters, Aston Martins and vast sums heating huge palaces… this while lecturing others about their small old car they need to get to work or their weeks break in Spain
3. He should be completely above politics on all issues so as not to alienate people & especially this one.
4. His past warning “X months to save the world” etc. were proved to be totally wrong & complete B/S
5. The man has just two duff A levels (B & C History and French) and this from a very good & expensive school. Plus he read Arch. and Anth. So he really has not got a clue about energy, climate, engineering or physics.
We alas know what the dope “thinks” already – but surely he should at least shut up now. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt” Abraham Lincoln.
October 7, 2022
@Cliff.Wokingham
The “Climate Minister” is going show his support for net zero.
The Government has given us clue is in his title.
However, his reference to the UK’s “strong and diverse supply of energy” suggests the transition away from fossil fuels may be a matter of (sensible ?) timing.
We shall see.
October 7, 2022
Cliff W
According to Dr Mike Yeadon, an expert on respiratory diseases, being placed on a ventilator is the worst thing you can do if you have covid
October 7, 2022
Cliff
Agree with both of your Points,
An elderly family member was also asked similar questions about resuscitation, and they were very active at the time.
Clearly this Climate Minister is completely and utterly out of touch with reality, see my later post about useless Conservative Party Communication on policies over the past decades.
October 7, 2022
What good does a ‘Climate Minister’ do? We might just as well have a ‘Tides Minister’ to stand at the seashore like King Canute and tell the sea to go back.
October 7, 2022
A climate minster who was a Remainer. Having studied Philosophy and Law he no doubt has the technical and scientific/engineering knowledge to look after :
Net Zero Strategy, net zero (science and innovation), carbon budgets, low carbon generation, international energy, EU energy and climate, international climate change, hydrogen, carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), nuclear, nuclear supply chains, smart systems.
No wonder our energy policy is in such a mess and we continue along the technically impossible and hence economy destroying Net Zero Strategy until its inevitable collapse.
October 7, 2022
Cliff. My elderly neighbour was also asked to sign a DNR order by her GP.
October 7, 2022
This should indeed be the message of Conservatism but in their actions the Conservatives (under Major, Cameron, May and Boris with their appalling Chancellors) have endlessly increased taxes, borrowed and wasted money hand of fist, debased the currency, wasted billions, vastly increased misguided red tape & regulations, hugely increased the size of the largely unproductive (counter productive often) state sector, had daft employment laws and run an expensive, intermittent energy policy driven by a misguided unscientific religion.
There is indeed an anti-growth coalition but the Conservative party is one of the main drivers of this. Truss and Kwasi do say a few sensible things occasionally but no real action as yet to cut out any of this waste, deregulate or ditch the insanely damaging net zero agenda. We could easily have on demand electricity from coal at less than 10p a KWH even at current coal prices but Truss/Kwasi prefers to ban, tax, blow up power stations and rig the energy markets to kill this possibility and have unreliable energy at circa five times this figure. This exporting whole industries, jobs and increasing worldwide CO2 in the process (should that quite wrongly concern you)
I mentioned mortgage rates doubling yesterday. A couple of month back 10 year fixed mortgages were slightly under 2% now they are over 6% so actually over three times the rate not just double! So well done Sunak and Andrew Bailey with your vast currency debasing and gross economic incompetence. A ÂŁ500k mortgage now costs you ÂŁ200k more over five years ÂŁ20,000 extra per year (or ÂŁ55 every day). This will further push up rents too. Average take home pay for a dayâs work is only double this ÂŁ110.
Expensive money is hugely anti-growth and deters investment as does expensive energy.
October 7, 2022
+ 100
October 7, 2022
There is no anti-growth coalition, there are just self interested parties permitted to promote their own agenda.
With an 80 seat majority and after 12 years in government this should not be so. If our new PM wishes to change the status quo she should just get on with it over the next two years instead of making vacuous statements about enemies within. We can say that, she should just do something about it.
October 7, 2022
Have you observed the 80 seat majority, which is now just over 70? It never was prepared to let everything through that was conservative and in the antional interest. The majority is an unruly, disorderly rabble. Maybe Parliament being shut down did the damage as a huge number came in for the first time in 2019 and never learned the conventions of party behaviour.
October 7, 2022
The ÂŁ55 is also charged at weekends and the ÂŁ110 take home is only earned on weekday days! So even worse!
October 7, 2022
Where could you get ten years fixed for 2%? All three of my children could only get five years fixed.
October 7, 2022
HSBC, Virgin both had them until recently at 1.99% and 1.89% I think they were. Prob. restricted to low LTV of perhaps 60% or lower or similar.
October 8, 2022
agreed and many of the families now facing the horror might have good equity in their home.
October 7, 2022
Whilst I sympathise with these people whose mortgages are rising, it should be remembered that in the past they have been considerably higher and people should just bear in mind when taking them out that they can both increase and decrease. And what about the savers who provide most of the money for these cheap mortgages. They always seem to suffer rates well below the rate of inflation, both in good and bad times.
October 7, 2022
“We want government to make life easier for all those who can make their own way in the world, with lower tax rates and sensible rules”.
Sir John , can’t see how increasing the state pension age makes my life or many other peoples lives any easier.
I’m guessing you had the opportunity to retire and draw your pension at 65 should you wanted.Something you had, but deny others from doing.
Reply An MP cannot retire and cause a by election just because they have reached 65
October 7, 2022
Wasn’t my point, it was you had the opportunity to retire at 65 and take your pension, something you deny others.
Reply I made a promise to serve a 5 year Term so I could not retire at 65
October 7, 2022
reply to reply ….but the men in our age group did indeed have the option to retire at 65, although surviving on the state pension is a dire choice and always has been.
October 7, 2022
Will the state pension even cover your council tax & heating and lighting costs?
October 8, 2022
and running an old car, shopping in a supermarket etc.
A retirement to dream of…
October 7, 2022
Sir John a Link to your new pension rules showing you the changes from old to new.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.mypcpfpension.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/change-guide.pdf
October 7, 2022
The previous retirement age and pension was based on average life expectancy in the 1940s, and was anyway faulty, in that women tend to live longer than men.
In the C21st, we can all expect to live far longer, but frequently at a very high cost to the State/taxpayer, not just in terms of pensions, but also medical and social care.
Society needs to look again not just at the finances but also at the ethics of keeping alive, at huge expense, the growing number of us who are unproductive but voracious consumers.
October 7, 2022
‘ . . . the growing number of us who are unproductive but voracious consumers.’
Goodness, SM. That’s straight out of the WEF playbook (‘useless eaters’). Next thing you’ll be advising will be ‘Build Back Better’.
Great article, by the way, Sir John. And Ben Habib in an interview with Lawrence Fox on GB News last night described so accurately what the anti-growth coalition within the Government was all about. Ben Habib is very supportive of what Liz Truss is trying to do.
October 7, 2022
So you would abandon the elderly who have (most of them) paid into the system for 53 years, as I have, but do you have qualms about keeping disadvantaged babies/young people alive for maybe 50-60 years who have zero potential for working and/or living a self sufficient life, and will rely on care and medicines for the WHOLE of their lives, and their parents won’t be around long enough to care for them (if you had your way).
October 7, 2022
I too am a pensioner, Shirley, and I have the gravest of qualms about keeping the extremely sick babies and young people alive at all costs – to the taxpayer, that is.
And yes, I am also mother and a grandmother, with all too much experience of caring for close and dearly-loved relatives with severe genetic deformities/extreme old age/incurable disease.
October 7, 2022
As I believe you only get one go on this planet and then there is nothing I will be hanging on to every minute as a voracious but unproductive consumer. My family have been told that if my bottom needs wiping and my drool needs moping then that is what they shall do.
But then I have no assets so there is no benefit to them in me dying.
The ethics of keeping people alive are a different discussion if you believe there is a better place afterwards or you think you will come back as an oligarch.
October 7, 2022
I am not keen on outdoor ‘murdering cats’ , but the life of house cats must take some beating?
Oligarchs seem to die in rather odd circumstances.
October 7, 2022
Quite so. The state pension age was a con. It was never meant to cost anything, it was set at 65 because, actuarialy, men died at 65.
October 7, 2022
SM. Alas too many people are being kept alive when they themselves don’t want to live. It would certainly free up care home places and much needed NHS beds if people were allowed to end their lives when they felt they were ready. It’s just another area of our lives where government dictates. My cat had a clot which split a vessel in his aorta. He was in pain and one of his legs was affected. We had him euthenised as the vet said his prognosis wasn’t good . We don’t get that choice.
October 8, 2022
I suggest more and more people, even youngsters, find little to enjoy being alive. They look at the world around them and find small comfort.
October 7, 2022
@ Stephen Reay – the state pension age changes were prompted by the desire for gender equality and then took recognition of changes in life expectancy, all against a background of what was affordable.
Opting to acknowledge changes in facts and circumstances but to allow consequences only if they give rise to more largesse from the State does not seem sensible and will eventually see the perpetrators run out of other people’s money.
October 7, 2022
Gender equality was the ruse they just wanted to save money in effect another tax increase. You paid your NI and Tax in good faith but we now give you up to seven years less state pension back.
October 7, 2022
formula, my understanding was that it was an EU aim and target, some Countries like Denmark adopted early, but France kept it to 62 for both sexes.
In a couple of other Countries like Italy and Hungary, if you have contributed for 40-42 years so can retire. Surely that should have a bearing in the UK too even if they set it to 45 working years of contributions (not infill years or claimant top-up years).
October 15, 2022
Your own examples of Denmark, France, Italy and Hungary show that it was not so much an EU aim and target but clearly something made in the UK.
Macron right now would want to move the French retirement age from 62 to 64 or 65 with an awful lot of reactions from trade unions.
But as so often on this blog the EU is the big bad wolf used by hypocritical politicians to justify their decisions, and the good little piggies gobble up all their serving of Brexshit.
October 7, 2022
Nor can the country afford for one of the very few sensible and rational MPs, such as yourself, to retire before about 90.
October 7, 2022
however, I’d like to forcibly retire large numbers of existing Tory MPs.
October 7, 2022
Micky Taking
It is not only only the tories it should be applied across the whole of Parliament.
Too many not fit for purpose.
October 8, 2022
Agreed, there was a time when an Opposition carried out the function of pointing out the downsides to policy from the ruling party. It tried and often succeeded in reigning in the more extreme views and policies. More recently the ruling party has been trying to accommodate the extreme views of the Opposition.
On a path to madness.
October 7, 2022
If you can find any.
October 7, 2022
We cannot afford to support the number of people in this country retiring at 65.
I want to be supported by the state as early as possible by retiring (I will be claiming pension credits too) but I also appreciate that the country can afford what it can afford and people are living much longer (surely something to celebrate unless you need social care of some sort).
October 7, 2022
I reckon they screwed up on all their calculations going way back.
OA pension was only dreamed up because they wanted to pension off âunproductiveâ ageing farm workers. Having done that they proceeded to squander the receipts and now the coffers are empty.
Donât think people are living longer. The figures are distorted by infant birth/ mortality figures and the fact that people were driven off the countryside and into insanitary and unfamiliar industrial towns.
That was the FIRST industrial scam!
October 7, 2022
The pension was set up as a financial cushion to help when people were no longer able to work. Life expectancy has now increased dramatically as has a persons working life so why should the State pay you for a state assisted âholidayâ?
In any event you could structure a private pension to pay out at the age of 65 or earlier.
October 7, 2022
Rather nullified by the fact that school leaving age has increased and 50% ‘encouraged’ to go to university so many don’t start work until in their twenties. Many of the elderly today started work at 15, trained on the job, and paid into the system for many more years than the current generation. Those who received very generous public sector pension can retire at 50 on an extremely good pension and work part time for extra money, if they wish. Where is the equality? Why does the private sector keep being mugged?
October 7, 2022
Agree with all of this but I am just a bit concerned to read that she will :
1: Block an information campaign on saving energy ( which sames the country money?)
2: Cancels the obesity reducing measures which help the health of the nation and the NHS
3: Cancel the freeze on Civil Service recruitment ( it is overmanned already )
October 7, 2022
David Peddy
Only a bit concerned?
Not sending the right signals at all, bordering on frightening to where we might be really heading.
October 7, 2022
Just being polite !
October 7, 2022
David Peddy
Roger that.
What control you exercise so early in the morning.
October 7, 2022
you won’t get support on here like that!
October 7, 2022
If people want to save energy there are lots of sources of information. Get led lighting, switch things off, heat only one room, wear more clothes⊠It you want to lose weight just eat half as much as you do now until you have done. Yes the civil service is hugely overmanned (mainly overwomanned) and hugely over paid, misdirected and over pensioned too.
October 7, 2022
Intelligent people like you know about LED, heat one room etc . about reducing portion size ( worked for me !) but not all the public are *(self evidently ) as intelligent as you ( or we would not have these problems and be talking about it here ! )
At least we are on the same page with the Civil Service !
October 7, 2022
Half portion sizes works for anyone & everyone but only if they actually stick to it!
Also no point in insulating a whole house if you can only afford to heat part of it!
October 7, 2022
LL,
” If you want to lose weight just eat half as much as you do now until you have done.”
How did you come up with this one. Viz Top Tips?
October 7, 2022
D P
Indeed not only do we not have enough real conservatives in the Party, as many others have outlined, they also have a huge problem with communication and the promotion of their polices.
For more than a decade the Conservatives have lacked a real and sensible communicator of their polices for the future.
We do not want modern spin doctors and policies made up in panic on the back of a fag packet, we need properly thought out policies, which are simple to understand, which show direction, political savvy in its presentation, and encourages work and it’s rewards.
October 7, 2022
David, wouldn’t ‘an information campaign on saving energy’ be free on the BBC/C4 anyway? I thought both had a social remit to fulfil.
October 7, 2022
What we want is not always what we get. The vast majority of the present term of politicians leave a lot to desire.
For a lot of us the old school, statesman type politician you can count on one hand. Far too many sucked into the big picture of STW religious sect and totally adrift from what is really needed and essential for this country to be really successful again.
The fault has to lie with central office as they I assume dictate the criteria for the selection process. Too much useless talk, not enough action and commitment to the peoples real problems just endless sticking plaster solutions.
It’s not your beliefs or policies that really count. It’s having the people dedicated to living by and implementing them, with no quarter given.
October 7, 2022
All well meaning but in the real world the party in government died in 1990 and now longer exists. The party today is a woke movement that works with Labour and its unionised and ideological public sector to impose totalitarian progressive ideology to reshape this nation and its people. In effect Neo-Marxism whose purpose is to remodel our world, our minds and destroy our freedoms
Voting Tory is an act of self-harm and merely endorses the cancer of Labour’s identity politics ideology. Both parties are deliberately and perniciously strangling our freedoms to preserve their political fortunes. They’re working together. It’s a game to them that is having terrible consequences in the real world across all areas of life
The Tories aren’t even competent on the economy and the promotion of the private sphere which was always their trump card
So John can argue all he likes but he knows in his heart that he represents a party that has through appeasing the powerful Left totally undermined our freedoms, our morality and our future and condemned us all to collectivist, Maoist infused environment
October 7, 2022
Yes DOM, I too, see it that way.
October 7, 2022
I found this on the conservative foundation website â
ââ We believe it is our duty to uphold Conservative values:
Our individual freedoms and right to social justice are respected and upheld
Our right to free enterprise and industry is protected and encouraged
Our dignified institutions and traditions are safeguarded and carefully maintained
October 7, 2022
DOM, I thought you were exaggerating until I just saw the headline news article in the Guardian saying IDS and other Tory MPs are warning Truss she must put out a ÂŁ15m leaflet telling people to cut down on their energy use.
Truss wants to Trust people to help themselves, and rather than a new public information campaign, the government is looking at âsignpostingâ existing guidance. Seriously do people want written instructions on how to wipe their bums clean? Oh, and wash your hands after you go to the toilet. This is where years of extra education have got us, is it?
1) Why isn’t the public broadcaster the BBC putting regular reminders about the people in their Eastenders shows and other programming? Isn’t that what usually happens, Coronation Street too?
2) Energy companies must always correspond with customers; their bills could remind people that using energy wastefully could result in power cuts this winter. Although I guess with them being private enterprises, they quite like the idea of people wracking up extremely high bills.
October 8, 2022
Why put out a leaflet – the next bill will be much more effective.
October 9, 2022
MT, well it might save them money in the long run if the energy companies do this because of all the people theyâll have to pursue in the small claims court and cut off otherwise with all the resultant negative headlines about them.
Have you noticed this big push on air fryers theyâre being advertised everywhere but their energy use is never mentioned. Some of them cost from ÂŁ100 to ÂŁ300 so how much per year do they actually save over a microwave for example.
October 7, 2022
The Anti-Growth Coalition is bigger than you think
Green NGOs, academia, ESG corporations and the IFS â Liz Truss left critical parts of it out of her speech
Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph today.
The Tories have been in power for twelve years. They have surely been the biggest and most damaging driver of the Anti-Growth Coalition. It is actions the count Ms Truss & not hollow words. You still cling to the insanity net zero, taxes are still increasing, interest rates and gilt yields have tripled, government waste is huge and appalling. The Covid lockdowns were idiotic and counter productive. Yet despite all this taxation these public âservicesâ are generally dreadful and incompetent – the NHS kill tens of thousands, transport, education, the criminal justice system, our joke police forceâŠall are, in general, dire and misdirected.
October 7, 2022
The pension was set up as a financial cushion to help when people were no longer able to work. Life expectancy has now increased dramatically as has a persons working life so why should the State pay you for a state assisted âholidayâ?
In any event you could structure a private pension to pay out at the age of 65 or earlier.
October 7, 2022
Of late life expectancy has declined rather.
October 7, 2022
Maybe a minimum contribution period would be fairer? Lots of this generation don’t start work or contribute till their early twenties. If they did 53 years work (as I did) they would need to work well into their seventies to make things equal.
October 7, 2022
If that was the case then why do we have to pay national insurance towards our pensions @ NigL
It is earned money. Agree that potentially the age could be raised so you get out what you put in
October 7, 2022
So youâre saying we havenât had a Conservative Government for the past decade.
October 7, 2022
Not since Thatcher and even she made huge errors.
A workforce of over 27,000 are now supporting HS2’s construction, spread across 350 sites between London, the Midlands and the North West.
So that is 27,000 builders, engineers, project managers, lawyers etc. who could be doing something productive instead of building this pointless white elephant and doing economic and environmental net harm. Well done Cameron, May, Boris, Truss(?)âŠ
October 7, 2022
Not since John Major and the party ditched Mrs Thatcher in 1990 and even she made huge errors. Appointing the dope Major as Chancellor and letting him join the ERM, closing many Grammar schools, the EU treaties without even any referendumsâŠ
October 7, 2022
but apart from all that, how was it for you?
October 7, 2022
I see that Macron is back in the friend category according to the media.
The jury is out on that one. Let’s wait and see if he can have an impact on the dingy invasion. That’s what friends do they support one another.
His past performance is nothing to go by
October 7, 2022
@ turboterrier – Macron’s redesignation, inappropriate and dangerous, was made by L. Truss herself.
What outrageous concessions has Macron been given for him to agree to act on the dinghy invasion? Fishing licences in perpetuity, massive subsidy for French-built nuclear power stations, compliance with his European Political Community aims, capitulation to the Evil Empire over Northern Ireland? Perhaps not, as he may have been getting all those anyway.
October 7, 2022
formula57
You are correct in what you have highlighted and yes the concern is those areas you mentioned have I suspect been discussed to the French advantage or promised to be handed over. What the hell she went there for in the first place is questionable?
October 7, 2022
From the Irish News editorial today:
https://www.irishnews.com/opinion/leadingarticle/2022/10/07/news/editorial_scene_set_for_protocol_progress-2852590/
“Mr Bakerâs remarkable public apology for past behaviour towards Ireland and the EU has also helped change the mood, as will Mr Varadkarâs admission yesterday that the protocol is a âlittle too strictâ.
The scene has certainly been set for constructive negotiations, with the landing zone widely expected to be a relaxation of checks on goods from Britain that remain in Northern Ireland.”
Compare that with the much wider demands of the UK government as stated here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution
Even on that one point:
“Why we need to change the Protocol”
“The Protocol treats goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland as if they were going to another country.”
And it will still do that even if some of the EU checks are relaxed.
Another Tory cheat is on the way.
October 7, 2022
Geopolitically, Macron is in trouble-he is losing Francophone Africa to Russia;first Central African Republic,then Mali,now Burkina Faso.
There is speculation that Niger will be next.Amongst other things,Niger’s uranium mines supply more than half of the needs of France’s nuclear power plants.
October 7, 2022
He could stop it overnight if he accepted the migrants immediate return but he chooses to use it as a political bargaining chip. France is no friend to the UK and never will be.
October 7, 2022
+1 Christine, and the name of the new ‘cooperation ‘European Political Community’ is enough to scare me away.
October 7, 2022
@turboterrier, without the French States semi-nationalised power company controling the UK infrastructure we would be without electricity. Prices are kept high in the UK so as to be able to keep Macron in power by subsidising the French electorate at the expence of the UK consumer. Wierd. Upset Macron and he will pull the plug so to speak, the UK Government sold him everything to do with our security and sustainability. The UK has no alterantive but suck it up and take the punishment so to speak, which could also be reasoned as to what Sir John is infering when he suggests security and sustainability needs to be returned to the UK not kept at bay as the left leaning growth deniers that are fighting everyones future.
October 8, 2022
Then the solution is nationalization and rapid build out of alternatives including coal & gas in the short run.
October 7, 2022
You say âwe have a government that believes in the power of enterprise to help people to more prosperous livesâ. Do they actually believe in this? â Well perhaps, but a belief of itself does nothing. Sensible actions are what is needed. Half the size of the state, ditch net zero, cut taxes, make work pay, a bonfire of red tape, cut out the vast government waste, get real and fair competition in energy, healthcare, transport, broadcasting, banking, housing, education⊠relax planning, cull the pointless degrees and soft loans for them, stop the duff and dangerous vaccinationsâŠ
October 7, 2022
All good ideas LL, falling on deaf ears, unfortunately.
October 7, 2022
Hundreds and hundreds of repetitive posts zero solutions and no political antennae plus as we see today, misogyny.
For all your ranting about PPE degrees etc, maybe you should have learned âthe art of the achievableâ
October 7, 2022
Misogyny? So is stating the fact that the state sector has far more women employees than men Misogyny?
“More women work in the public sector compared with men; 35% of workers are men and 65% are women, whereas the private sector is made up of 58% men and 42% women”. Figs from the ONS.
October 7, 2022
@Lifelogic, all sensible but BJ signed us up to race to the bottom than no other sane nation despite meely words is intending to compete in.
Remember bonfire of the QUANGO’s a small state, sorting the NHS, all requiring tough action by Government – lets punish the People on trivia then they will think we are doing something. A 70 year high for taxes is not hurting those that introduced them.
October 7, 2022
I wonder how many of your fellow Conservative politicians would agree with this? Sadly, I don’t think it’s enough to carry much of this through under this Parliament.
October 7, 2022
They donât agree because Conservatism, if it ever existed in the form often quoted in this blog, was seen as ânastyâ so has moved to the left, indeed May and Johnson could be classed as Social Democrats.
The Left has weaponised the word ârichâ as they have with the âNHSâ and Truss is the first leader of the Torys with the courage to champion wealth creation and retention and as we see even from some of her own MPS she is accused of moving Right. She did of course sit on her hands during Borisâ reign so even her âconversionâ could be seen as coming from a âchancerâ
Add the last 12 years of Tory rule as a metaphor for visionless incompetency, havenât got the miners this time to blame for blackouts and you have a recipe for political annihilation.
October 7, 2022
Good article. Meanwhile Ms Truss has been talking to Macron.
More talk of reducing the illegals crossing the channel! How many times have we heard that! How much have we already paid the French? The result? More boats with more illegals.
Still talk of limiting temperature to 1.5 degrees, in other words, more NZ fantasy. More wind turbines in the N Sea, so compounding the already failed policy.
When the last Brit leaves, there will be no lights to turn off!
October 7, 2022
+1
Blow out the candle?
Looking at your NZ (Net Zero) made me think illegal thoughts.
A couple of letters missing?
October 7, 2022
Sir John, your Party abandoned the message of Conservatism decades ago. A minority of so-called Conservative MPs believe in the principles you set out; the majority are LibCONs and GreenCONs who support the lefty policies and green lunacy we’ve had thrust down our throats for the past 12 years of supposedly Conservative Governments.
The last people on earth whose lives you seek to improve are the native peoples of these islands. You’d rather shovel our money at foreign nations run by corrupt people who refuse to use their own money for the betterment of their own people. Or at corrupt foreign and/or Globalist Institutions who then use that money to make our lives worse. Or at immigrants, especially if they are criminal migrants who break the law just entering our country…. before they go on to break many more laws.
The country has voted Conservative for 12 years. And now, after 11 years of BluLabour we’re finally told we will have a Prime Minister who will govern as a Conservative, and the legions of LibCONs and GreenCONs on the Conservative benches are doing their level best to stop and get rid of her.
October 7, 2022
@Donna +1
October 7, 2022
This morning I’m struggling to understand Liz Truss’s objection to a public information campaign encouraging energy efficiency this winter. And I’m also struggling to understand why the BBC can’t run the campaign at ZERO cost, across its fifty channels!
P.S. But pleasing to see JRM plagiarising your argument that home-grown oil & gas makes more C02-footprint sense than imports.
October 7, 2022
@Sea_Warrior, It would be a BIG waste of taxpayer money. Those that ‘think’ already comply with everyones asperations. The others just dont care and wouldn’t engage, pouring money down the drain for the sake of proper-gander and virtual signalling – not good. To get taxes down and get the economy moving sustainable, we therefore need to stamp out unadulterated waste
There is no such thing as zero cost at the BBC, you compolsarily have to pay for their political views but have no say in how they are formed.
October 7, 2022
Plagiarism or just commonsense?
October 7, 2022
The cost to the taxpayer? Why tell people to use less gas and electricity when they already are? Anyway, the publicity from the media kicking up about her not spending millions on a leaflet, should do the trick for anyone who hasn’t twigged yet.
October 7, 2022
May I remind your party that it has an 80 seat majority!
Conservatism is about freedom to make your own choices because less has been legislated for or against. That should cover, gas and energy production, taxes, education, further education and identity.
Where Conservatism should be interventionist is in defence of the realm and law and order, Property and physical self should be sacrosanct, writing and spoken words should be policed by the civil courts.
Keep it simple stupid.
Lose much of the statute book.
October 7, 2022
A bonfire of vellum!
October 7, 2022
+1
October 7, 2022
The life mapped out above would be ideal.
And when things were more like that they were FAR better by any objective standard.
Who in their right mind wants to be wholly owned by debt? Who really wants to be economically inactive?
The question isâŠ.who allowed, nay pushed things to this near commie existence and WHY?
October 7, 2022
This is more accurate from the Torygraph:
Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have driven our economy off a cliff
PM and Chancellor are wedded to a disastrous ideology, with the damage likely to be felt by working people for years to come
October 7, 2022
Complete nonsense but I’m afraid the truth is worse.
T&K may have have been completely tone deaf in what they announced recently but they are certainly not responsible for what’s happening currently. We (and the rest of the West) have been busy digging holes for ourselves for decades but have speeded up the hole enlargement progrmme over the last fifteen years. Everytime there was any sort of economic glitch, governments printed money (QE) and have acted to keep interest rates on the floor. There has been no strategic energy policy, here or in Europe
We are now nearing the Great Unwinding – where the Central Banks ability to ‘print’ no longer exists and the asset bubbles are going to pop! We are going to have a very hard time going forward and Truss & Kwarteng will no doubt get blamed for it all (as you have just done).
Whatever you think of L&K I’d suggest that anyone who owns anything (a pension and property for instance) supports them, because however much you might dislike them now, you would certainly hate Starmer and Reeves a great deal more. The printing presses (QE) are now permanently broken and higher taxes and wealth confiscation will be the only route open to Labour to fund it’s Socialist policies.
October 7, 2022
Why is common sense called ideology?
Did you react like this to the shutting down of the country for two years, to Net Zero, to the splurge on the gas bills, to the sanctions and weapons for the Russian war? Have you reacted at all to what the Bank of England has been getting up to ever since 2008? And in particular 2020-21?
October 7, 2022
Sir John,
In two years there will be a new government. Unless there are major changes in effectiveness, not just more words, assertions and hot air then it will not be Conservative. If, as seems likely, people forget the past and decide to ‘give the other lot a chance’ there will then be five years of asset destruction, productivity collapse and a further descent towards poverty. This likely but not inevitable, not if your party faces reality.
We do not need HS2. We do not need the new generation of EPRs and cannot afford to continue paying for the renaissance of French nuclear capability. We do not need, cannot afford and will rebel against onshore wind turbines and huge solar farms.
We need cheap reliable energy, not in ten years when the first SMR comes on stream but as soon as possible. Thanks to breath-taking incompetence over decades our needs cannot be met.
When in doubt tell the truth and face the music while trying to reduce the damage. That can start now or in seven years when the next government’s dreams and illusions meet the Gods of the Copybook Headings.
JF
October 7, 2022
so what do you propose? Turn off all heating, eat only cold food, walk/cycle everywhere?
October 7, 2022
‘livin the dream’
October 7, 2022
You cannot blame others. Itâs your party that has brought forward the unobtainable net zero targets, introduced the stupid re-wilding initiatives, failed to stop the illegal immigration, issued over a million visas in the last year, enforced the unnecessary costly lockdowns during covid, allowed political correctness that enabled child abuse to flourish, introduced the modern slavery act that allows illegals to remain in the country, signed the atrocious withdrawal agreement, threatens freedom of speech with your on-line safety bill, increased taxes to their highest level in 70 years. The list is endless and others may wish to add to it in the comments so others understand the level of self-inflicted harm politicians have caused us.
You should all hang your heads in shame for the damage you have inflicted, and continue to inflict on the British people.
October 7, 2022
One more thing: the abject failure to reform Brown’s tax system. A start has just been attempted, 12 years late, at which the onslaught of opposition from the media and others should have been met by cohorts of Conservative MPs going out to explain why a simpler tax system is better for the whole country. But it wasn’t. Just as they were too weak and feeble to go out and counter the lies against Boris. Only JRM did that. Mrs T could not have done it by herself. Her MPs robustly advanced and defended the policies – though there were a fair few backstabbers as well.
October 7, 2022
Christine :
Agreed
I am beginning to wonder if the change of Conservative Party leadership is not a carefully crafted long-term plan to delay the implementation of manifesto promises combined with the implementation of anti-British, economy destroying policies.
Just before leaving :
Mrs May signed us up to the UN Global Compact on Migration, the Modern Slavery Act and Net Zero by 2050.
Mr. Johnson gave us the communist (SAGE/Susan Michie) driven unnecessary lockdowns, ramped up Net Zero, encouraged illegal immigration of young men of fighting age with no ID with free accommodation, ÂŁ40/week pocket money and the freedom to roam our streets, and issued 1 million visas.
The new PM is still committed to the unilateral economy destroying Net Zero wild goose chase masquerading as âsaving the planetâ.
âMeet the new boss, same as the old bossâ
October 8, 2022
I was thinking just the same. It’s like a relay race to get us to their goal of destroying the Britain we love. The baton is passed on to a new Prime Minister, giving us hope that policy will change, only for us to not only get more of the same but destructive policies on steroids.
October 7, 2022
Sir John is100% loyal to the Tory party whatever it does or allows, thinking he can change things. If he tried on all this he failed – how much did he support? How are we, the long standing livers here, and how is our freedom protected?
October 7, 2022
Very true. What an appalling list! The trouble is there are so few sane MPs, and they have – apparently – little influence. Added to which the FPP electoral system locks out any contender political parties.
October 7, 2022
Christine. In other words exactly what Labour would have done. Oh boy. Can you imagine how much money they will be throwing at the actively unemployed? It will break the country.
October 8, 2022
years of Tory misrule is now feeling like ‘ breaking a butterfly on a wheel’.
October 7, 2022
the real success of the west over the soviet bloc was the virtuous cycle of consumers with individual freedom constantly optimising their buying choices, changing supplier as better competitors emerge, forcing suppliers to constantly up their game. this dynamic forces continual closure of the weakest suppliers, provides incentives and rewards to those taking the risk to innovate and provide different & better services.
it is not the quality of the senior execs in the private sector which makes it better than the public sector, rather it is the persistent ever changing competitive pressure from others to provide better service to your customers, and the fact that the customers can move supplier easily (with no need for complaints process to work, or to need to complain to politicians).
what the public sector gets wrong is the “take it or leave it” approach to the customers and their staff, the monopoly behaviour, the lack of individual choice, the lack of reward or incentives to improve or innovate.
this is why the bigger the proportion of the national income spent in the private sector the more efficient, and higher quality, goods and services will be, and thats why we need to shrink the public sector and hand more money to individuals to spend as their freewill determines.
this is the heart of the argument that should be used to demolish the left wing.
October 7, 2022
Focusing on just money is a modern heresy of true Conservatism (it’s more a kind of an overly individualistic kind of Liberalism).
Conservatively-speaking, True Conservatism, of course, involves money (and as explained by the Telegraph) but is also about love of Family Values / Patriotism / Love of Culture and Civilisation and so where Conservatism isn’t just about Politics but also about Education and the Arts and the Media and so on / and Values in general of Work Ethic and Sense of Personal Responsibility of Men being Men and Women, Women – rooted in our Judaeo-Christian values and the best of our Greco-Roman heritage. The kind of thing Edmund Burke would advocate.
That is true Conservatism at least from a Conservatively Conservative position!
October 7, 2022
This Conservatism isn’t just the Conservatism of people such as Edmund Burke, but also of Jane Austen (whose family-background was from the following social background: Merchants / Gentry / Army / The Church / Land Owners / The Arts).
Jane Austen and her world and values is a perfect example of British Conservatism – what it means to be a true, Traditional Conservative!
(Where as modern Conservatism is moving more and more into the world of Ebenezer Scrooge at the beginning of the story: money, money, money – and how this obsession with money as opposed to work ethic and how money should be our servant not the other way around – destroys him – until he is given a second chance).
October 7, 2022
+many
I love that!
Brilliant!
October 7, 2022
Liz Truss has reportedly called for European ‘solidarity’ on migration. This is the very last thing we want, it is the EU who welcomed them in and threaten any member that won’t go along with the agenda. Angela Merkel has just been given an award for opening the gates. Now Truss and Merkel have promised to tackle the ‘criminal gangs’, this is pointless without confronting the criminality of the migrants themselves. If every migrant was immediately returned to France without involvement of lawyers the gangs would not be able to make money and the crossings would cease.
October 7, 2022
It is particularly pointless going after the cirminal gangs, because the criminal demand is so great that others always spring up to supply it. Until politicians stop calling the cirminal demand “vulnerable” and “desperate” it will never be stemmed.
October 7, 2022
Much to like in your post but I’d suggest that returning as many dinghyists as possible directly to their country of origin would be more effective. Albania: so dangerous that Saga offers our seniors holidays there.
October 7, 2022
Paying your own way.
I have always thought that by allowing those who can and want to pay for First Class tickets, private schools, health care and whatever else, FREES up and improves any govt provided services.
This ghastly obsession with dumbing down to achieve some quasi equality has helped no one!
October 7, 2022
Don’t forget this Tory governments obsession with social-engineering
October 7, 2022
Excellent article yesterday Sir John and as always like a breath of fresh air to cut through after recent conservatives wading through treacle and fog.
IMHO the ultimate holy grail for Britain is this:-
“It is impossible for anyone to work and save money here”.
That’s the answer I got back in 1970 from someone joining the so called “brain drain” exodus abroad. Margaret Thatcher and your own efforts helped to reverse this but recent it is still impossible to save money here for your future it seems.
The government spends eye watering mega amounts on mega projects that need funding by taxpayers on top of the moneypit NHS, Benefits etc.
October 7, 2022
What a wonderful post today, beautifully worded just like a Conservative manifesto from the 1970s or 1980s. A real nostalgia moment. What a shame it doesn’t express the government’s actual agenda on so many things that matter. The hope is, I’m sure, that Tories will rally round a message like this post and stop their infighting. I can see the political sense in this, but the situation isn’t really going to improve unless government supporters offer more confidence that measures being taken by Truss and her cabinet are going to make a difference. Rees-Mogg approving a power station that will come onstream in 18 years time is OK for the longer timescale, but that step should’ve been taken a long time ago. The question for right now is what this government can do to ease tensions and speculation on energy markets. Unless that challenge is accepted, I see no end to the crisis for the foreseeable future.
October 7, 2022
âGovernment should not tell people how to live their livesâ
Law instructs not what to do, but what NOT to do. It is essentially a list headed: DONâT!
Instinctively children know what is right. Good parents guide their growing into fine quality citizens.
Individuals are free to make their own choices but Govt does have to prevent them from harming others. Often that does involve telling them how to live their lives. Telling them in advance is better than punishing them after irreversible physical harm is done and imprisoning them for life.
However, if someone merely âinsultsâ someone they usually harm themselves with their loss of self-respect.
October 7, 2022
The rail unions have been provoked after three years of pay freezes, which they accepted responsibly but for which has gone unacknowledged. They see rail directors raking in literally millions in bonuses and their companies billions in profits during the pandemic whilst tickets rise in line with RPI which means that staff wages aren’t the inflationary component.
Rail workers (already on the most erratic and arduous shift patterns in the country – booking on or off at literally any time day or night, with three hours’ short notice movement, up to ten hours a day and up to thirteen days without a break) are expected to accept worsening and already tough flexibility and job losses in return for what amounts to a below inflation pay increases.
When – in our rail history – has an intercity driver been expected to operate Driver Only (guard-less) ? Expect trains to be stopped mid section whilst the driver goes back to release someone locked in a toilet.
This is called ‘modernisation’ in Tory speak.
Tories like Uber conditions, no pensions, no annual leave.
Tories like mass immigration and the inevitable ‘modern’ slavery it brings (growth, you see.)
There is nothing modern about what the Tories want. They want the dark ages – many of them even want us to go back to windmills and man powered transport.
October 8, 2022
If working conditions and pay are so wretched, please resign – my son would rather like to take the job!
October 8, 2022
Who can afford the train? or wants the to and fro the stations, anti-social passengers and delays, cancellations ( no automatic refunds). Never mind strikes. Robot cars cant come soon enough.
October 7, 2022
” … to the Trade Unions who think now is a good time to engineer as many strikes as possible.”
Sir
On behalf of the taxpayer, this is a battle which the Government cannot afford to lose.
Please do not lose.
October 7, 2022
Good morning Sir John
A good item as usual. Michael Jackson many years ago many years ago also summed life’s situation up so well (para)âIf you wanna make the world a better place, start with the man in the mirrorâ
The danger to the world are those that think they are âowedâ, suffer with delusions of âentitlementâ, then when they donât like an opposing view seek to have it âcancelledâ. – The removal of understanding and tolerance.
It all start to go wrong with the well meaning request and wish to reduce the impact from one thing or another when it reaches Parliament. The âLeftâ coalition jumps in for no other reason than the next election and ego, with no consideration on how to pay for this new aspiration. We the people can have everything but first the money needs to be in the bank, extra taxes is simply regression, decline and removal of ability to respond to future needs. While earnings from endeavours continues to open and refresh the future.
October 8, 2022
Perhaps every time a spend decision is made. The law should require the HMG to specify which tax group that are likely to pay it. If not they should be legally obliged to state this will be paid by the inflation tax.
October 7, 2022
Yes to the Conservatism you advocate. It agrees with what I have always understood it to be. We have theorised and agreed on what it is, it only remains to implement it.
Those who know what it is are largely outside the parliamentary party where I judge one third agree, one third are waiting for the tide, and the last third are positively anti, the lib dem trojan horse. As far as we can it is down to voting conservatives to make it clear that this last third have no future. The Brutus Gove should be consigned to wherever the Heseltines and Majors politically reside.
From now on the driving force should be implementation with little concession. There is no halfway house for the NIP, illegal immigration or failed assylum, the drive for our own independent power from our own resources, and a taxation book that drives, encourages and imports enterprise. It is only by creating wealth that you generate sufficient national income to support those who from no fault of their own are incapable temporaly or permanently of looking after themselves. For sure you do not solve social problems by over taxing enterprise and handing it as of right to the impoverished. The impoverished only need the ladder out of the hole they find themselves in.
The future of Conservatism, as espoused in conference, is now down to implementation. Get it done.
October 7, 2022
The âanti-growth coalitionâ is of course a euphemism for the communist fifth column who are determined to destroy the UKâs economy.
They infest our Parliament, Civil Service, quangos and all our institutions and Iâm sorry to say also our Government and the Conservative Party.
Their biggest weapon to impoverish the UK is the unilateral CCA/Net Zero Strategy where the plan is to replace affordable and reliable fossil fuel power with expensive and intermittent renewables.
They continue to force through the introduction of impractical evs and heat pumps despite knowing there will be chronic shortages of electrical power, both in supply and distribution.
There is no climate emergency/crisis/breakdown whether anthropogenic or natural or both, and only the climate change deniers, such as the BBC, believe there has been no change to earthâs climate until the Industrial Revolution.
Since climate change is inevitable, it will be better for us for there to be warming rather than heading for another ice age. BTW, previous changes in average temperature show that most of the change occurs towards the poles with much smaller changes at the equator.
October 7, 2022
I share and applaud what you say, but from what became apparent over last weekend, it appears you are in a minority in the Parliamentary Conservative Party: who needs enemies with ‘friends’ like Mr Gove?
The Anti-Growth Coalition loves to tell us we are in a mess, but all it can find to offer as a solution, is to pour on the flames more and more of the mixture that got us there. At last we have someone who is offering something different and it looks as if the Conservative MPS are queueing up to prevent her succeeding.
October 7, 2022
I agree with the premise of the article, it failed to mention sovereignty
October 8, 2022
The article doesn’t mention sovereignty because it’s gone. The Tories will not bring it back. For example, you can see that countries like India, Turkey, Hungary and Serbia are able to follow their own energy policy, but we aren’t.
October 8, 2022
what a quaint, old fashioned idea.
October 7, 2022
I see the BBC has quoted Nadine Dorries as saying the Government has “lurched” to the right. It has not repositioned itself to the right nor moved to the right…it has “lurched”.
I suppose it would not be necessary for the Government to lurch to the right if it had not previously lurched to the left.
The difficulty for the Government is that, if it does not lurch to the right, then someone else might move in to occupy that space. The Conservative vote might then be split. A conundrum.
October 7, 2022
The Labour Party Conference has just passed a motion in support of PR being introduced in the UK for parliamentary elections although it has not yet been endorsed by Starmer. The FPTP system which was installed in countries belonging to the British Empire but only retained by the United States and India disenfranchises two thirds of the people in this country as their votes have no impact on the outcomes of elections.
The Tory Party pretended to offer a referendum on PR but actually only offered a version of AV which was designed to get the Liberal Party elected as a compromise between Tory and Labour when in fact the people would prefer a system that would allow them to vote in new parties with different policies instead of the same parties as before whose policies gyrate from left to right and back again.
October 8, 2022
Roy Jenkins recommended what he thought was the best system for PR which was a complicated mess failing to win votes itself.
The two thirds of the population you describe as disenfranchised do have an effect on the election. They vote for losers or donât vote at all.
October 8, 2022
Are you good at maths?
October 9, 2022
Computers solve calculations easily. Reasoning is more important. Opinions may vary.
October 10, 2022
To win a FPTP election, the winning party needs one more vote than the next highest; thus all the winning party’s votes greater than one more than the next highest vote do not count. All the votes of the losing parties do not count. As you may be aware, elections are won in a minority of seats described as marginal because in all the other seats an incumbent party will win by a margin which in many cases will be substantial, for example home counties versus old industrial areas. On this basis someone with a mathematical mind without doing computations by any means would be able to see that a figure of two thirds of votes having no effect on a election result would be reasonable.
reply All votes matter. seats that deliver gooD majorities need all those voters to vote
October 7, 2022
I support all written and wish Liz Truss our PM is strong and will stand against subversion and the plans of opposition, much too much of which is embedded in the present Tory party.
I was dismayed though when she gave in to the demand to reverse the 45% tax rate removal. I am also dismayed to read that her relevant minister emphasises his determination to move faster away from fossil fuels – which to means he will oppose fracking plans, which in any event are weak, allowing local opposition to prevent it.
We all know how grand plans are slow. What we need from her are many smaller individual changes in all manner of our lives, business and trade which have been controlling and impoverishing us, and urgently which can be implimented immediately.
October 7, 2022
And all of this HAS to be dubbed a âpipe dreamâ, a âlieâ because if people push for it and get Conservatism, they LOVE it as we all found out when Margaret Thatcher was so successful in delivering that âdreamâ. Residents of the Welsh Valleys turned Labour canvassers away saying âIâm just off on holiday to my apartment in Malagaâ – THAT IS WHAT KINNOCK SAID! It was an insurmountable problem for the socialists of all colours.
So a desperate effort to nip this Conservative Spring is underway. âToryâ MPs wading in – I hope their Constituency Committees are taking note!
I donât agree with everything the Truss Government is proposing, I am distraught that she wants to fund a war against a country with whom we have no quarrel. But Truss is our only hope. Farage says âitâs too lateâ – what does he want? NEVER rather than NOW? Because that is the option.
We absolutely must stop nit-picking and stand with Truss or we will all be BURIED TOGETHER!
October 7, 2022
Funny, someone who left a comment after mine has had their comment moderated đ€đ€đ€
October 7, 2022
and now for the world shattering news:
Scotland’s first minister has said she has still not had a phone call with Liz Truss more than a month after she became prime minister. Nicola Sturgeon (in case you couldn’t remember who is first minister) told the BBC it was “absurd” and “unprecedented” that she had yet to hear from the new PM. Ms Sturgeon had talks with Theresa May and Boris Johnson within days of them being appointed. Ms Truss branded Ms Sturgeon as an “attention seeker” who was best ignored during the Tory leadership contest.
Speaking to BBC political editor Chris Mason ahead of the SNP conference in Aberdeen, Ms Sturgeon said that other than “an exchange or two” between the two leaders at events following the death of the Queen, there had been no formal contact. She added: “I don’t know whether that is arrogance, lack of respect or insecurity or whatever it is. It’s not the right way to do government in a grown up way.
“So I hope we will see a change. I’ll do my best to work with Liz Truss as constructively (like I did with other PMs) as possible or whoever comes after because we can’t take anything for granted in UK politics these days.”
October 7, 2022
Clip the wings of the socialist BBC. Making it pay per view would be a help.
October 7, 2022
Iâm getting very tired of this line that the current Government needs to do more, spend more, say more coming from the left commentator on GB News. Remember on 1 Sept 2022 â Boris Johnson is facing a backlash after making a bizarre analogy about buying a new kettle in a speech on nuclear power.
Then this – « Times clueless Tories offered up awful budgeting tipshttps://www.thenational.scot âș politics âș 20142408.five-…16 May 2022 â With that in mind, here’s a round-up of all the best and worst Tory budget tips. Learn How to Cook. Just last week, Tory MP Lee Anderson »
The Tories are leaving working people without support the left are getting away with repeating by the media – what a blimin joke, ÂŁ20bn support on energy alone and counting, high % of people not paying any tax or national insurance at all so theyâre not even contributing to their precious healthcare.
So the Tories are clueless, arrogant, rich people being condescending when they offer tips on saving money. But if they donât theyâre not giving enough information. Iâve had ENOUGH of it, so other people must be too, I canât be the only one, thinking you lefties are taking the pi** now.
What did people expect when the world stood still for nearly two years dealing with covid, there were plenty of people wanting to stay in furlough forever, lock down restaurants and businesses for months on end, not re-open school after Christmas, thatâs what you end up with if you have a left wing leadership theyâre only interested in the public sector, more money, more holidays, less working days per week, more working from home, full sick pay for months on end, free rail travel for Londoners paid for by the subsidies from the rest of us plebs, we donât know all the benefits they donât seem to have to declare them or pay tax on them, we have to declare if we provide ÂŁ5.50 for a meal when staying away from home. Allowances for overnights havenât gone up in line with real inflation but who cares as long as the public sector are alright. Greedy private sector they say; giving, caring public sector – selfless people who actually get paid wages to volunteer đ !
October 7, 2022
SirJohn- See this word “freedom” and how it is sprinkled about? and just what type of freedom are we supposed to be looking for – freedom from what? am afraid you’ll have to be more specific because I feel free alway’s – but then on the other hand when it comes to “fairness” I see it differently – the two words fairness and conservatism hardly sit right together – so am afraid you’re wasting your sweetness again – what I think instead is another blogger up all night with this mad stuff going round and round in his head.
October 7, 2022
I just think twelve years of tory misrule – I think about ‘taking back control’ and what have we really achieved? When I look up the road I can see the food bank store closed at this time and then when I look the other way I see that forever small hotel now has also closed – closed down because of being unable to pay staff and now gone out of business and when I take a cycle through the countryside I can see the unpicked crops and veg in the field – the seasonal workers long since departed unwilling to come to where they might not feel welcome – and all by our own hand. Sad really
October 9, 2022
Piecemeal Gov.uk Of all ‘Temporary Worker’ visas, ‘Seasonal Workers’ have seen the greatest increase, from 2,493 in 2019 to 39,919 in the year ending June 2022 and currently represent 55% of all ‘Temporary Worker’ visas. 23/09/22
So nearly 40,000 seasonal workers on temporary visa came?
October 7, 2022
I am so sick of this treacherous and moronic government and you, Sir John, demean yourself by trying to be an apologist for it. Every single policy they are adopting is WRONG. Yes, we need tax cuts, but I have said time and again that what is needed is for the personal allowance to be raised to ÂŁ20,000. For Christ’s sake why won’t the government just do this? Cutting the basic rate is pathetic and as the IFS have said the real effect of the budget is to RAISE income taxes! Raising the personal allowance would genuinely CUT taxes and would benefit EVERYONE.
Or take business taxes. We need to encourage new investment, and the ONLY way to do that is to have FOCUSED tax cuts. We need to have a tax relief ‘super-deduction’ on ALL investment in new buildings, machinery and R&D. THAT is the ONLY policy that will boost business investment. So why is the government too STUPID to understand this?
Or take Northern Ireland, we now have a new betrayal in preparation, as we have on illegal immigration and on everything else. This government is doomed and deservedly so. It does not have an intelligent or patriotic bone in its body.
October 7, 2022
Recent matters likely affecting the populous during the end of 12 years of Conservative government:
If we end up with blackouts this winter, prepare for Lolabour government next time.
If mortgage rates do hit 6+%, prepare for Ditto.
If Lolabour get in, then really do prepare for an IMF bailout.
For those investing, pensions etc, I humby suggest you begin to move your investments much more internationallyâŠ.
October 11, 2022
Some would argue that the right want to cut public services and also cut taxes for the rich.
While the left want to redistribute wealth from the rich to the working and middle class.
Some conservatives look down on the poor.
Some on the left are angry at the rich.