The November borrowing figures make grim reading. The OBR was forecasting borrowing of Ā£99 bn this year in the March budget. They areĀ now forecasting Ā£177bn. By November we had already borrowed more than the March forecast for the entire year at Ā£105 bn.
The main reason for the big overrun is debt interest. I have commented before on how they conflate capital items, the need in due course to repay indexed debt with more devalued pounds, and the true revenue costs, the actual interest charges. Because they did not see all the inflation coming they have had to revise up the forecast in the light of the big increase in indexed debt repayment costs. There is also the impact of the higher Bank of England rate increases which were the predictableĀ result of the unforeseen inflation.
The second reason is the increased spending on benefits and special subsidies for people and businesses to handle high energy costs. The government has made this higher by offering handouts to all people whatever their income or housing circumstances. The Chancellor has said he will offer a more targeted and therefore cheaper proposal from next April.
Inflation will come down next year given the big real income squeeze and the dramatic shift from too loose to very tight money by the Bank of England. The Bank should not be increasing interest rates next year. If only they had followed advice and got them higher sooner. I urged them to put them higher at last rate rise decisions.
The government needs to take more of an interest in managing the interest charges part of public spending as it has been wildly out of control. It needs a moreĀ affordable way of helping people and business with energy bills. If only it would get on with allowing more oil and gas production in the UK it would get a revenue boost from high oil and gas taxes, and help to ease the squeeze on supplies.
Total spending was up a massiveĀ 19.5% in November on the previous year. These two main problems account for a lot of that. The government also needs to take up some more of the ideas for controlling and reducing spending outside the crucial public service areas of its priorities that have been set out here. It also needs to work with public sector managers on raising productivity more widely. We need many more something for something public sector pay deals.
December 22, 2022
The latest great idea apparentlyā¦because they are running out of hotelsā¦is to put illegal immigrants onto large cruise ships at an eye watering cost.
This govt. just canāt think of enough ways to waste OUR money.
AND they are caving in to the NHS pay demands!
December 22, 2022
That is still utter peanuts compared with the money thrown away on useless T&T “consultants”, PPE contracts, and general rip-off private sector providers paid from the public purse.
December 22, 2022
As in āThis govt. just canāt think of enough ways to waste OUR moneyā?
I think I covered it.
December 22, 2022
+1
Socialist always run out of other peoples money. Socialist Tory are taking this phrase to the highest level ever! Bearing in mind they promised the economy was their central plank to be elected and pay down debt by 2015! Debt tripled, highest taxation. They literally give away tens of billions to others without knowing or caring how they will spend it ie overseas aid- recent blog by JR.
Sunak gives away early Ā£12 billion on reparations that we do not owe or could conceivably be responsible for!! Another Ā£12 billion in school boy errors which he stopped from being investigated, his answer tax us more! He said he would serve with integrity and that he would implement 2019 manifesto. He lied! Who can now trust him after what he did to Johnson, what he did with the economy as chancellor and now his claims are clearly false? Sunak not even implementing Brexit which he was elected on in 2019 to get an 80 seat majority.
December 22, 2022
+1
December 22, 2022
This government will just plough on regardless with little internal opposition until it is removed.
I am currently reading āMay at 10ā by Seldon. I was reminded of all the twists and turns of her premiership. At least she had powerful opponents and factions to contend with – unlike the current PM. I no longer view her as a Machiavellian schemer with a great, hidden plan. She was extremely limited, an introvert with no interpersonal skills and an aloof and secretive nature. She had no known views on many topics – even to those in her team. Once she had been persuaded by insiders, or those in her clique, she just blindly ploughed on until she was eventually forced out.
David āgay marriageā Cameron simply went to the right school where success was expected and opportunities were plentiful.
Sunakās rise seems to be a puzzling, bloodless coup and his parliamentary colleagues either welcome it or just put up with it.
I am not sure how much more damage he can do in a couple of years but I see no signs of him stopping.
So I expect more moaning, but no effective action to counter him is on the horizon.
December 22, 2022
Indeed and HS2, the soft loans for worthless degrees, the net harm Covid vaccines still being injected into people, eat out to help out, the lockdown, the vast numbers of civil servants doing no good and often significant net harmā¦
December 22, 2022
That does not excuse the spendthrift ex chancellor, now the imposter PM.
As for the morons of the left, my head shakes when Starmer opens his mouth.
My next vote will be the raving loony party if Reform dont put a candidate to bring down the useless conservative candidate for North Devon
December 22, 2022
Spoil your paper!
It really is a statement and if enough people do it will get coverage
December 22, 2022
No it will not!
December 22, 2022
There should be no MP elected if the local area gets more than 50% none of the above (spoilt papers) thats the only way it would count.
December 23, 2022
a-tracey and groundswell is the only way that will that will happen. We need none of the above to become a significant factor in elections. Then the political parties will need to take action.
That means we need people to spoil their papiers.
Lynn – imagine if the 30% of voters who stay away and another 10% of disillusioned Tory and Labour voters spoiled their papers. How would that not make a difference?
December 22, 2022
Richard Tice is The Invisible Man. He has never been a dynamic or persuasive leader and I read on Conservative Home that the Tories do not fear Reform. I don’t blame them. However, with or without Reform, they are headed for a massive loss at the next General Election.
December 23, 2022
They would say that.
December 22, 2022
perhaps the present farce for a Government will commission a new luxury 4000 customers cruise ship, you know looking ahead….with a permanent mooring near Dover.
December 22, 2022
Yes every announcement on this subject from government increases the pull factors. āHey, once we get over there itās hotels or luxury cruise ships. Just tell me how much you want Mr People Smugglerā.
December 22, 2022
Agreed.
Human flesh trading being still THE most lucrative business.
Aided and abetted by those who have weighed us down with referred guilt!
December 22, 2022
Totally Agree
December 22, 2022
Nothing *modern* about slavery – as though it is a new phenomenon that caught the Conservatives by surprise.
It’s about as *modern* as the cuts in working conditions and pensions that they try to sell us but won’t apply to themselves. They’ll certainly be caught by surprise when their pay and pensions come under the spotlight.
December 22, 2022
What I cannot understand is why MI6 has not placed agents in Northern Europe to establish just who is running and controlling the movements of these illegal immigrants and from where. Also to discover where are the dinghies drop off points. No dinghies means no transport. Or have they and done nothing? Possibly blocked by the remainer staff of Number 10?
It’s probably too much to ask that the SBS are sent in to destroy every dingy they found, hopefully, before they get to the beaches. But…..
When the USA sent in SEAL 6 to kill OBL they did not inform the host nation for fear of warning leaks within the host’s own security personnel.
We should take the same approach with the French who are being far from supportive as it is OUR country that is suffering from their bloody-minded intransigence.
December 22, 2022
They probably have but action refused.?
metallica ‘seek and destroy’.
December 22, 2022
Bill. Totally agree.
December 22, 2022
Perhaps because the govt want it! No action until Farage on GB news highlighted it!
December 22, 2022
Probably because its Macron.
Someone is manufacturing these rather large boats, not difficult to discover. The British should buy the boat manufacturer and stop making them, I wonder what is happening to them and all the boat motors, are we recycling them.
December 22, 2022
Bill – it’s nothing to do with the dinghies and EVERYTHING to do with the benefits we give them and it won’t stop (by any means of entry) until the benefits stop.
In any case. This is all a distraction from the perfectly legal importation of unskilled and unfunded dependants and the brain drain now taking place.
The Tories lied to you to get into office and we have boat blokes because they want boat blokes.
December 23, 2022
I am convinced the Government made a “quiet agreement” with the EU during the BRINO negotiations that we’d take “our fair share” of the criminal migrants Merkel encouraged to flood into Europe. The refusal to allow returns and “efforts” to stop the influx is just a charade for the benefit of both French and British voters.
December 22, 2022
Well why would a junior doctor want to work for Ā£29k less Ā£10k of student debt interest, tax, NI, council tax, commuting costs, ULEZ, congestion chargesā¦ it is simply not sufficient to live on even in a bedsit in London. They can find jobs in the city or medical jobs abroad starting on double this figure.
December 22, 2022
LL,
You seem to forget EU students got free university education under Tories. Those EU students who also claimed for loans for accommodation went back home and the govt never had the resources to chase up!
I think you mean English university students with debt because that is what the Tory govt. plan. I remember writing to ministers, MP and Lord King over it. I raised at election hustings as well, not one of them could give an answer or justify their policy. The Tory politicians were beyond useless in their replies, in fairness Lib Dumbs and Labour were as well.
LL, and before you say Labour and SNP would be worse Do not forget if it was not for UKIP at local and EU elections treacherous May would still be in office and her total betrayal of UK to EU vassalage.
December 22, 2022
I agree but the largest party in the next government will be Labour (most likely) or Conservative – Reform will be largely irrelevant. Labour/SNP?LibDim the worse outcome. Yes the Conservatives deserve to be destroyed buy not by Labour. But the system is what it is.
The Cameron/May/Boris and Sunak have got nearly all the big things wrong economics, the lockdown, taxation, test and trace, HS2, the net harm vaccines, HS2, the size of government, the dire NHS, the crony capitalism and corruption, partygate, the duff not really Brexit, the failure to deregulate, net zero, the war on motorists…
December 22, 2022
add to the last paragraph: Judiciary, Civil Service, the spy count in UK must be near 6 figures, union control of economy, foreign students almost a majority in UK unis, obsession with LGBTQ+.
December 22, 2022
LL,
Do not be a a scaredy-cat chicken. Reform Party will not be irrelevant if people vote with conviction like before in EU elections. Next May people vote in local elections, vote Reform.
Help Sunak to reinstate his green card and clear off.
December 22, 2022
If you are going to lose, lose with style draw something on the ballot paper.
The more people who do it, the bigger the story. Imagine is the 30% of the electorate who don’t vote plus 10% of disillusioned tories spoiled the paper
December 22, 2022
To be sure they would not.
But itās a little odd to fuss into fascism about the health of the nation for 3 years and then abandon it.
And in any case what difference will a strike make? We already have no healthcare.
Stillā¦if one appreciates that TikTok line dancingā¦.
Plus yet another U turn from the Rishā¦he was talking very tough the other day!
December 22, 2022
And without giving up on 6 years of unpaid training or having Ā£150k of student debt to (perhaps) repay.
December 22, 2022
King Charles rejects idea of ācut-priceā coronation I read in the Telegraph.
Well just a bank holiday costs about Ā£3bn in loss of production. The three bank holidays for recent royal events will cost me alone about Ā£40,000 in wages for no work, loss of profits etc.
And I will not even get an invitation for this Ā£40k. So not even a chance to point out to the deluded King how totally bonkers, hypocritical and moronic he is on climate alarmism, quack medicine, organic food and farming, running his Aston on waste cheese and wine, dim solar christmas trees and so much else. His children seem just as daft as the King is alas. None seem to want to keep out of politics as they sensibly should do, especially as their views are so damn idiotic.
December 22, 2022
I back that 100% LL
December 22, 2022
LL. But would the TV producers have wanted a cut-price coronation, which might have cut their viewer numbers as well as the price? Maybe not.
December 22, 2022
Indeed but did we really need three Royal bank holidays? When the economy is in such a mess anyway thank to Sunak’s incompetence already.
December 22, 2022
No Lifelogic we didnāt the coronation could have been on a Sunday.
3 days lost operations and treatments in the NHS
3 days lost work for the self-employed
3 days lost production, service for SMEs
The only people laughing and quids in are public sector workers some of whom are already on nearly 40 days per year holiday.
December 22, 2022
If you had donated that Ā£40k to Johnson’s regime, you may have been pencilled in for a gong….or do you have one already?
December 23, 2022
I could not donate to the essentially socialist, climate alarmist, tax to death Conservative party who even had to be pushed hugely to give an EU referendum and even then failed to deliver a real & clean Brexit.
I do not think they are likely to offer honours to climate realists, people who point out that Sunak is the main cause of the inflation and the economic problems, that the Covid vaccines are rather ineffective & dangerous did more harm than good, that net zero is an insane unscientific agenda and point out the endless government waste of tax payers money.
I do not wish to be yet another Crony or Corrupt Capitalist.
December 22, 2022
Oh you have to add several zeros after your figure LL, to get a gong of any kind. If the real great and the Real good refuse to attend, as they did C&Cās wedding, invitations are easy to secure. See the wedding guest list for confirmation.
December 22, 2022
My boy is already being courted by the New Zealand health service. Doubled pay and fewer hours.
December 22, 2022
Going to have to be fully jabbed to survive in Zee Newland.
Best take the Ā£20k.
December 23, 2022
+1 a shame it is inconveniently so far away. But perhaps a nice place to spend Dec-March with these very short, wet & cold days.
December 22, 2022
I’m amazed the illegals haven’t been offered Buck Palace or some other Royal residence. Nothing is too good for the ‘uninvited guests’ which is why they get better treatment than legal citizens. The government can just tap the cash cows for more money to support these thousands of self entitled, self imposed, VIP’s.
December 22, 2022
Seems so except the cash cows are leaving, moving to black market, going onto benefits or just not bothering to work so hard. Higher tax rates will mean less tax raised.
December 22, 2022
Shirley,
People seem to forget the families of those not deported, which is the vast majority, and Sunak still allowing families of students to come over for duff degrees!! It is more like five times the amount of the 45,000 illegal criminals put up in four star hotels. This figure is the smallest likely to have illegally come here and then set up home.
I suggest everyone on the site look up figures for the council in your local area on Social and affordable housing. These people are treated exactly the same, if not better, than British citizens. No S.106 local priority clauses ever given priority for local people who invested in the area and country.
The councils are an utter disgrace for betraying local people to foreigners. They swallow the EU, pro Marxist pill every day and it overrides everything they do. Community secretaries have done nothing. From Useless Boles to today.
December 22, 2022
I hope the people given the brand new small 2 bed council housing that they are forcing builders to build, the new housing association homes that theyāre getting funded by the government are going to long term tenants in bigger 3 bed homes to encourage them to downsize into nice modern new small to heat homes with smaller gardens instead of to a list of the councils favoured few.
December 22, 2022
Werenāt some going to be put up at Sandringham?
But yes..the Palace would be idealā¦they could each have a small crownā¦the better to reign over us!
December 22, 2022
There are appropriate fields on disused bases that would hold thousands of 2 man and family tents.
December 22, 2022
Cuibono
Another case of solution panic management by the non experts.
Go to the Norwegian Fiords and speak to the inhabitants of the townships about the pollution to their waters.
Who is goingto crew these ships for all the feeding and household chores.
Or is it a cunning plan to eat 3k on board and weigh anchor and sail off back to whence they came.
December 22, 2022
Get not eat on board.
Unless the ships have their own sewerage treatment plants we will get all the greens and the European courts prosecuting us for pollution of the seas and beaches and damage to fish stocks.
December 22, 2022
Amazingly govt.s across the world are managing to destroy said world.
In lockstep!
I think they are investigating Mars for living viability.
How long do you give that planet before it too is laid waste?
December 22, 2022
What a comment JR makesā¦ govt ought to take more interest..! The economy being the central plank at elections and after 12.5 years JRās advice is his govt ought to take more interest. Indeed. Perhaps his govt ought to take more interest before Sunak gives away Ā£34 billion, or Hunt wastes Ā£34 billion on failed NHS IT system. If the Tories only took more interest.
We read today housing illegal criminals cost us Ā£3.4 billion up from Ā£2.1 billion last year. If only the Tories took more interest. C, do not worry There is no way ships will be used. Another lot of hot air. JRM made clear on TV parliament does not want to leave ECHR and that is the crux of it. 277 Tory MPs who voted for vassalage as JRM called it want to remain in EU and Sunak and Hunt are closely aligning as much as possible with military, ship building our warships, energy, level playing fields etc etc. Sunak and Hunt making sure no Brexit Benefits and Brexit is name only.
In other hidden news, the EU allows UK 31,000 tonnes more fish from our own waters! How gracious when EU ships allowed within 6 miles of coast against international 12 mile limit. If only Tories more interest! N.Ireland protocol where Cleverly hails EU for extending vet medicine to cross one part of our country to another for another three years. Is Cleverly that stupid or does he think we are?
The nation voted to leave the EU taking back control of money, borders and laws. None of which has been achieved, worse N.Ireland given away and Sunak and Hunt on a mission to closely align as if UK still in EU! If the Tories only took more interest? No, they are deliberately betraying the nation on every front. The brightest brains cannot be that stupid, therefore treachery is the only alternative conclusion.
December 22, 2022
Absolutely, Hope. This government hates democracy. Heaven forbid they should hold to their manifesto promises, or work on behalf of the UK. They seem to be much keener on giving away as much of the UK and its money as possible!
December 22, 2022
2 Dec 2022 ā The Scottish Government has come under fire for a decision to extend the rental for a cruise ship to house refugees from Ukraine.
There were cruise ships being decommissioned at low cost. There are habitable forts up for sale at low cost. None of those people would set foot in the UK and be able to abscond I’m surprised you don’t like offshore vessels being used Hope.
December 22, 2022
AT,
Ukraine refugees are distinct from illegal boat people. The govt invited the former, even if I disagree with their stupidity. Same for Hong Kong and Afghanistan invitees.
I would not allow anyone entering the country illegally to remain or even be processed no matter what their alleged status. They would be deported, full stop. There would be no ECHR and laws created to make deportations swift and easy.
December 22, 2022
two cruise ships – 12 Aug 2022 ā A second cruise ship will be used to house Ukrainian refugees arriving in Scotland.
December 22, 2022
best moored a mile west of an uninhabited isle facing the Atlantic.
Supply thousands of forms requesting repatriation to Albania.
December 22, 2022
AT,
The govt invited the Ukrainians!! Ukrainians here legally after invite, Boat people not invited here illegally. These groups are totally different in nature. Surely you can see the difference between the groups.
Additionally, how can it be right govt invites people to put them on ships when criminals are put up in all inclusive four star hotels with inflation proof pocket money!!
December 22, 2022
Iād be happier putting the Ukrainian visitors in the nice hotels and the illegals in boats offshore, processing them on the boats and them not setting foot in the UK until theyāve been processed.
December 22, 2022
Hope
Thank you. Best comment of the day, even though it is to highlight abject government failure.
December 22, 2022
That’s been talked about since the first lockdown when 7 large cruise ships were “parked” offshore in Weymouth Bay. So two years’ down the line and they’re still talking about it.
It’ll never happen ….. it’s just another Governmental Comms stunt intended to signal to an electorate they know are absolutely furious that they’re doing something ….. when they quite obviously aren’t.
December 22, 2022
And I bet the ambulances are still waiting on the quayside for the uninvited guests whilst granny lies waiting in pain on the floor for 12 hours. There will be good people working in the NHS but the mismanagement and waste are colossal.
December 22, 2022
There are no more rooms in the UK Inns.
Human rights legislation some speedily put in by May before she departed the top job has tied our hands. The government can put in a new law in a matter of days when it suits.
December 22, 2022
I don’t think UK farms have dry warm stables anymore, successive governments caused farmers to abandon them….they would have no roofs left by now. I know of a farm off A66 which has a few, even a planning application to make them inhabitable would be refused.
December 22, 2022
Putting the illegals on to cruise ships would be a good idea… if Rwanda had a coast line.
December 22, 2022
Albania does. But they are more likely to wind up with a free cruise to the Canaries to lower the heating bill on the ships.
December 22, 2022
Has it ever crossed your mind that we are being led by a ship of fools?
December 22, 2022
Good morning.
Again and again, and again I ask, with taxes at an all time high and more people in work than ever, why cannot the government at least balance the books ? With the colossal sum handed out to anyone but those that contribute we will soon run out of credit.
The Chancellors last budget was a budget for shirkers, not workers ! It was a budget to drive away entrepreneurs and high earners, further damaging the economy and the nations coffers.
We are drowning in debt that, at some near tipping point, will see us go under.
December 22, 2022
‘Drowning in debt’ haven’t heard that since the 70’s! And now it’s because of a Tory government rather than Labour; hard to believe. Sport the socialist in Parliament —- ALL of them!
What is even harder to believe is the ‘unforeseen inflation’; lots of did foresee it, and said so. MONEY PRINTING CAUSES INFLATION… it should be on a large sign above the main entrance to the Treasury by now. We’re supposed to have an historian at the BoE, you can’t tell me he didn’t know that. So why?
December 22, 2022
+1 PW.
December 22, 2022
It’s not a Tory government It’s a dripping wet limp dumb crowd.
Net zero to bankruptcy is their aim and handouts fot the whole world except the taxpayer.
December 22, 2022
Seems so. A doom loop as you get fewer and fewer tax payers and more and more parasitically living of them.
December 22, 2022
@Peter Wood +1
December 22, 2022
Oh dear !
If our kind host allows.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1712602/uk-recession-economy-shrinks-ons-figures
I can’t find the article(s) Sir John, but did you not write about this and the OBR’s & Treasuries forecasts.
Please provide a link, there’s a good chap š
December 22, 2022
Mark extra bank holidays cost a lot, lost revenue of the two extra days this year hasn’t been made back. For the Queen’s funeral a lot of the public sector took a period of mourning that was more like a week of downturn rather than a day.
After the half term holiday when Sunak and Hunt took over, public sector spending was cut dramatically.
December 22, 2022
actually we should ask for an annual day of mourning on the day when the Tories won in 2010.
Unbelievable decline ever since.
December 22, 2022
To be fair MT, the cupboard was bare when they took over the absolute bust of 2008. The cost of providing everyone low % mortgages to stay afloat has to be paid back, mostly by savers up to now.
Two years of Covid problems 2020 to end 2021. March to May 2020 frozen in time, what did people expect? Time to balance the books, the problem with balancing the books is it never goes how people want it to.
Next, wages will go up, way beyond what they can cover from the tax take, higher demands next April, inflation will spiral. Companies will go bust. The only thing that will continue going up is taxes. Norway tried a wealth tax, theyāve lost their wealthy people altogether, theyāve gone off to Switzerland.
December 23, 2022
a-Tracy …well you had some sort of explanation for post 2020, ignoring 2022.
How about starting at 2010 and thinking about years up to 2020?
Don’t give me ‘what a fine mess they left us’.
December 23, 2022
Plenty I disagreed with Cameron and Osborne, the charge to English teenagers only for tripled tuition fees for a start. The ridiculous interest rate on the student loan. The effective 41% tax plan 1 grads paid on earnings from Ā£16,000.
December 22, 2022
Well what do you expect after Sunak & Huntās tax, borrow, print and piss down the drain budget?
December 22, 2022
The Hunt/Sunak budget was indeed a budget for shirkers, not workers. It was a budget to drive away entrepreneurs, hard workers, high earners, the rich and inward investments. This further damaging the economy and the government revenue. More benefits, more black market, more high skilled emigration, more low skilled immigration. Then for good measure they deliberately debase the currency, block the roads, have a war on motorists and the self employed and force us to use very expensive unreliable energy.
Some one yesterday pointed out how they want to ban wood burning stoves. Well the government want control and state monopolies everywhere by rigging the markets. The energy market, money, health care, education, wood burning at Draxā¦
So Braverman complains about how slow the asylum claims are being dealt with by her dysfunctional department. But almost non are ever deported anyway is there really any point in wasting time considering the claims anyway?
December 22, 2022
Correct on every point LL. How the hell are those working for low pay or even average wages wuth the cost of living going to be able to afford to buy a heat pump? Which bank is going to be brave or stupid enough to lend a colossal amount of money? On top of this people are expected to pay to change their car. It’s utter lunacy. What idiot brought in travel zones in Oxford? Someone who is calling in to look after granny every day is going to suffer. The people coming out with this nonsense don’t hsve a clue about normal life.
December 22, 2022
FUS,
Govt allowing mortgages while on benefits! How does that work? Well, they will be allowed to pay back when the property is sold! So never sell it and the govt will forget.
December 22, 2022
Dole scroungers in my family have just bought a French Bulldog on the back of their 10% pay rise. The Tories are courting the welfare vote.
December 22, 2022
I read how the foreign car cleaners are living off the cash and returning their benefits to home co7 try?Any chance Tories will,take enough I terst to do anything? I doubt it. Sunak wrote off Ā£11.8 billion of school boy error fraud and gave away another another Ā£11.6 billion in climate reparation scam! JR ought to worry why Sunak is still borrowing and wasting our taxes like a drunk. No efficiency drive for public services, no reduction head count, 462,000 more since 2018! Sunak reversed JRMs planned 91,000 head count. Big state, high tax and piss down the drain as you say LL. or as JR blogs only if his govt took more interest eh. What an under statement for a cruel left wing govt determined to make us poor, hungry and cold. Determined to drive away industry, jobs to J
Huntās beloved. Hi a where they will produce the goods by coal fired power stations and transport back across the world to UK, wow that will help the planet!
December 22, 2022
+++During plandemic the logical thing ( if any logic in their berserk approach) would have been to close large supermarkets ( much breath and bodies crowded etc.) and keep small local businesses open.
They did not do that.
The voracious maw of corporatism
gawped greedily at them.
And they fed it!
December 22, 2022
Taxes are only one cost faced by business.
As BCC complain, rightly, more than three-quarters of firms say the governmentās post-brexit trade deal with the EU has not helped them to expand their business in the last two years despite promises that it was an āoven-readyā deal.
A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce has prompted the business lobby group to present the government with five urgent recommendations for enhancing the agreement, which has left many exporters struggling to sell into the EU under the current terms.
More than half (56%) of the BCC members surveyed who trade with the EU said they had experienced problems complying with new rules for exporting goods, while 45% reported issues trading in services. Overall, as many as 77% of firms trading under the deal said it had not helped them to increase sales or expand.
The percentage experiencing problems before brexit was tiny, therefore this represents an increase of thousands of percent in those difficulties.
What a ball-and-chain to the country are the quitters.
December 22, 2022
Did the BCC reveal how many of their members exported to the EU? 56% sound high until you realise it is probably only 5% of their members.
December 22, 2022
The EU are indeed being a regulatory pain in very many ways harming both the UK interests and their own. But then they were even more of a pain when they were forcing endless red tape and bonkers laws onto the UK. Alas we have far too much home grown red tape, net zero, woke lunacy, employment restriction and bonkers laws from the appalling 12 years of misguided tax borrow and waste socialism.
December 22, 2022
We had a massive trade deficit with the EU when we were members – why do you want that to continue ? Trade friction works both ways – making it harder for EU exporters to UK is a good thing given the deficit. On the other hand we have a big trade surplus with USA (who are not in the EU)
December 22, 2022
I suspect the surplus is being eroded by LNG and coal imports.
December 22, 2022
A lot was EU made cars – at least that has dwindled.
December 22, 2022
@Mark B +1 To them it is money in to shore up their own mistakes and waste ā they have no idea were it has gone, no idea who is responsible or accountable. And all this money has been spent without any defined return expected. Why Because they can tax and borrow more?
December 22, 2022
One of my tenants who works 16 hours a week, to gain the most in benefits, is currently on her seventh foreign holiday of the year. Sunak keeps throwing money at the wrong people. Maybe he knows they will spend it, therefore, increasing GDP whereas the pensioner will put it in the bank for a rainy day.
This government is clueless as to how society works. He is creating a generation of selfish entitled individuals who expect to be supported in their pampered existence. It doesn’t matter how much you give them it will never be enough. In one generation we have gone from a benefits safety net to a lifestyle choice.
The government needs to change the benefits system to make work pay. Get the part-timers and unemployed into full-time work. How have we got to this state where the population has increased by millions, women are working 6 years longer, men are working 1 year longer, and the average life expectancy plateaued years ago, yet we are told we need to import more foreign workers. Nothing in this county works well anymore. The service we receive from most companies and publicly run organisations is woeful.
December 22, 2022
I agree Christine, I also know a claimant who has never worked who recently had a fortnight’s holiday abroad; the money isn’t being spent in the UK. It’s now in Turkey’s hands.
I wonder how many people do only work the minimum 16 hours required for max benefits.
How many do no work?
December 22, 2022
Labour and Unions have wanted much fewer working hours, the Tories have implemented it without realising it !
December 22, 2022
What a depressing prospect in the run up to Christmas and the new year John. The government’s failure on the energy debacle, immigration and high taxation will be it’s downfall. Bring on an election.
December 22, 2022
And who would you vote for? Have you seen Labour List recently? Or perhaps the Lib Dems and Greens who got us into this mess in the first place?
December 22, 2022
Reform thanks even if it turns out to be a protest vote. Isn’t it time for a change or do you like moaning but voting for the same?
December 22, 2022
Would you vote Reform if JR was your MP?
Why would Reform put a candidate in his area?
December 22, 2022
The best Reform candidate for Wokingham is rather well known here.
December 22, 2022
The best protest vote is a spoiled paper. Draw a picture of a full dinghy on it because you know none of them will do anything about it
December 22, 2022
REFORM
December 22, 2022
I will be voting ReformUK.
The Tories always try the same old trick: ‘vote for us or Labour will get in, and they are even worse’. Well NO, in fact Labour are NOT worse than the Tories. They are no better, I agree, but the point is that the Tories are so bad, so stupid, so treacherous, so cowardly, so incompetent and so wrong-headed that they are now equally destructive to Britain – both socially and economically – as Labour, so there is no need to worry that a vote for a small party ‘will let Labout in’.
December 22, 2022
Agreed. If you vote CON you are voting to be CONNED again. There is no fundamental difference between the 3 legs of the Westminster-Uni Party stool.
December 22, 2022
Well yes but If you vote Reform you will get no Reform MPs and get conned by Labour/SNP/Libdim no real choice given the system that pertains.
December 22, 2022
I wll also vote Reform UK, X-Tory but for a different reason. I’ll be voting in local elections, and if enough people especially ex-Tories do that, there’s a chance the Conservatives will realise they need to change course before the next general election. Not guaranteed by any means, but it’s how we got the referendum.
December 22, 2022
FUS: after 12 years of failure we have nothing to look forward to, except the next general election, and that cannot come quickly enough. We need MORE democracy so we can kick out dishonest, undemocratic, incompetent or traitorous governments. All four apply to this government.
December 22, 2022
Shirley/LL,
Anyone who votes Tory needs to visit a psychiatrist. The most successive dishonest govtās in recent history. None of which delivered anything like they promised. As a matter of record did the exact opposite.
We were repeatedly told economy central plank when Tories wished to be elected. We were repeatedly told Tories would balance structural deficit and pay down our debt. It was abandoned by Hammond! Contrast against JRs blog today where he writes his govt ought to take more interest!!
Labour will continue with exactly the same agenda as Sunak and Hunt, remain closely aligned to EU, big state, high tax and piss down the drain while following a Marxist culture drive to destroy our way
of life and culture.
Tory govt does not care if it loses, other than personal greed, because it knows the Labour twin will only make cosmetic changes.
The only option is Reform party.
December 22, 2022
Voters don’t need a psychiatrist. They need a counsellor and should be sobbing for what they have done.
December 22, 2022
Shirley M, ++++++
December 22, 2022
Even more depressing is the prospect of an even worse form of Socialism from Labour/SNP/LibDim alternative in two years time. Sturgeon SNPās gender reforms are an appalling prospect as is the idea of the SNP having any power over the English.
A Tory MP yesterday said the UK is living beyond our means. Not the country mate this appalling government is taxing to death, strangling the economy and pissing most of the money down the drain. This while delivering dire public āservicesā.
December 22, 2022
@Lifelogic +1
Government expects you to sacrifice and sacrifice some more as they are certainly not going to budget their end to what the Country can afford
December 22, 2022
5 years is a moderate time for Govt to be entrusted with power.
However, imagine having a joint bank account with a Treasury person who starts spending large chunks of your money recklessly on things you disagree with.
For how many weeks would you tolerate that?
December 22, 2022
+ we alas have no choice other than to leave the country perhaps.
December 22, 2022
A massive trick was missed by the debt management office not redeeming gilts and issuing very long dated bonds at close to zero interest which would have been possible in huge volumes up until a year or so ago. Donald Trump urged the same on the US Treasury- but because it was him suggesting it Yellen and all the other experts ignored it and assumed it must be a silly idea. Why this didn’t happen in the UK would be a good subject of questions and scrutiny from MPs to the BoE, Treasury and any other relevant figures.
An opportunity to save billions was wasted. Meanwhile we see terrible waste for poor service in the public sector, with ministers apparently powerless to do anything about it.
December 22, 2022
Looking at the redemption profile of gilts it seems that investor demand for longer dated issues is weighted towards index linked offerings. Clearly, offering more long dated issues would increase the redemption yield at which they could be sold.
OTOH it has occurred to me that offering a small yield boost ex gratia on low coupon gilts might be a way to reduce the capital losses that have been multiplied in geared pension investments.
December 22, 2022
There are two huge reasons why we are in debt and getting in deeper and deeper.
Teddy Roosevelt’s Dad advised him: Being in debt is like a bucket full of holes. You can either put more water into the bucket, or you can block up some of the holes.
So, put more money in by fracking, by coal mining like everybody else, by working on educating a new generation of nuclear scientists and making electricity and energy (steel, aluminium) cheaper than the rest of the world.
So, do something urgent about the nearly half a million new jobs in the Public Service since 2019, get the thing working properly too. Block the many holes!
I honestly do not think people realise how quickly we are sliding into a third world economy. the Prime Mnister in the Spectator is making all the right noises. But will he act?
December 22, 2022
Angela
Sliding into the third world economy.
We are in it
Thanks to the process of paying out millions to those who do nothing, never have and never will.
December 22, 2022
Anselm. WE know that and so do Reform but sadly people just vote for more of the same madness.
December 22, 2022
I’m voting for ‘reform’
December 22, 2022
@Anselm +1
The PM’s sounbite is worthless – all we need is action, real tangible action – the balancing of the books, make expenditure match what is coming in. Preferably balanced again a previous age balanced by inflation, get rid of these new age additions
December 22, 2022
Resoundingly no. The people who got rid of Jo(moon and Truss put him in power. How many times does everyone have to be fooled or lied to before they come to the realisation Tory PM will say anything to get elected and how many promises do they have to renege on! Todays blog a classic. They were,elected,from Labour on the condo you and to balance the structural deficit by 2015. Then by 2017, 2019 and then abandoned!!
Today JR blogs his govt ought to have taken more interest. This was their central policy FFS!
December 22, 2022
Socialists, long ago ran out of other peoples money. They have been printing and borrowing on an unprecedented scale, constantly devaluing our money, making it necessary to conjure up yet more.
What a vicious downward cycle of failure. Twenty years ago Ā£25,000 or Ā£30,000 was a good salary, and now recipients complain they cannot put food on the table.
December 22, 2022
I bought veg this week at 15p a bag. Lamb and beef were Ā£6 a kilo. Things like processed food and bakery goods have increased but the staples are cheaper than I have ever known in my lifetime. This nonsense we hear about nurses having to use food banks is an insult to our intelligence. People need to start cooking rather than living off takeaways.
December 22, 2022
Its all anecdotal, no one can name names ā¦who are these nurses ā¦people proclaiming these stories should be challenged
December 22, 2022
My better half came home from Waitrose, yes Waitrose, saying the price of potatoes must be at an all time low…
its baked spuds or mash with every meal now …..
December 22, 2022
Under Osborne/Hammond/Javid/Sunak/Hunt in 12 years they have debased the Ā£1 to circa 66p by money printing, the bonkers expensive intermittent energy policies, the vast & idiot government waste and massive misguided over regulation, the rigging of the energy, education, housing and transport markets. Then on top of this we have had vast tax increases, ULEZ/congestion charges, the wars on motorists and the self employed, public service that are so bad or inaccessible that you often have to go private…
Someone earning Ā£30,000 gross in 2010 will need more like Ā£50,000 now for the same standard of living after taking all these into account. Plus they have caused substantial excess non Covid deaths through failures in NHS health care and the ineffective and often dangerous vaccines.
December 22, 2022
Thks for doing the maths LL.
December 22, 2022
Ā£100 in 2002 would be Ā£192.26 today (92% cumulative price increase in the UK between 2002 and 2022, in2013dollars.com). So in terms of purchasing power one would need Ā£48-57k to have the same living standards as your Ā£25-30k of 2002.
Now ask the proper question, please: Which professions have seen such a salary increase?
December 22, 2022
+1 hefner.
December 22, 2022
well MPs were paid Ā£55,000 in 2002, Ā£84,000 this year.
December 22, 2022
The real terms decline in their pay seems to have been matched by a real terms decline in their average quality.
December 23, 2022
It is becoming easy to visualise the line of MPs queuing to vote resembling the pack of sheep pushing to get through the farmers gate when he waves the grain bag amd shouts to follow him.
December 22, 2022
Hunt made no cuts, when they are blatantly required. Why not?
Cut out a layer of management generally.
Cut quangos by 50%
Automation
Vanity projects HS2 etc
Very disillusioned.
December 22, 2022
Yes CUT HS2
December 22, 2022
You are borrowing because you are giving 75% of illegal migrants asylum whilst France only gives 23%. Clearly asylum seekers fail to claim asylum in France and come to the UK. In the UK only 4% of asylum seekers are being checked.
One problem is the woke workers in the Home Office letting people through. However the real crisis is legal mass migration, of low wage people, of over half a million each year which is jam today for low cost employers but massive debts tomorrow for the tax payer. The Government has a credit card culture towards the British voters. Itās a disaster of catastrophic proportions in the making.
December 22, 2022
Javelin
Good nail on the head post.
December 22, 2022
+ hundreds and thousands. Anyone capable of even basic maths would have worked that out long ago, so I have to assume this government is happy about ripping off the taxpayer and destroying our culture in one fell swoop via mass immigration of low paid/low skilled workers.
If they want rid of Brits then do something that benefits us, rather than immigrants. We’ll all drop dead of shock!
December 22, 2022
The net spending by this retiree hasn’t gone up by the headline figure of inflation. I’ve cut back and shopped around. And that’s why I think that the uplift to ‘benefits’ was unjustified. At the next budget, the Chancellor must take an axe to ‘benefit’ spending and end some of those ‘more than forty’ entitlements that are helping people with the ‘cost of living’. Those programmes (largely for the idle) are paid for by hard-working people, who need, and deserve, a bold move to end ‘fiscal drag’.
December 22, 2022
Sea Warrior. Agree. Is it a case of can’t afford to put food on the table or can’t get your priorities right? We have bred a generation of self entitled people. There was a time when living on benefits while being able to work was shameful but not any more. They think they’re entitled even though many have paid nothing in.
December 22, 2022
F U S
+ many
December 22, 2022
If you had ever been curious enough to look at these āmore than fortyā entitlements on the gov.uk website and just for fun pretend that you are a NMW worker and see exactly how many of these āentitlementsā you could get you might stop writing such stupid comments.
December 22, 2022
Hefner. Not stupid at all. How do people on benefits afford a foreign holiday or even more than one? Get in the real world.
December 23, 2022
FUS, be honest for once: how many such people do you personally know? Or is that something you read on your favourite right-wing tabloid or website?
December 22, 2022
++ And those benefits have created a parallel society in which the recipients are not touched by what those paying their benefits are experiencing.
December 22, 2022
Every day a different complexion of how this country is going to the dogs under this government. When the only good news is a handful of fish donated by a grateful EU we really do have problems. The question as always in our minds is why? Why are we being driven into the ground by a group of people who promised so much just 3 short years ago?
December 22, 2022
Just wait until the financial services market moves east.Here’s just an inkling of what is going to happen-is already starting to happen- as Russia forces a break with the west which many quite large countries are pleased to participate in.From AZ Geopolitics yesterday:
“Russia and India are fundamentally moving away from the $ and Euro in mutual trade and switching to national currencies and will create an independent tanker fleet.
The advantages of creating a single fleet:the purchase price of oil for Asia will allow the Indians to take over the rental and insurance coverage.India will be able to buy oil and oil products from Russia without any restriction.Asia will separate itself from western ship insurance and gain independence in financial and transport services”.
And where air transport is concerned,the west remains excluded from Russian airspace (to circumvent Russian airspace adds several additional hours and considerable extra cost) BUT the rest of the world is not,so Chinese,Indian,Gulf,Turkish,etc carriers have a considerable cost advantage in east-west traffic.I pointed this out here at the start of the Ukraine war;Willie Walsh(former BA head)is now saying it needs to be resolved as a matter of urgency.
December 23, 2022
Swipes aimed at Russia, like banning their airlines from Europe, were decisions taken in haste, to be repented at leisure, like so much else with the Ukraine business. It was obvious there would be tit-for-tat retaliation from Moscow, with very serious consequences for BA and other airlines. Too bad they didn’t protest at the time.
December 22, 2022
Because enough voters in the right constituencies to make a difference in the outcome were foolish enough to believe what they were being told.
December 22, 2022
So voters who vote differently to you PP are foolish.
Hilarious
December 22, 2022
I am foxed by this indexed debt repayment. I thought a bond is only repaid at its face value, the principle debt, so why would it be repaid at a higher rate than the face value. Surely that is just rolling over in which case it is not new debt and has neither increased the debt nor the deficit (ideally some it it should be repaid from budget surplus and not rolled over). I also thought that the interest on each bond was fixed so again we should not be paying more than the coupon value.
If the indexed debt is accounting for loses made by the Bank of England on selling off their bond position then that is a genuine loss and needs to be accounted for.
December 22, 2022
There are two types of Government Gilts (Bonds) NS – Conventional and Index Linked. The conventional ones pay a fixed coupon and are redeemed at face value, so are predictable in their cost to Government. Indexed Gilts pay a coupon linked to RPI, which usually runs at about 1% over CPI – so is a good hedge for investors against inflation.
The ‘bright’ sparks at the Treasury decided that inflation would never (ever) be a problem again and issued a ton of indexed Gilts in the firm belief that it would save the Government money. About 25% of UK Gilt debt is now indexed linked. Unfortunately, inflation wasn’t dead, Gilts linked to RPI are costing us huge amounts in interest payments and (unsurprisingly) no one at the Treasury has been fired – or shipped off to an asylum for the fiscally insane!
December 22, 2022
Thank you, that’s not going away anytime soon.
December 22, 2022
To reduce government borrowing you have to stop the vast government waste. Clearly the government has no intention of even starting to do this.
Start with HS2, net zero, the soft āloansā for duff degrees, the woke & diversity lunacy, the ineffective and dangerous vaccinesā¦
December 22, 2022
Lifelogic
Waste is all around us and so it shows
Waste is all around us so let it grow
Nearly close enough to an old hit record
December 22, 2022
Get rid of the green ideology which is destroying the economy; also, the foreign aid which does no good and in many cases is actually harmful and hinders progress.
December 22, 2022
Most things this government is doing or has done do far more harm than good. The net zero religion, the Covid vaccines, the lock downs and the open door usually low skilled (and often criminal) immigration levels especially so. But clearly no political will to do anything about this.
December 22, 2022
+10
December 22, 2022
As an economics illiterate, the post raises questions I’m struggling to think through.
Presumably all this money printing means the value of the pound will fall? Ought the BoE react by keeping rates high in order to make holding pounds remain attractive? Or does it let the pound fall so that we are less tempted to import goods and more tempted to use our own resources? Does its goal of keeping inflation at 2% (?) force it to do things which are not good for our economy?
Perhaps someone could suggest an economics for dummies site, so I can get some answers to these and similar questions today’s post raises for me?
December 22, 2022
Start with “Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman or his many videos – little has changed since then. But the Government has done evermore of the complete opposite big state agenda. Ever larger and more useless government. Denying people ever more freedom to choose in healthcare, education, transport, housing, heating, lighting, banking, investments…and taxing them ever more by the year.
December 22, 2022
All modern currencies are FIAT in nature Wanderer – they are simply created by government “decree”.
They are a means of exchange (e.g. barter) so their ‘value’ always lies in the confidence people have in their ability to retain ‘purchasing’ power. Today, currencies fluctuate in ‘value’ and these ‘exchange’ differencies are traded. So it useful to know that previously (when currencies were backed by Gold) there was virtually no variation in exchange rates (and indeed no currency trading at all).
Think of FIAT currencies as a group of sky-divers who’ve jumped out of a plane. Within the group it might seem some are falling faster than others – but the ground is still rushing up for everyone. Printing money changes your position within the falling group. Printing too much money changes whether your chute will deploy or not.
December 22, 2022
Wanderer : āOr does it let the pound fall so that we are less tempted to import goods and more tempted to use our own resources?ā
The Net Zero Strategy is designed to make our energy very expensive so as to drive businesses and industry off-shore thus reducing our CO2 emissions.
There is really only one main policy and that is to make the UK poorer.
December 22, 2022
add to the last line ….UK poorer, but our mates richer.
December 22, 2022
As each day goes by this government and parliament confirms it is the worst in my lifetime. The only things they are good at are making yesterday seem slightly better than today in the certain expectation that tomorrow will be even worse.
December 22, 2022
Nice post Brian.
December 22, 2022
Well you could knock me down with a feather.
Printing money has caused Inflation.
Inflation has caused interest rates to rise.
When interest rates rise, borrowing becomes more expensive.
Apparently this is a surprise to those (so called experts) in charge, but clearly not a surprise to anyone who tries to keep within a known budget at home, who earns and spends their own money. !
December 22, 2022
No one ever claimed that Modern Monetary Theory could be applied to Domestic budgets Alan.
It’s only Governments that can ignore the simple realities of life and spend, spend, spend (and print, print, print) because (and let’s be honest) when the Balifs finally call, our Politicians won’t be there to answer the door!
December 22, 2022
Ian T
Indeed It’s all the “Grand Theory’s” which have got us (the Government) into trouble, nothing actually based on reality at all, spending and borrowing at will, simply because they can, and never having to have the responsibility to pay it back, as that will always be someone else’s problem, and will always be the Taxpayer.
Unfortunately more and more people think the Government should fund everything in their lives, forgetting or ignoring the fact that the Government does not have any money of it’s own.
In their quest for power many politicians play to this “we will supply everything you need” to collect votes and win power, again forgetting that the only money they have, is what they take in the form of tax.
Eventually the goose that lay’s the golden egg of tax receipts will give up and not bother, and that is when the real crisis will appear.
December 22, 2022
Borrow more, tax more, get everyone to make sacrifices on top of sacrifices so as to ensure HM Treasury overflowing with money – then what, it disappears. No one is responsible or accountable for the spend. The services that it is all intended for falters, halts and stutters ā and again no one is responsible or accountable for.
Why did we elect and pay our MPās in a Parliament that then selects our Government to look after our interests, to keep us safe and secure, and build a sustainable resilient future.?
It is beginning to look like the biggest confidence trick of all time ā 12 years of promises and our lives down the drain.
December 22, 2022
@Ian B
Just donāt let anyone we entrusted to free us up to thrive try blaming their failure on Covid, energy problems and a war in eastern Europe etc. These things always happen with different labels, they are part of the World we live in. Hence the reason for the Governments obligation to release us to provide our resilient sustainable future.
Where MPās, Parliament and the top of the gravy train the Government are deluded is they think it is them personally that does the work, so get involved in areas that it is impossible for them to manage. Release the People, give them back their own responsibility and the UK will thrive. Unfortunately that concept is beyond the egoās of the bulk of the crop we now have in Parliament and Government.
December 22, 2022
Ian B
The first thing any responsible board would have done in light of all the abuses and fraud of the lock down payments would have put a specialist team together to track it down and bring those responsible to court. Looking at both sides of the supply and demand sectors. Put out a short term amnesty that pay it back or face the full consequences of your actions.
December 22, 2022
Nobody asks those in charge of the NHS where the 6.6 billion has gone.
December 22, 2022
Back to the claimed remuneration and terms for nurses.
I have managed to get a response from a very senior ‘nurse’ to the claims recently on this blog.
In agreement with 2 specific contributors – but added this:
‘The only thing the MP has not shared is once a nurse hits the top of their salary there is no further salary increase or yearly review.
The only way to gain increase is to apply for a higher band job which many nurses do not wish too and the vacancies and higher bands are very few.
Yes holiday and sick pay is very good however sick pay is taken advantage.’
December 22, 2022
MT – I said that the nurses on the top of the bands didn’t get in year uplifts and should have risen in line with the % NMW/NLW increase to keep their differential. They got 4% instead of 7%.
What do you mean sick pay is taken advantage?
I have no problem with nurses getting full sick pay. My concern is they don’t understand how much that insurance cover costs their employer. In fact, that level of sick package is impossible to buy in the private sector. Check it out. If you’re over 55 you can’t get cover, pre-existing conditions aren’t covered, it is difficult to get it from the first day of sickness, and many policies only pay out after a month.
December 22, 2022
I think the message passed to me should have read ‘sick pay is taken advantage of’ – I left it verbatim.
Obviously not a good PA.
December 22, 2022
Reminds me of a young lady who came to work for us as a Temp. After three months with a good attendance and work record, we offered her a permanent receptionist position and paid off the temp agency. Almost immediately she started taking Friday ‘sick days’ off work and I had to have a chat with her. She explained that previouly (“at the Council”) she got 28 days paid holiday, plus 14 days paid sick leave – and that she preferred to “use up” her sick-leave allowance before her holiday one. I explained that wasn’t quite how it worked in the private sector. All was well for a month or two but then she announced that she was pregnant and took paid maternity leave (declaring that she would return at the end of the year but never doing so). We replaced her with an older lady who worked for us for many years without a single days absence.
December 22, 2022
And that is a bad thing because?
December 22, 2022
A civil servant I know was told (on her first day) that she could have X days of sick leave each year (18 I think it was before this was ever questioned) as if these were extra holiday allowances for her to use up.
December 22, 2022
Don’t be daft MT – most large organisations operate pay bands (or grades) and they usually have ‘quartiles’ – so a new person in Band ‘A’ would expect to be in Quartile 1 and a very senior person in Quartile 4. Most would be in Q2 & Q3. So pay reviews normally look at pay bands and then management decide position of staff within those bands, normally based on experience and seniority. Obviously, to move pay bands, you normally need to get promoted (also usually linked to job requirement or training). But clearly even if you are at the top of your band, you do get an increase if your band changes – although there was a Ā£1400 ‘ceiling’ increase for more senior nurses I beleive.
December 22, 2022
I quote from a VERY senior source – not my words or knowledge – hence me passing on the contributors statements on here.
December 22, 2022
Sorry MT,
Nurses get two wage reviews per year, one for a rate within their band plus one annual review until they get to the top of their band, then it is the general annual one only.
If they want to specialise or study further to climb the ladder (as many do), then they can apply for a higher band/grading after qualification (and rise up in that banding/grading until they reach the top of that one.).
Family member worked for the NHSa few years ago, hence the reason for knowing, unless this has recently changed.
Suggest you google Royal College of Nursing website for actual salary Bands/rates and benefits, like Holidays, sick pay, overtime, London weighting, and pension etc, and they set it all out simply and well.
Lots and lots of vague figures being bandied about, many being false !
December 22, 2022
I don’t need to nor care, I got sufficent response from way above nurse grades and was surprised to have answers.
December 22, 2022
We need to stop overseas aid, defence spending and the subsidies to N Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
December 22, 2022
What we really need is a government that works in the interests of the UK, instead of everybody else!
December 22, 2022
Spot On
December 22, 2022
Has Putin sent you your usual Christmas Card?
December 22, 2022
JR: “Too much borrowing”
Any number of people contributing to your forum have said as much.
But, I’ll see you ‘too much borrowing’, and raise you too much printing.
I must admit, I always thought it would be the Labour party that would ruin the economy. But it turns out to be the Tory party.
December 22, 2022
When Gold was removed as the value basis of currency , paper being more convenient to carry around, the door was opened to every profligate scam by government that could be dreamt up. Which is why any cash you may have is depreciating at at least 10% pa. Not content with this government debased metallic money with plated iron based coinage. Sterling ( Silver ) no longer existed. How long before they introduce plastic counters equating our currency with that of Monopoly Money.
When you have such a deliberate dishonest basis to the value of our currency is it any wonder that everything politicians / government touches goes for a bucket of worms. Dishonesty is the hallmark of government. Any honest politicians are the smokescreen behind which the scam of government operates. A pox on all your parties.
December 22, 2022
If I was a Conservative MP I’d be thoroughly ashamed of what my Party has done to the country over the past 12 years and the utter shambles Sunak and Hunt are currently presiding over.
I’d be so ashamed, I’d have to resign the Party Whip.
The fact that none of them have done so tells us all we need to know.
We’ll just have to “resign them” ourselves.
December 22, 2022
It was reported yesterday on the BBC that last months barrowing was at all-time high, that and the fact that our taxation rates are also at an all-time high ā¦I want to know what our government is spending all the money on, I donāt see any benefit to the taxpayer ā¦in fact all I see are public sector strikes and local government cuts ā¦.I donāt see any fiscal policy, I see brownās financial policy
December 22, 2022
I know where the moneyās gone; its gone to bale out the green dream
āā The taxpayer will pay as much as Ā£4.5bn to help fund the takeover of collapsed energy supplier Bulb by rival Octopus Energyāā https://inews.co.uk/news/business/bulb-energy-takeover-cost-taxpayers-4-5bn-2043402?fbclid=IwAR2GvFo-Vurz0XXpUwrwCambIOGGzgXWhKZssJiSTXhHQnjTNlta5EhTyr0
December 22, 2022
After just browsing today’s MsM a couple of questions shout out.
If the NHS Trusts are independent why is the Nursing Union demand talks with the Health Secretary when that department has already inferred they have no idea were the money goes in an āits nothing to do with themā stance.
Then the same theme exists with the rail workers, Royal Mail and so on ā the blame game is Government wont talk to the Union Bosses involved and as such are blocking resolutions.
There are lots of ifs and buts in all this, but seeing how Government appears to have lost control of our money, any good management would use the situation to re-establish its authority on how our money is spent.
In a similar correlation now we have an open cheque book account with the Bank of England ā they make the mistakes the taxpayer funds them. Time to loose it independence.
It is all a case of whether this Government and Parliament wants to be seen to manage the UK to justify their positions.
December 22, 2022
Sir John, āThe OBR was forecastingā – a deep question to you, how often is the OBR or the ONS for that matter anywhere near their projections?
December 22, 2022
It sometimes seems that HMG is not so interested in balancing the budget or getting the debt levels down – if they were then they would have made different decisions.
Giving extra Ā£billions to Ukraine will do us no good.
Throwing ever more money at the HS2 project that will never give a decent financial return.
Creating a digital currency that is neither desired, nor wanted, is just another control project, like digital IDs that they want to impose on is which have no valid justification.
Making the public dependent upon state handouts is expensive and another control function, also unnecessary when they could so easily have cut wasteful spending, lowered tax, and created a decent energy policy.
ETC ETC
In all of this it is so easy to see the intentions of the globalists who certainly care nothing for the average family, just the wealth transfer coming their way!
December 22, 2022
I don’t entirely blame recent governments for the dire state of the public finances.
Over the time since Margaret Thatcher was in office, public expectation of what government should do for us has rocketed. Under Margaret, self-reliance was key. If you wanted something, you worked hard and went out and earned it for yourself. Now, the only response is “They should do something about it,” meaning the government, and ultimately taxpayers should pay for it.
Where the Conservatives have done real long term damage has been by taking millions of people out of paying tax altogether. This started under pressure from the LibDims in Cameron’s government and Osbourne stupidly continued it.
If you have millions of people paying no tax, those voters have no incentive to vote for a party that ( is currently pretending ) it wants to keep taxes down.
December 22, 2022
If millions are paying no tax, and therefore no VAT, fuel duty etc., then please share how they manage it. The rest of us would love to know.
December 23, 2022
I suppose living in a tent, or caravan on a field somewhere, earning with cash jobs does sort of avoid taxes.
December 22, 2022
The saddest thing is that the āproblemsā are so easily solved. All you have to do is ask JR for a 10 point plan or read his blog. Hell any of those commenting on this blog would make a Chancellor who could keep the U.K. solvent.
One has to conclude therefore that those in power donāt want to maintain a solvent country.
As Sherlock says, āno matter how unlikely the deduction, if that is the only explanation, accept it.ā
Sir John please could you address this, the real problem that every voter confronts. It is not in our power to force the Treasury to assume itās full responsibilities, which included forecasting, setting interest rates and deciding to print or NOT print money.
All we can do is replace the ācattle on the premisesā. But nothing appeals.
When there is no attractive option, and we cannot propose and present an attractive option, we must accept that Democracy is itself dead.
A lot of fundamental work need to be done in 2023. No more dancing around the problem.
December 22, 2022
The pot holes in our roads are upto third world standards.
December 22, 2022
Soon to be fixed by third world illegal migrant workers employed cash in hand by subcontractors
December 22, 2022
Thats not fair the holes are in rubbish tarmac and loose gravel – 3rd world is usually mud washed out and not replaced.
December 22, 2022
Bungling borrowing Chancellors guess and experiment, intending to adjust later.
Then they adjust by borrowing more and more.
The present PM treats the UK like a Pyramid Selling Scheme destined to collapse.
December 22, 2022
If the country was run as a business any effective management would decide that its operating costs were too high and would implement a stringent reduction programme . Trouble is the Government cannot manage ; it is over “staffed ” and lacks the right skills to do the job .
December 22, 2022
Sir John,
I’m having a problem with taking this present Administration seriously. I think it because I don’t consider it has a valid mandate from either the electorate or even its own political party members. Indeed they have already rejected both the present Chancellor and the present Prime-Minister. We appear to have had an EU friendly coup. When the present leadership goes on about inflation it seems that they were, to a moderate extent, the cause of it by money printing longer than was needed. So without admission on their part of their contribution one cannot take anything else they say seriously. At this rate the next General Election will not be good news for a lot of those plotters who overthrew Truss.
December 22, 2022
Sir
Borrowing is no longer cheap.
We need to pay down debt PDQ.
What about appointing a Prime Minister and Chancellor who are prepared to grow the economy.
Do you know anyone ?
December 22, 2022
I have recently heard about another way to deal with the nurse’s strike and would like your opinion about it.
Nurses and other key NHS workers should be given tax relief on their salaries. It was said that this could help the strikers and also help with recruitment. Do you think this would be feasable?
Reply Itās just a pay rise
December 22, 2022
Very bad idea. Start changing tax specifically for nurses and not only will it complicate everything for HMRC (including benefits payable) but it will also cause a whole raft of workers claiming to be ‘nurses’ so as to get the reduced rates. Even defining something so simple as earned and unearned income causes much tax avoidance/evasion schemes where they try to redefine wages as unearned income, ie. a loan. Seriously, who would work for a loan, rather than actual pay?
Much simpler (and safer) to give them a reasonable rise and tax as normal. The nurses who have been on strike are in the wrong profession, in my humble opinion. They are the equivalent of PPE politicians.
December 22, 2022
Hi john
I see what’s happening on a daily basis that MP’S don’t
I see people with disability cars
Owners that go to Benidorm for 8 weeks walking from Bar to bar unaided. Every January.
I see the big issue seller supposedly homeless but being dropped off to sell their magazines then being picked by organised people in their new Mercedes
I See people claiming benefits but working cash in hand
Merry Christmas john
Ps I would like to see in no 10
December 22, 2022
I see train drivers who don’t, nurses who pretend they are saints who took a hippocratic oath, posties who watch their jobs going as they walk past each door with nothing to deliver, Civil servants who wish to have servants, MPs who serve their bosses never their constituency, union leaders claiming its worth losing pay but don’t hand back theirs. Moralists preaching on here who are pissed off about losing Ā£thousands every day to poor economics but ignore kids going hungry. Say Merry Christmas – but damn well mean it!
December 22, 2022
āIf only it would get on with allowing more oil and gas production in the UK it would get a revenue boost from high oil and gas taxes, and help to ease the squeeze on supplies.ā
Restricting supplies of fossil fuel to raise the price of energy is a deliberate act. So is the massively high figures for legal and illegal immigration.
When our PM, then Chancellor, says at COP26:
āSo our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero.ā
You need to ask, who is the āourā and what does the final re-wiring look like?
Judging by current actions it would appear that our āre-wiringā is intended to turn us into a third world country, poor and de-industrialised with expensive and intermittent energy and populated by many separate tribal communities.
December 22, 2022
“Our” is the WEF. The final re-wiring will look like The Great Reset plan; population control by Digital ID and a Social Credit System and Central Bank Digital Currencies.
The aim is for you to have a far lower standard of living and own nothing …. and they really don’t care if you’re happy or not.
December 22, 2022
Another ‘page’ or a volumn of biting and perfectly valid criticisms of this Tory government.
Don’t forget each and every one is treated by government with contempt and our host, whilst giving us the opportunity remains 100% loyal to the failing party and failing government.
It is tragic that some of you think Tories care about you and your opinions. The chances are that if they read them they use them to find a way to counter them. They only pretend to act because they have handed power to others and don’t wish it back.
For the record I do not think we can look to Labour, but only a handful of Tories cannot stop the party’s and government’s relentless social, cultural and economic destruction of our nation by both action and neglect.
December 22, 2022
By concentrating so much attention on those who are currently striking, the media have overlooked the reality that inflation and the cost of living is impacting on the whole population. It is important therefore that any solution must relieve pressure on all the population.
Solutions are therefore in the hands of government who, since Nick Clegg in coalition, have created the very cause of the problem. The only tools government have are the panoply of tax. Tax on vehicle fuel should be drastically cut and reflections of wholesale prices should not be left to the supermarkets and other retailers. VAT and the green levy should disappear from all fuel bills. The onset of the 20% income tax rate should move from Ā£12570 to Ā£30000. This would answer the nurses and any other strikers problems. Those whose income is very low can be aided with subsidies.
Following this, a root and branch reduction in government spending must occur to lay for it.
December 22, 2022
Well, that’s another day where reading this diary hasnt given me confidence in the future at all. Depressing as it is I am still grateful we have a Conservative host and thankful we can be informed by both John’s posts and the comments.
December 22, 2022
Sir John
By no stretch of one’s imagination can I qualify as being one of your prolific respondents. As I read your entries and the replies on a daily basis all I can say is THANK GOD FOR GIN/VODKA AND TONIC. Its one hell of a life line back to the real world where common sense was the norm of my daily existance.
December 22, 2022
Funny that in general those who quaff G&T in numbers are some way from the real world out there !
I think Board Room, Directors Box,, Members seats at football matches, Theatre boxes for shows or ballet…
The list goes on.
But who am I to point reality at somebody who escapes it?
December 22, 2022
We’re not all beer swilling people
December 23, 2022
nor me, a pleasant Pinot Grigio in the warmer weather, a Merlot or cabernet sauvignon in the cooler times. A good scotch on the rocks even.
December 22, 2022
The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 21 December 2022.
Number of migrants detected in small boats: 93
Number of boats detected: 2
Just in time for a free Christmas dinner at the taxpayers expense
December 22, 2022
Dear Sir John,
The situation with domestic oil and gas is probably more alarming than your blog indicates – apparently many companies are not even going to bother with the latest licensing round; they will simply leave the sector due to the windfall taxes, and the other negative measures in the budget. And I think it must be acknowledged that there is a very anti-domestic hydrocarbon slant to all this, driven by the net-zero ideology which is very prevalent in our political and administrative class, and possibly due to some influence from the US, which benefits enormously from the UK importing their oil and gas.
This simply has to change. I believe that there will be an energy security bill coming to the HOC soon, and if Ministers give no indication that the bill will stimulate the domestic oil and gas industry, an amendment must surely be proposed to add it in.
Keep up the good work,
SR
December 23, 2022
As unplanned borrowing is now so massive what is to be done? Higher taxes when taxes are already the highest for 70 years and a disincentive to investment and activity? Lower public spending – it would have to be huge cuts to make a big impact on the mushrooming debt, most especially as so many budgets, pensions, debt interest and to a large extent NHS, defence and education are so protected. That could only be feasible if Conservatives were prepared to argue vehemently for the benefits of a Singapore type economy.
The only economic plan from Sunak and Hunt seems to be the Micawber plan of waiting for something to turn up. At least Johnson tried for the boosterism of ‘levelling up’ and Truss tried for growth and at least they had pretensions to being political salesmen which Sunak and Hunt aren’t.
Worst of all what might turn up in 2023 is the lack of people’s spending power (after people pay huge extra fuel and housing costs, not to mention food and other inflation in essential expenditure) could kill most businesses trading in non-essential spending, spreading unemployment and sending tax receipts down a cliff edge and the economy tailspinning into a massive recession. Like the Treasury mandarins, Sunak and Hunt (who are at best just hoping not to drown in this economic storm) need replacing by some Conservatives who can formulate and promote a positive (even if risky) plan.
December 23, 2022
At the risk of being accused of being pedantic, I remind everyone that the inflation target is an AVERAGE of 2% per annum. This being the case, one year of 12% inflation should be followed by six years of 0% inflation. I see no sign from the PM, from the Chancellor and from the Governor of the Bank of England that this will be the target.
The Chancellor is guilty of raising taxes before the General Election whilst postponing public expenditure cuts until after the election. Would somebody tell me why this qualifies for the description ‘Compassionate Conservatism’? ‘Brainless Conservatism’ would be more accurate.
December 23, 2022
November did see the redemption of Ā£15.743bn nominal of 1 7/8% index linked gilts. The next index linked redemption isn’t until March 2024 when Ā£15.2bn nominal of 1/8% stock is due, with a current indexed value of Ā£22.224bn. The total uplifted value of indexed gilts is Ā£552bn, so 10% inflation would add Ā£55.2bn to the future liability.
December 23, 2022
Well put Sir, I suspect JH and RS have collective financial diarrhoea?