2023 could promise much. It will be the year when inflation falls from the unacceptable peaks of 2022. It should be the year when we put lockdowns and special inconveniences from covid behind us. It should be a year when western resolve deters new aggressive actions by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. It could be a year of economic recovery. It should be a year to show freedom works, offering hope to the world.
It is true that tomorrow though it is a new year we will still inherit the pains and problems of the old. Russia will continue to shell and bomb Ukraine, though should recoil from her dangerous threats with nuclear weapons. China will incur a cost in cases and deaths as she embarks on the last big move away from covid lockdown. The economies of the UK, USA and EU will experience more months of slowdown, recession and cost of living squeeze as their Central Banks seek to correct their gross inflationary errors by inflicting economic pain.
That is why as we want this year to be so much better than last we must look to governing establishments to change what they are doing to give us a better outcome. In the UK that means three things. A pro growth budget that makes it more worthwhile to work and to run a business, with tax cuts and benefit changes. A belated reform of business rules and laws , to facilitate more UK business and individual opportunity and success. This should include tackling the supply of illegal labour and illegal migration which undercuts legal businesses. A major private sector led investment in growing more food at home, landing more of our own fish, producing more of our own energy and producing more of our manufactured products.
If we do these things we can emerge with a stronger growing economy by end 2023. More people can succeed in their personal journeys, getting more skills, better paid jobs and owning their own homes. True levelling up is about helping create a nation of owners where owning your home, having a stake in the business you work for and having savings for the future is the experience of the many and the credible aspiration of many more.
The Opposition parties’ menu ofĀ higher taxes, deploying the politics of envy, attackingĀ profitable businesses and seekingĀ to level down the successful would .keep usĀ in recession, intensifying the cost of living squeeze. If we carry on with price controls we will create more shortages. If we back windfall taxes we will deter the investment in Ā extra capacity we need.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor have choices. If you want a better 2023, if you want the troubles of 2022 to recede, then join me in calling for growth policies. Let us give freedom more of a chance. The UK backsĀ brave UkrainiansĀ fighting for it . We need to insist on it at home and abroad by voice and vote.
December 30, 2022
Good morning.
Sorry Sir John, but it is 2023 we are talking about and not 2024 post General Election ?
I say this because, when reading that paragraph it really rather reflected the policies that this government has, and is, carrying out.
Next year expect worse. There are already rumblings between Serbia and Kosovo. More boat people and even more strain on our services. A housing market collapse. It has already started and the OBR figures will not be available until the Spring.
Happy New Year ? Well I did say that last time and all the times before that. Never is.
December 30, 2022
Agree Mark. Not just the opposition parties who have a menu of higher taxes. UK tax rate around record levels, public sector services in chaos and government competence in question.
Sir J, I appreciate all politicians crave power and the Tories wish to stay in government – at the present that isn’t working. I suggest you’d be far better to call a snap election and lose it to demonstrate to the UK public that Labour, SNP and Lid Dem are even more incapable.
December 30, 2022
PeterB
Your last para. Fascinating experiment – no doubt hugely disruptive with unknowable consequences (except a massive devaluation of Ā£) but short and sharp – FOR SURE!
If we’re going down, lets go fighting.
December 30, 2022
One hugely disruptive experiment (Truss/Kwarteng) was quite enough, thank you very much.
We are all paying the price for that one.
December 30, 2022
Peter, I disagree, like in most situations the people made a statement and unfortunately the Conservative party didnāt want to listen and follow through on expectations, the Tories are not in tune with the people that elected them at all. They have taken it that they are to be the smack down police to box us all in. This Sunak/Hunt regime, their way or no way is going to end in tears (but those two millionaires will be fine, set up for life following their instructions), the party didnāt have the nerve, uniqueness or talent in the words of Rue Paul to follow through on Truss and Kwartengās wish to give the members what they wanted after listening to them all summer, they had to be rushed, they had to be making decisions on the spur unlike the current duo who are hardly ever heard of let alone pushed on decisions because they are working to plan.
Is it the two people that put the top card on the deck that then fell over, or the people that designed the full house of cards that inevitably fell at fault.
December 30, 2022
JR, I think you might be suffering the excesses of Christmas to make false claims of opposition parties in your penultimate paragraph and delusion in the first few. We know this because of your critical blogs of govt and BOE plus all the pass the blame blogs to deflect appalling governance by your party and govt.
Your party and govt has decided to be high tax, big state and disgraceful waste of our money under the hypnotism to be in lockstep with WEF, UN and EU. As a matter of fact and record your party and govt have been far worse managing the economy than Labour- print money, tripled debt, highest taxation and your govt enacts their policies and hire their former ministers!! What on earth are you talking about?
December 30, 2022
a-tracy…I think the Conservative Party stopped listening to the people of the UK many years ago. Led with a blindfold, a forced gag, and a promise of a future with the Commonwealth, the USA, the EU, the Chinese. Eventually the eco loonies gained prominence, the gender and race nonsense became a significant issue when it didn’t exist before. Everybody has mental health concerns -well they should if they follow news and politics!
We need a Speakers Corner on every High St, but no thought police to drag them away for incitement.
December 30, 2022
@a-tracy, Truss and Kwarteng didn’t put the top card on the deck, they took a sledgehammer to it knowingly and willingly. They were warned as to what the market reaction would be to their plans and they went ahead and did them anyway. Arrogance, stupidity, or both?
The self-selecting few (Conservative party members) who put them in power were being told all summer what the consequences would be of what Truss was telling them in the leadership election, and they voted her into 10 Downing St anyway. What does that say about the members of that self-selecting electorate?
As a consequence, the financial markets are now charging the UK a premium on government borrowing (as they now have less confidence in this government). They call it the “idiot tax” (they actually use a different word than idiot, beginning with “m”, but I’m not going to use that word). As a result, we are all now paying that idiot tax. I guess that makes us all idiots.
December 30, 2022
Peter, youāre missing the point, if the house the architect built was robust with good foundations and built with excellent products then all the sledgehammer would have done is chipped a bit of concrete off one of the walls.
Iām not a member, I didnāt agree with getting rid of Boris.
I thought acorn said we could print our own money. The government knew that allowing the financial sector to create ever riskier instruments like those that were used that precipitated the banking crisis in 2008 that the outcome would be the same. Why was it a surprise to anyone it was collapsing months before Truss took over!
Why do they have less confidence in Sunak and Hunt they put them there. Or is it that they donāt have confidence in their own financial regulation system. Perhaps you know, how did they drop interest rates to 1.5% after 2008 when previously it had been much higher?
December 30, 2022
No we arenāt. Theāpriceā of the Truss budget has been zero. The price of the Hunt budget however .,,,
December 30, 2022
a-tracy – I agree with your every word
December 30, 2022
No…the problem was the Bank of England, not Truss or Kwarteng. You have fallen for the MSM/WEF hype.
Interest rates should be back under control of the Chancellor…and the useless OBR abolished.
December 30, 2022
The demise of the Truss administration following the mini-budget has been widely attributed to the marketās reaction to the expectation of unfunded borrowing occasioned by tax cuts and the fuel price cap. To the contrary: the marketās behaviour was quite clearly a response to the actions ā and inactions ā of the Bank of England, before, during and after the mini-budget.
The two biggest influences causing the falls in bonds up to 28th September were the Bank of England deliberately driving the price of bonds down to raise interest rates, and the LDI/pension funds having to sell bonds as they scrambled to deal with their overcommitted positions. The markets rallied only when the Bank said it wanted rates lower and bond prices up proving its power.
Since the ConSocialist coup against Liz Truss, the Tories have shown even more contempt for us.
December 30, 2022
It wasn’t an “experiment”. It was a policy that certain people didn’t agree with, and which, with the help of their cronies in the City, was snuffed out by a coup.
December 30, 2022
Indeed, Peter. It is only when the public realises how incapable the majority of our politicians are that we’ll see some real change. Oh for Henry Thoreau’s “Government is best that governs least”.
December 30, 2022
I would have preferred JR supporting the brave DUP against Sunak, Hunt and EU. Or passing comment that his govt should seek freedom for N.Ireland from EU laws,regs,rules and control from EU!
Is Sunak and Hunt going to award EU any more contracts to build war ships or pass industry and jobs to EU countries? Socialist Tories sold out fishing industry, steel making, car manufacturing, energy, gas, oil, coal miningā¦to Russia!
Ukraineā¦. Not of strategic importance for UK govt to be wasting billions of our taxes on. Seek peace with Russia is the solution, Putin will not be duped any more.
December 30, 2022
“The Opposition partiesā menu of higher taxes, deploying the politics of envy, attacking profitable businesses and seeking to level down the successful would .keep us in recession, intensifying the cost of living squeeze. If we carry on with price controls we will create more shortages. If we back windfall taxes we will deter the investment in extra capacity we need.
These are the Sunak Hunt policies too. We have the highest and most complex taxes for 70 years combined with appalling public services.
December 30, 2022
It’s at least going to be entertaining to see Sunak and Hunt try and pretend that the LibCONs are the Party of low taxation, sound money, law ‘n’ order, strong borders and all the rest of the bovine excrement the Party comes out with during a General Election campaign.
The CONs need to remove the beam from their eye. It’s now obvious to former Conservative/conservative voters that there isn’t a sliver of difference between them and Starmer/Reeves.
December 30, 2022
Indeed. Hard to see much growth when Sunak and Hunt have there feet rammed hard to the floor on all the available brakes:- net zero, highest taxes for 70 years, a huge bloated and appallingly run state sector, socialist education, transport, healthcare, energyā¦ policies, deliberate inflation and money printing/currency debasement open door low skilled immigrationā¦
December 30, 2022
LL/Donna,
I am not sure where the taxation will come from. Any sensible business or high earner will move or change HQ from Huntās anti business agenda to make our country and people poor, cold and hungry.
JRās blog today is against all fact, logic and is pure pie in the sky. His party is neither conservative or unionists. 13 years of implementing mass immigration, tripling the debt, highest taxation, failing to deliver Brexit – all of which against his parties four election promises to do the opposite! Perhaps JR is just being provocative?
Interesting to see another alleged Tory treacherous May agreeing with Sturgeon on her radical Marxist trans ID laws! Just in case LL says Labour and SNP would be worse!
Reform Party for Local,elections in May. JRās party deserves to be destroyed.
December 30, 2022
Hope, i like your commitment to Reform, but theyāre getting nowhere fast. No message is being delivered using them. They didnāt touch the sides in Salford or Chester. Less than 3%.
December 30, 2022
a-tracy – Reform voters will have the satisfaction (and clear conscience) of NOT voting for an undemocratic and dishonest UK destroying traitorous party.
December 31, 2022
HOPE in reply to LL /Donna- JR is a politician. what else do you expect.
December 30, 2022
50,000 people leave and 100,000 people arrive. Almost certainly if you were to analyse this you would find that the 50K leaving were doing far more economic good than the 100,000 low paid and benefit claimants arriving. The socialist Sunak, Hunt, Gove anti work and anti growth polices of tax to death, borrow and waste are almost certain to make this even worse in 2023.
Even a newly qualified GP in the UK is simply not paid enough to live on let alone buy a flat. Plus they have Ā£150K of university debt and interest of circa Ā£10K PA to repay from their net pay of circa Ā£22,000. So they leave medicine or go to Australia, New Zealand…and earn circa double and are treated with more respect too than the dire NHS.
December 30, 2022
Lifelogic, have you misunderstood how the student loan repayments work? They would have to be earning over Ā£138,111 to pay Ā£10,000 pa (9% graduate tax is taken from their gross over the personal allowance), after 30 years it is written off if not repaid in full.
Plan 1 loans were getting paid off by successful students as they were paying back over Ā£16,000, Osborne wanted the graduate tax from English students for 30 years, Plan 2 repayments donāt start until after Ā£27,000.
If students leave the UK to escape student loan repayments on high salaries then the government needs to sort this out quickly as it is not fair at all to those English students they bash over and over again in our so called union.
December 30, 2022
Not at all what they have to repay as student loan payments is one thing. The interest that accrues (and then causes extra interest for the following year is another quite different one.
Think of their balance sheet. A new doctor might start the year with Ā£150k of debt Ā£5k of assets and zero assets, earn Ā£29k in a full time demanding job, take home perhaps just Ā£20k (after tax, NI, pension cont. etc) this all used for rent, food, commuting, heating, insuranceā¦ one year on their balance sheet fall from -Ā£145k to – Ā£155k
They would prob need to earn about Ā£50k just to break even on the year more like Ā£90k to actually repay the position in a reasonable number of year. They hardly have enough to live not even in a grotty in a bedsit if in London..
December 30, 2022
Its a disgrace that newly qualified Doctors and Nurses have this debt hanging over them at all for the majority of their working lives. Anything over Ā£27,000 a year is taxed at an extra 9% on top of already record levels of taxation. What incentive is there to stay in this country? LL is right, the very people the country needs will take their services abroad. Australia knows how to look after and appreciate our Doctors who have devoted 6 years to intensive training which cannot be replaced overnight. But as long as we go after them for the debt thatās all that matters.
This Tory Government are happy to write off 78% of all student debt for mostly worthless degrees so why not do the same for our much needed NHS staff on condition they work for the NHS for a number of years. And of course itās only English Doctors and Nurses being clobbered with Ā£9,250 tuition fees and parking charges to go about their work. Sunak boasted recently that Sturgeon could only afford to offer Scottish nurses 7% because he had bunged the Scots Government an extra 1.5 billion to do so on top of the billions they already get thanks to the skewed Barnett Formula. Meanwhile incompetents Barclay and Sunak refuse to offer even that to English Nurses. The NHS is in crisis, demoralised, understaffed and on itās knees but of course Sunak will be alright as he goes private anyway.
December 30, 2022
Ignore the āand zero assetsā I changed it to a more realistic Ā£5K for personal effects.
December 30, 2022
LL – I have said in past comments, I find it strange that a nurse after 3 years training starts on Ā£27,055 which is a graduate salary straight out of Uni at 21. Yet a doctor after 5 years training starts on Ā£29,384.
[In Foundation training, you will earn a basic salary of Ā£29,384 to Ā£34,012 (from 1 April 2022). If you’re a doctor starting your specialist training in 2022 your basic salary will be Ā£40,257 to Ā£53,398.]. Jools said here the other day her first year GP works shifts (which has enhanced pay per hour 30-60%) around 25-30 hours overtime each week (which also accrues during holiday pay time) and is based in London (which accrues London weighting said to cost an extra 20%)
It should be the other way around, if you stay in the UK after your doctor training working in the NHS for 40 hours per week or more then each year you do that the 9% graduate tax is taken care of by the State, leave and you have your loan converted to out of Country loan and a % of what is due is to be repaid on a monthly basis.
December 30, 2022
Jools all three of my English grads have this graduate tax to pay. One has paid off their student loan in full! Where do you get the figure that 78% of loans are not repaid?
Plan 1 loans are getting repaid, I know many English graduates personally that have paid off their loans and maintenance loans in full as they were repaying from Ā£16,000 pa not Ā£27,000. Thatās why Osborne tried to stitch all the higher earners up with plan 2.
December 30, 2022
LL,
These govt figures are not accurate they are based on hazy estimates rather than actual head count. Those arriving getting visas were accurate at 1.2 million. The NI numbers issued are accurate and do not correlate with govt. immigration figures either.
You,can be sure the govt figures are to con people.
I note US and Italy require Chinese people entering their country to prove covid negative before entering their country. Snake and Hunt welcomes them open arms presumably get free NHS health care at our expense!
December 30, 2022
Hope, we were assured that foreign visitors are charged for their NHS treatment. These doctors and nurses want to be paid lots more but donāt want to ensure that unentitled people are not rebilled for their medical care in the UK. Just how much does the UK rebill the European Card, how much do they recharge to travel insurers and how much do they recharge to foreign aid for anyone else from the rest of the world treated here for free because they arenāt covered by the other 2.
December 30, 2022
The Chinese coming to Britain are mostly young-ish people who will not require ‘health treatment’ if they catch this cold virus. The Omicron wave has already passed through Britain, and was very mild anyway, so frankly it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about.
December 31, 2022
RG – Bloomberg 21 Dec 2022 ā The tsunami of Covid-19 that’s taking hold across China is spurring concern that a dangerous new virus variant could emerge for the first ā¦
2. 24 Nov 2022 ā The government responded by tightening Covid restrictions in cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and ordering mass testing.
If this is a new mutation of the virus, and so serious that China locked down three major Cities, why are you so keen to bring it over to run free? I read that one flight 3 days ago to Milan Reported 50% of Passengers on China Flights Have Covid. Italy plans to start virus tests on all China arrivals. You may be right about the young people from China not requiring hospitals but what about all the flight attendants and university lecturers, many over 55 years of age that would be teaching them, is it such a hard thing to put a stick up your nose and wait a few minutes, then do their lessons from their student digs for five days and not socialise with everyone.
December 30, 2022
Agreed. I have no hope that this dreadful ConSocialist Government will do any of the things necessary to improve the UK’s prospects.
They are dancing to the WEF tune, and that requires destructive policies so they can build back in a way that the Globalists consider will be better for them. And they don’t give a 4x whether the peasant-class is happy or not…… just like their Medieval forefathers didn’t.
December 30, 2022
We need a Will Tyler for a peasants revolt. The Tory party and govt have become the enemy of the people literally. Continually destroying our economy and way of life.
Gove on a mission to break up England into regions per EU dictum. The same Gove who took back the crumb of EVEL. Cameron promised to answer Lothian question to get elected so England had a voice without Scotland, Wales or N.Ireland. Watered down EVEL enacted and taken back within a couple of years!
Scotland and Wales still voting for English matters only. Where is the English MPs in an English parliament? N.Ireland given away to EU to unite Ireland against wishes of UK citizens and hamstring GB business in the process to be under EU control. Wallace then gives Spain the contract to build our warships and fitting out in N.Ireland so goods, tariffs co e under EU rules and refs!! Utter treachery.
December 30, 2022
I should explain. He works around in a deceitful manner and I speak as someone that used to like and trust him, no more.
He stopped EVEL which was designed to ensure that legislation that affected only England, or England and Wales, was approved by a majority of MPs representing ENGLAND. He ensured a devolved English Parliament couldnāt be created even though the Tories had a big majority in order to ensure our equivalent rights in the Union. I will never forgive him for that especially when we are led by Wales and Scotland from 2024 with an English Labour Party forever on its knees to them! Their people gain massively from England taxpayers paying the price. Great have your free tuition but you bl**dy pay for it.
He is regionalising England in line with EU orders. Divide and conquer. Why Gove, why? Trying to get back in the clique? More of you should live in the North where we constantly get dragged down to the lowest levels of education, just look at Liverpool, and now guns are in play in Liverpool and our Labour controlled (or out of control Cities).
December 30, 2022
@Mark B +1
Agreed how can a Party with 12 years in office, that sacrificed the UK Economy, created the highest taxes in living memory suggest the alternatives would be worse ā its inconceivable.
Energy Problems 100% a Conservative Party responsibility, cost of living, inflation etc. have all laid bare the inadequacies to do what it was paid to do, that is step up and manage.
In a properly run Country were its MPās followed their paid for duties and ensured, the safety, security, self reliance and resilience of society none of today’s woes would have inflicted so much pain, a pain that we will have to endure for many years to come.
December 30, 2022
+1
Sunak and Hunt recently blocked in parliament the public from seeing who gives them freebies from lobby and interest groups! Remember they promised right to recall and transparency being the best disinfectant! Their clandestine activities do not bode well for a democracy after the biggest corruption scandal in Westminster.
December 30, 2022
+1 The whole of recent government the lockdowns, test and trace, HS2, net zero, PPE, energy policyā¦ can surely only be explained by blatant corruption or vested interests or gross incompetence at a level far too high to seem remotely credible.
December 30, 2022
The Serbia and Kosovo conflict will continues as the UN enforced peace just postpones any settlement ā¦a war/conflict must have a winner and a loser, just look at Korea. Cyprus, Congo etc
December 30, 2022
JR blogs brave Ukraine. Stupid Ukraine should have considered its position a long time ago and made sure the west kept to its agreements. I do not want my taxes wasted on one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Peace talks should have been the top priority not arming them through our taxes.
December 30, 2022
Indeed, but we have the blowhards who are highly āinvestedā in the continuation of the conflict. Perhaps Ben Wallace needs to have a chat with the āUkrainian PMā so the NATO war strategy can be leaked/unveiled as it was in April this yearā¦..
Zorro
December 30, 2022
There was a peace agreement āMinskā – guaranteed by Germany and France. Merkel has confirmed it was signed only to fool Russia into giving Ukraine time to train and arm.
Zelenski stood on a platform of friendship with Russia and neutrality – no NATO membership. Ukrainians voted for him on that basis. Look what they got!
In the next 90 days or so the cataclysmic destruction of 180,000 Ukrainian men and indeed Ukraine itself will no long be able to be hidden. The neocons in the west looking for an off ramp and a change of subject.
JR needs to take an interest in this disaster – the American Col. McGregor is a dose of reality if you look him up on utube JR. Please do.
December 30, 2022
Lynn, who were Germany and France speaking for? What year was this Minsk agreement, were they acting as leaders of the EU without actually asking the other members? If they screwed this up why arenāt they the ones paying to fix this problem.
December 30, 2022
Sadly 2023 promises to be worse than 2022. The reason is because Britain is following the globalist dictats of the World Economic Forum which are in plain view on their website. Your recommendations are highly desirable but the powers that be unfortunately want the ideas of Davos and not the Britain friendly ideas of Wokingham.
December 30, 2022
BR,
Agreed. Sunak and Hunt will carry on regardless. They are not going to change and there seems to be nobody able to force them to do so.
December 30, 2022
Agree ā theyāve got the crown, theyāre wearing the crown, making there court secure
The Tory party no longer appoints leaders they appoint emperors
December 30, 2022
Sunak and Hunt elected by whom? Brady claimed each candidate agreed not to withdraw to allow membership a vote. That like every Tory policy was discarded in months!
Sunak and Hunt rejected by party and public leading a country in a direction the people and country do not want, including JR!
December 30, 2022
A fair summary of accounts
December 30, 2022
Just a little Thought Experiment: if all the countries of the world – by the democratic will of their respective peoples – joined the European Union, then would you still want to be on the outside of it?
If not then why not?
You see, regionally, this sort of thing is happening steadily, and the blocs come to ever more rational arrangements with each other too.
December 30, 2022
Can you imagine the USA surrendering its sovereignty to unelected officials in Brussels? Elements of the US administration may think it’s a good idea for the UK to be a member, so long as they aren’t.
Then there’s China – what do you think their response would be to the suggestion they are to do as they’re told?
Utter nonsense.
December 30, 2022
You’re avoiding the question, as ever.
December 30, 2022
OK NLH, how about another thought experiment:
If the EU model is so great after 50 years of evidence, how many other regions of the world have copied the model? Shared government, currency, central bank, open borders, trading policy….
I’m still looking for an example.
December 30, 2022
I didnāt avoid your question.
December 30, 2022
Well said, Dave
December 30, 2022
Correct Dave. Add to that Canada taking orders from the USA.
December 30, 2022
Straw men as ever from the Right wing logically illiterate – the question was not as to the foreseeability of the proposition, just as to what your position would be if it were the case.
December 30, 2022
If it was trade only, probably. But it never is, someone will make a power grab.
December 30, 2022
An exceptionally naive comment, NLH; it would appear you have never studied history.
Take a look at the UN, take a good long look at BRICS now or the Soviet Union in recent history, and see how the individual most powerful nations co-opt, bully or buy out their weaker ‘allies’.
PS. Just how many nations would either give their people the opportunity to actually vote on such a proposition, or have sufficiently educated citizens who would understand both the positive and negative implications of a Single State Earth?
December 30, 2022
SM, the Taliban wonāt even allow their females to get an education. What is wrong with the Women in this Country to breed men who want to subjugate them. What Mother teaches her son that he is superior to her and his sisters. How does NLH expect that country to want to join the EU and all their rules on enlightenment, or would they get a pass, because well that is just too difficult a subject to resolve and well they can turn a blind eye to that as they do to many other things.
NLH thinks the World is all the same and one world order is the way to go, no opposition to him and people like his views and opinions. I think most countries show when they have free elections that it is close to half and half, half think one way and half think another way entirely. Would he polish one half off in a mass cull? Then the half that remained would disagree on what to do next.
December 30, 2022
AT,
Truss gave the Taliban Ā£100 million of our taxes after Raab oversaw the running away from his holiday resort and the head meandering from his holiday home in France!! After Truss wasted our taxes the Taliban have now stopped primary and university education for girls. Same for other countries the socialist Tory govt have wasted our money on. Sunak was chancellor!
December 30, 2022
Hope, 13 Dec 2021 ā Truss said the commitment would help save lives and āsupport stability in the region.ā It follows discussions among G7 foreign ministersā¦
Just following her instructions. She should ask for the money back as it hasnāt stabilised it has only empowered these men to do their worst.
December 30, 2022
Because you would become part of a dream shared by Napoleon, Adolphe Hitler, Stalin and Mao.they might have prayed at the altar of differennt philosophies, but the means and the intended results were much the same. Democracy, the first building block of a free society has already been removed by your beloved EU. How much longer before they decide they must go further. I hope that answers your question NLH.
December 30, 2022
Well we are inching towards it, but CHINA is trying hard to accelerate the future zoning of most of the world into 3 camps as Blair (George Orwell) suggested). That toleration might require 2 of them to be at each others throats without necesaarily using the ultimate weapons, mutual annihilation almost certain. Hoping for the world becoming a larger evil empire, run by plutocrats fills me with horror. Rules will reduce personal freedoms and eliminate entrepreneurs…you will conform or go to Siberian salt mines!
December 30, 2022
NLH, why are you so intent on only having one club to belong to, a tight jacket, and if it bothers you so much why do you still live here. Move to Dublin.
December 30, 2022
AT,
Why Dublin? The whole of N.Ireland is in vassalage. Heaton-Harris introduced fast legislation to force DUP to cave to EU demands while Hunt, Sunak and Wallace gave building of our warships to Spain/EU control!
December 30, 2022
Hope, JR warned his fellow parliamentarians about the daft NI plan in the Brexit agreement, Boris and Frost said they had it in control. I thought Martin would want to go all out EU so we still have the common travel area with Southern Ireland, a lot of their inhabitants take great advantage of that so why donāt zealots like Martin.
December 30, 2022
Martin always strikes me as somebody who yells ‘ man the barricades, confront the authorities, down with everything’ while keeping back in the shadows.
December 30, 2022
With Martin, is a itās my way or no way. Iām right all the time, youāre wrong, youāre idiots for not believing as I do and we need my version of a world order so that you all comply fools.
It must be amazing to live like that. I question myself all the time, every day. I can have my mind changed on fixed ideas. For years I have thought legalising drugs would be an horrendous mistake, giving those few kids that resist at our trendy universities by saying, I wonāt do anything illegal and end up with a record if caught, an opt out. I have thought the mental health and social problems are not worth the experiment of legalising it. However, as Iām walking around our estates Iām realising the war against cannabis is lost, the smell is intense (it makes me wonder why cops canāt see the dens and dealers) might as well tax it to help pay for all the tragedies it will inevitably cause, how many people use their drug use as an excuse for bad behaviour in the courts, lots, it should result in longer sentences but often it means they get let off.
December 30, 2022
NLH,
Contrary to your assertion, the blocs are falling apart. It started with Yugoslavia, which the EU helped dismember, then the USSR, then the EU…still in progress, NATO likely to be next…
As Blair (prematurely) said, the pieces are moving…but “we” the West cannot re-order them… the East will.
December 30, 2022
NLH, I’d call that a not-much-thought-experiment, sorry. The EU can barely keep its existing members, never mind gain new ones. You might do better to think ahead to what the consequences of a multi-polar world following the EU’s failed sanctions on Russia are going to be. Have you not noticed how even the Germans are getting worried about how the policy is leading to energy poverty and economic ruin? The EU will soon enough be seen as an economic suicide pact that no-one in their right mind would want to join. Try to follow what’s going on, never mind what The Guardian says. The new alliances of the future are bringing together countries like Russia, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and of course China. Just think, it might even one day include us – cheaper energy and membership of a worldwide economic association, all made easier by Brexit.
December 30, 2022
So true
zorro
December 30, 2022
Youāre back!
Happy New Year.
December 30, 2022
We are a nation of millions of citizens. Millions of individuals can exert strong power. Attempting to convince a misguided PM and a Chancellor to do good and sensible things is a feeble way of trying to make bad circumstances improve. Individuals are free to organise and control their own behaviour to take the shortest path to better. Collective actions such as boycotts are just one device. Govt āleadersā without followers are powerless. UK citizens can lead happier, healthier lives for one and all using their freedom of choice.
December 30, 2022
Bloke, but even when they choose a freer leader, someone who promises to give them what they ask for, the mechanisms of State Institutions shut them down. We have allowed powerful control agents to take over the levers of government, and people like JR are stood outside powerless to stop them even though he is elected and they arenāt.
December 30, 2022
that may be coming to a close. Not only is Wokingham changing (for the worse), but voters link Council and Planning shambles with the MP. We even have boundary changes afoot. All those (thousands?) of new mortgagees in the area must be wondering why they did it.
Reply Electors know there is a Lib Dem led Council that is putting up parking charges, blocking roads, worsening the bins service and putting up the tax. They do not blame me for these policies which I disagree with.
December 30, 2022
MT I hope that John has a posse of councillor wannabees that are getting the message out about what voting Lib Dem last time got them locally and what they will change. But would they change once they get used to all those lovely extra taxes from parking, I still canāt get my head around when loads of new homes have been built increasing the rates take often in compact estates for easy bin collection, often taxed at band D and above why can they still not balance budgets, I canāt see all these new home owners adding to the social care bill that they tell us is their biggest headache.
December 30, 2022
reply to reply .. do you really believe your constituents read enough in the local ‘rag’ infested with annoyed Independents and sandal wearing LibDems to separate you from the regular mess? As a tip you need to up your game. The opposition is now reaching for ‘I’m cancer surviver’ – anything to grasp sympathy votes. Perhaps you could have photos with more EV drivers, or smiling young families exiting travel agents holding holiday brochures? Have a chat with the endless Developers – must be a Tory amongst them, photos of you handing young couples the door key?
December 30, 2022
@Banana Republic – Agreed with WEF as their āLord and Masterā why have an electorate? Although now I have said that I remember that is part of the WEF doctrine also, the elite rule by decree the plebs pay the bill.
December 30, 2022
B R
Indeed, what we need is for our own Politicians to grow a backbone, and Dump Party the Politics fiasco of so called debate.
Let us have politicians who will actually think of the UK first and foremost, and act in that interest, instead of being lead, (it would seem at sometimes almost blind folded) by other Country’s best interests.
Face facts the Brexit bonus will never materialise, unless the politicians think of our Country first, we need politicians and polices that will reward the workers, reward investment, reward the self employed and small businesses.
We need the state to cut it’s own management numbers hugely, and to get out of trying to run peoples lives for them.
Of course we need a safety net for those who are unfortunate, through no fault of their own, who fall upon hard times, but it should be a safety net, not an enjoyable trampoline to a life free of work.
We need simplicity in taxation and benefits which is fair, and easily understood by all, not a complicated mess of a system which few now understand (including many politicians).
We also need a justice system which is fair, works efficiently and in a timely manner, and which the police can enforce and effectively uphold simple laws.
We need politicians who understand Human Nature for what it is, yes most of us are patriotic to a degree, but we WORK for ourselves, to better ourselves and our families, not the State !
Yes we all understand that we need to pay taxes, but the State should have a duty to keep those taxes as minimal as possible and to make sure our money is well spent, and used efficiently.
I live in hope, but fear the above will not happen in my lifetime !
Thanks for your efforts John, keep on trying as you are one of the few with any sort of real vision for the above.
Happy new year everyone !
December 30, 2022
2023 will remain the same whilst we have the profligate PM and Chancellor.
Business will continue to fold in pursuit of net zero and motorists will be priced off the roads.
Every man and his dog will continue to paddle across the channel with much hand wringing and no action
Useless windmills will continue to be built and power cuts become norm
What’s not to like.
December 30, 2022
+1
December 30, 2022
”Useless windmills” the understatement of 2022
December 30, 2022
Well, a Happy New Year to you, Sir John, and thanks for giving us citizens a voice on your blog.
China? It needs to be subject to economic sanctions every time it utters any form of threat to a democratic country.
December 30, 2022
And the EU as well then? The UN? The WHO? Sauce for the goose?
December 30, 2022
yep – out of the paper tiger UN, and China led WHO.
December 30, 2022
Whilst I agree with most of this to try and label the other parties as high tax parties is pretty laughable given Hunt’s actual actions (on Sunak’s advice). Tomorrow is still this year as well!!
December 30, 2022
depends how much you had to drink, and when you surface?
December 30, 2022
Might be the best way …… and make it last all the year??!!!
December 30, 2022
Does Sir John sing ‘always look on the bright side of life?’
December 30, 2022
I’d love to vote Conservative John. I have done all my life but until I actually see anything that even slightly resembles what you are suggesting and what to be fair was in the 2019 manifesto I can’t bring myself to do so. I need to see REAL action regarding illegal immigration, action on home produced energy, dropping of net zero, a proper Brexit, fishing and farming given a new lease of life and benefits for the work shy taken away. I’m not confident this will happen and your biggest danger as a party will be if Farage comes back into politics. He’s doing a great job on GB News at the moment highlighting all of the destructive decisions your government is making. Long may he continue. I feel for a man such as yourself that can see the way forward and yet is continually ignored by his own party especially when Reform echo what you are advocating.
December 30, 2022
Totally agree. The Conservative Party
are not failing to implement a conservative agenda but succeeding at implementing a non-conservative (WEF) agenda that is making us all poorer.
December 30, 2022
Thank goodness for GB News. I can make my own assessments of the new Israeli government, I don’t need the BBC to tell me what it should be.
December 30, 2022
+1
December 30, 2022
+1
Tory govt is deliberately destroying our culture and way of life while making us all poor, cold and hungry.
December 31, 2022
you didn’t mention angry!
December 30, 2022
What use is a fraudulent manifesto that is just designed to win votes? Neither of the main parties can be trusted to be honest. They say one thing, and do the opposite once they are safely ensconced in the Commons. The most honest party was the Lib(un)Dems as they were honest about overturning the electorates wishes to leave the EU, but promising to destroy democracy and ignore the electorates majority votes wasn’t exactly a vote winner, was it?
December 30, 2022
Totally agree. GB News and Farage and Co really have the heartbeat of the Nation.
December 30, 2022
Above all, let us hope for an end to all this global warming. It is simply not credible and if the opposition had not been muzzled, it would have perished long ago.
Fracking, coal production, oil, should be encouraged and rapidly speeded up. The endless subsidies for wind farms should be curtailed and transferred.
I write this as 59% of our electricity is being provided by wind power. But that won;t save our steel (owned by a foreign company) or aluminium production.
December 30, 2022
Agree Anselm. 59% today, 2% tomorrow? Who can tell. You cannot run a modern economy like that as well they know.
December 30, 2022
It’s 9.12am UK time, and I agree wholeheartedly with the views expressed by the seven comments I have read.
Happy New Year to our host and all contributors.
December 31, 2022
And to you SM
š
December 30, 2022
***sorry, that should be 7.12 UK time!***
December 30, 2022
There is no freedom while woke Marxists control speech, language and behaviour. A politics so vicious and so pervasive that it is now promoted by all parties including your party John.
The British State now categorises according to identity and victim status. I call that inequality and discrimination using subtle threat of prosecution for what, actually existing in my own nation
John knows full well what has happened in the last 3 years and how this nasty Marxist politics now informs all public policy and yet his party and his colleagues sit in silence
If woke is being practised by a Tory government I dread to fear what will happen when Labour, its real believers, gain power. It will prove utterly oppressive for all men and indeed many women
Your party has sold our nation to woke, to globalists and to Marxists who will no doubt be pushing for digital ID’s, CBDC and Social credit tied to our economic life
At some point your party and its MPs will have to oppose woke, your soul will compel you too
Other than that, have a happy 2023 and thanks for this platform to express our views. It is appreciated and a haven for those who fear the new terror
December 30, 2022
‘compel you to’
December 30, 2022
Dom,
+1
December 30, 2022
Fully agree, Dom! There are many campaign groups coming from all directions to highlight all this!
Hopefully, this new year will be the year to really attack the woke, communist ideals and really make a difference for change. Bottom up change, attacking the bottom down ideals.
December 30, 2022
+many
Nail on head as ever!
Let us hope for a speedy opposition to woke.
But I see no āHappy New Yearā.
December 30, 2022
DOM, ++++++++++
December 30, 2022
+100 Dom
December 30, 2022
The agenda for the next months WEF meeting in Davos has been leaked by āThe Dossierā. Organisations like WHO, Microsoft, BlackRock, Mastercard, CNN as well as WEF spin offs like Build Back Better, ESG and The Great Reset will be there.
The agenda is about TECHNOCRATIC COMMUNISM. Battery Passports, centrally controlled car recharging, living wage for all, and social censorship. The communists keep coming, but it will ze different zis time.
You wonāt be hearing about this on Twitter as the WEF and itās associates are now avoiding the free speech platform.
Of course all the Young WEF leaders who now make up the Conservative cabinet will be there.
December 30, 2022
Javelin, do you have a link for The Dossier, please? Searching doesnāt show up anything.
December 30, 2022
Found it!
December 30, 2022
And William ….. since I doubt Charles will be allowed to attend or make one of his charming videos calling for his subjects to be made colder, poorer and less mobile with restricted diets and lives?
December 30, 2022
1/ What a laugh, the WEF Davos programme has been available on the WEF website since 10 November 2022. But hot-heads obviously love it when they can say they read it from āThe Dossierā ā¦ poor Britain ā¦
2/ The āwokeā adjective is really convenient, anybody can put whatever content under it, and even better it does not require much brain to be able to use it.
A very Happy New Year to all.
December 30, 2022
And to you Hef. More of your incisive blogs for 2023.
December 30, 2022
Hefner, why are we allowing a German engineer to run a world power organisation, who elected him or made him FOUNDER and why? So the Germans end up controlling the world and you think thats good for us little people who are going to be stopped from driving, travelling so they can enjoy their luxuries?
Do you never question anything, or do you just accept everything. Who gets to pick the people that go there? Because the general public doesnāt get to choose who represents them do they. Yet they feel they should influence our lives, who questions them? Who gets to say, hold on a minute we donāt agree.
They claim to be independent. Who do they think they are, the independent leaders of our World. And we are supposed to whatā¦.bow down to themā¦ like some Egyptian god.
December 30, 2022
Can I go?
December 30, 2022
Hefner, the official WEF web site has, under the heading ‘The Programme’, a page or so on its five themes, and also the various formats the presentations will be in. But what I don’t see is a normal conference programme, i.e. a list of talks with their given titles.
The Dossier’s substack page about Davos 2023 is more specific than that, mentioning a number of titles including: āWhy We Need Battery Passportsā āLeading The Charge Through Earthās New Normalā (Featuring Al Gore), āA Living Wage For Allā, āEnabling An Equitable Transitionā, āBeyond The Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQ+ Rightsā and āAdvancing Racial and Ethnic Equityā (Moderated by CNN).
If you subscribe, you can apparently also see a list of participants that The Dossier obtained.
December 31, 2022
And to you too, Hef
š
December 30, 2022
Davos is anti democracy, anti capitalism, anti sovereignty ā¦why would any Tory MP attend
December 30, 2022
SJR, I fully agree that we must look to governing establishments to change what they are doing. For me, that includes a stop to promoting war in Ukraine in support of a nasty regime that was shelling its own people in the Donbas for years – unnoticed on this blog as far as I recall. When Russia finally intervened to deal with this gross violation of human rights, Britain and other NATO governments had the choice between getting Kiev to negotiate, and spending billions on war. The war could have been over in weeks had the negotiations in Turkey in April been allowed to go ahead, but the wrong option was taken. Now we go on paying taxpayer money hand over fist to keep a chronically corrupt country on life support for another few months or so. Until reality finally bites, new faces take over in Kiev and the media narrative has to move on. Just as it did with Afghanistan.
December 30, 2022
Optimism is better than pessimism.The pessimistic will say their pessimism is reality . What is in the minds of persons and nations who want to kill and mame others, even the one’s that they know? These are rulers, religious sects, mentally unbalanced people who being further down the time line of evolution cannot think of any other than cruelty.It is up to all of us to spread Good Will.
December 30, 2022
“Optimism is better than pessimism” – well sometimes but often not. Certainly not generally if wasting money on lottery ticket or gambling unless you have good information or doing something rather dangerous for no good reasons.
But then as a businessperson I am fairly optimistic but realistic too. No easy to keep optimism up with idiot inflation causing tax to death fools like Sunak and Hunt in charge though. So many good people are leaving the country and just giving up.
December 30, 2022
Margaret I think a balance of optimism and pessimism is for the best š.
My husband is very optimistic. Iām the pessimist that would put his life jacket on him if we were on the Titanic but he would certainly convince me that we would be rescued.
December 30, 2022
Perhaps it is a generalised sweeping statement , but John’s piece does seem more optimistic. Perhaps I ought to change the word to hope.
December 30, 2022
Yes we both have hope. Hope for our childrenās sakes.
December 30, 2022
optimism is when you rely on either the iceberg turning sharp left or Titanic doing it.
December 30, 2022
So do we think that Johns blog should incorporate the word hope rather than an overall tone of optimism?
December 30, 2022
Oh that cold reply ripped my sides.! John is usually optimistic which is why many blog here.
December 31, 2022
No it isn’t! why most write on here – it is to point out the errors in the Tory party positions.
December 30, 2022
I see from that Dossier link that there will be an event at Davos 2023 called āDecarbonizing Supply Chainsā (Moderated by Chinese state television). Will they be next invited to speak at the Conservative Party conference?
December 30, 2022
so how will they transport their products round the world? Teletransportation?
December 30, 2022
Donāt you watch much sci-fi they shoot products up into the earths atmosphere, move slightly sideways, as the earth rotates it drops back down to region station UK1.6.
December 30, 2022
oh good, problem solved with Earth rotation. However they will have to shoot products up into the atmosphere, not too far else burn up on re-entry!
December 30, 2022
I agree and support everything you say
know we need you and other MP to make it happen . Other than demonstrating On the streets, Us common people have no control we voted Brexit MP’S have lost
The chance of a life time
Happy new year to you and all your staff
December 30, 2022
How many MPs are willing to publicise similar views to Sir John? Are they hiding away?
It will be very lonely on the opposite green benches.
December 30, 2022
Shame on them all
December 30, 2022
I join you in all your aspirations for 2023. Sadly it is the Collective West pushing for a nuclear war, if you have time read the Kremlin readouts of Putinās speeches. He is as calm, controlled, sophisticated and rational as are you. It is The US Congress who refused to fund Ukraine (until 2022) ābecause it is a corrupt and fascist countryā. Please look that up, there are several examples over the years.
I am ashamed that the U.K. is fighting with Germany, whose Chancellor Merkel now admits to concluding and guaranteeing the Minsk Agreement alongside France āwith the intention of flouting it in order to give Ukraine time to arm and trainā. It is Russia, unwilling to damage its own Slavic people who has been open to negotiated settlement throughout this sad period. Putin has admitted, with sadness, that āhe tried to befriend the west, but he failed – they want to destroy Russia and they managed to divide us and cause a war between us. A failure for Russiaā.
The Mirror printed a picture of a Ukrainian soldier with this young daughter – home for Christmas – and the Nazi deaths head insignia of the SS on his sleeve. You canāt get a picture of the Ukrainian forces without a Nazi insignia in the shot.
On a positive note, please would you consider the prospect of introductions āBondsā for home ownership in place of mortgages? A monthly affordable repayment is agreed for the duration of the loan and itās the length of the loan that fluctuates with the fluctuations of interest rates. This would remove from the Government and BOE the power to āweaponiseā the housing market and it would remove their ability to inflict much serious distress on the nation.
December 30, 2022
+1
December 30, 2022
Lynn, I agree with you about a bond home ownership scheme, it should also be able to be passed on for a family member to take over. Youād have to have some controls over the price of properties and the number of new builds because if you cut the supply the government may then not be able to influence the interest rate but they still control immigration and the build rate (social housing etc.) hence the reason theyāre accommodating them in hotels because its going badly wrong.
Just how does any Brit born in the North get a social flat in London? Yet immigrants can. Not only that, they sell them to them at very low cost, certainly nowhere near replacement cost when they paid the rent by housing benefit. We are getting stiffed time and time again. Iād also add a lot of these social flats and houses in London have parking a luxury they now rent out at Ā£180 to Ā£300 per space! I wonder if that is declared in a tax return.
December 30, 2022
Ā£180 to Ā£300 per month.
December 30, 2022
Yes Iām sick of the natives coming in a bad last on the priorities list. They are getting sick of it too.
Col. Douglas McGregor has said that when NATO is defeated, in 90 days or so, the current western oligarchs will need to be cleared out in total.
His commentary on the war are fascinating. A soldier canāt afford to ignore reality. It costs lives. Zelensky – the actor has hardly a passing acquaintance with reality.
December 31, 2022
Zelensky has this idea that Ukraine should resist invasion….how unusual.
December 30, 2022
The stress of āremortgagingā (or not) every few years, having your mortgage payments double because the First Lords of the Treasury, BOE and Chancellor are the driver of āboom and bustā, not to mention the horror of possibly losing your home and having your family psychologically damaged is cruel.
My 7 year old grandson was here at Christmas and the family on the internal camera saw they had left a candle burning at their home. This led to a discussion about whether the house would burn down and Liam (7) asked me into another room to discuss āwhat would happen if the house burned down?ā I was able to tell him they would just remain here until Mommy and Daddy sorted something out, āoh, OKā he said.
Imagine telling that child that they would have to go to a refuge or similar!
We have the solution, letās set up proper building societies owned by the depositors which fund bonds!
December 30, 2022
I lived through that fear Lynn, my first mortgage was 1984, remortgaged for new property 1989 just before the next crash. It was a building society mortgage owned by the depositors it didnāt stop them doubling my premium. There is no safety with building societies. You can get 30 year terms which cuts down the monthly repayment.
I know a young man who managed to secure a ten year term for under 2% this year, after congratulating him I advised him to pay off up to 10% every year whilst he was on such a good deal to cut the term down. The people paying for this are those with savings since 2008. Everyone wants something for nothing.
On the candle issue my parents neighbour burnt their house down with a candle left burning in their kitchen, the wind blew the blind cord onto the candle which acted like a wick, set fire to the blind, up through the ceiling. I hate candles in homes, tell them to throw them all away when they get home.
December 30, 2022
I hope your wishlist comes true, but it depends on your colleagues, and they’ve had 12 years to get on with it.
I don’t support your comments about Ukraine. I see it as a proxy war formented by the West, because US hawks want regime change in Moscow. Unlike similarly-driven wars in the Middle East over the past 25 years, the opposing combatant really does have weapons of mass destruction this time. It’s a power play that was instigated in 2014, has become a reckless gamble, and is not in your average British citizen’s interest.
December 30, 2022
+++++
Agree entirely!
December 30, 2022
Pinched from the comment boards in the DT:
“I bought a Russian Advent Calendar this year. Every time I open a window an Oligarch falls out.”
Made me chuckle!
December 30, 2022
Q: How do you drain pasta at Christmas? A: With an advent colander
December 30, 2022
JR – in short – government needs to kick out all the communist ideas, policies and people assuming those ideas! And as I said yesterday, ignore all the globalists interfering in the running of national countries.
Hmm! Is there the will yet? We, the people, need to keep up the pressure to force those ideals out of government and beyond!
December 30, 2022
I am afraid that no amount of faux optimism can disguise the fact that our world is being purposely destroyed. The New Year can not change that!
Levelling up = socialism and whatever is going on in Ukraine should be none of our business. Freedom ā¦.FREEDOM? ( as shouted at anti lockdown marches!) After what the politicians have done to us?
Support a foreign war ( which I think the govt. will live to regretā¦like covid) allegedly for reasons of borders, territory and āfreedomā while we no longer even HAVE borders?
December 30, 2022
Sir JR. You know as well as I, none of what you promote will happen …………
December 30, 2022
I have no hope that 2023 will be better. It is already obvious that things will only get worse, unless you are a Criminal Migrant in which case, things can indeed only get better because the Pretendy-CONs refuse to do what is necessary to stop and deport them (hint: leave the ECHR).
Sunak and Hunt are Globalist Pretendy-CONservatives who are implementing UN/WEF policies which are intended and designed to destroy nation states.
The Conservative and Unionist Party no longer exists in any meaningful sense.
December 30, 2022
Donna, ++++++++++
December 30, 2022
100% correct
December 30, 2022
Your government has primed the electorate for handouts and solutions to all their ills from the taxpayers’ purse.
It is not just the opposition that has a menu of higher taxes Sir John.
Hopefully this is the year your party grows a spine and learns to say “no” to each interest group.
These are not the policies you are looking for.
December 30, 2022
There can be no optimism for 2023 as a result of actions by this government and House of Commons. Experience shows continual deterioration as they perform the will of their puppet masters at the expense of the majority whom they are meant to represent but clearly do not.
December 30, 2022
+many
December 30, 2022
I fully support your aspirations Sir John, but the track record of conservative administrations these past twelve years has been woeful. Regrettably they have not listened to you especially on the economy, immigration and net zero. As for Ukraine, I believe America provoked Russia by failing to understand eastward expansion of NATO was an existential threat to Russian security. The opportunity to compromise was possible but as usual US leadership doubled down. Now US led supply of weaponry is escalating the conflict risking a nuclear conflagration in Europe. American leadership has learnt nothing from history. Yes of course Putin is to blame for starting the war, but how is this all going to end? There has to be a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. All the best for 2023, please keep your brilliant diary going.
December 30, 2022
I think America understood very well that eastwards expansion of NATO (and the EU) was an existential threat to Russian security. The policy was deliberate: provoke The Bear knowing it would react in accordance with its nature.
Russia opposed America’s middle eastern policy (Syria etc). If nothing else, Russia will be less capable of interfering militarily in the middle east the next time America decides to “intervene” in that unstable region.
December 30, 2022
In the final analysis (a long forgotten phrase) you should reflect on why all the countries, part of USSR, now bordering Russia want out!
December 30, 2022
09.18 GMT Friday 30th December.
Sorry Sir John, I do not buy into your optimism. We have a government who have usurped power and you could not insert a piece of tissue paper between them and the avowed socialists opposite. You are maybe a reluctant part of a party in power who are the very antithesis of Conservatism and intent on destroying everything that is conservative in the UK. We Conservatives must await the 2024 election to see if we have anything Conservative to vote for.
December 30, 2022
Dream on. Why do you fool yourself and us?
December 30, 2022
he doesn’t fool us. I have to admire his sticking to the ‘jam tomorrow’ with the Conservatives.
December 30, 2022
I suppose I can understand Sir John’s approach. Working with government politicians must be a bit like having to work in a madhouse run by the inmates. He has to talk to them as if they were sane, using their language some of the time, and somehow gradually nudge them in directions that are less crazy than what they’re trying to do. Is he getting anywhere? I believe he can point to some recent indications on energy policy that the government are starting to wake up. Perhaps he and certain other MPs have managed to get them to understand the policy disaster we were heading for.
Or perhaps the government only notice a problem when it jumps up and slaps them in the face.ā¦
December 30, 2022
And for sticking his head above the parapet …possibly the last Tory in the parliamentary party
December 31, 2022
Soon to be (ie after next GE) known as last (Conservative) man standing, or rather sitting on Opposition benches.
December 30, 2022
If we really want a better future, it is not just economic sanity we have to invest in, although that would help a lot.
Our lives change as political agendas come along and enforce their will on us – mostly for the worse, especially when it is illogical and without real merit, but the power of the media is such that any agenda can become accepted. Whoever controls the media controls the dialogue…… and we should be asking just who does control the media, and where are they taking us?
The people of Earth have lost so many things in recent years due to the way the media tells us so often how we should live our lives and how we should think – we can no longer think for ourselves, individual responsibility levels are rock bottom and we do as we are told because we cannot see what is true any more. These need to be addressed, and we have to take back the power of them to ourselves, to be assertive as rational beings – we should never have given these things away.
The political elite are never going to make things right on their own, and we should stop having so much trust in them for they are too often driven by destructive socialist ideas — We all have to get a lot more rational about life and refuse to comply with illogic!
December 30, 2022
Reply to Fedupsoutherner
I too would like to see SJR reassessing the current usefulness of the party he belongs to actually carrying out Conservative policies. Possibly when the Pope moves to Mecca. For sure his intellect is wasted where it is.
December 30, 2022
Agricola, ++++++++
December 30, 2022
Dear Sir John, I trust your reference to freedom will permit me to point out that your New Year Message does not include the word peace. It appears to support the the continuation of the West’s WW3 against Russia at the expense of Ukrainian lives, some of whom are ethnic Russians.
The West is not innocent in starting this war, and I am sure if American and British troops were being killed in there thousands there would be more effort made to stop the war.
The freedom to which you refer is only permitted if it is a pure Western supporting clone.
OK for Kosovo to split from Serbia, but not OK for Crimea and Donbass to split from Ukraine.
December 30, 2022
Dear Sir John,
Thank you for all your common sense and your traditional conservative thinking. May you long continue.
Very best wishes to you for 2023.
December 30, 2022
But we can see by their actions that Sunak and Hunt are more comfortable with “The Opposition partiesā menu”. At least we can now contemplate a Starmer-led government as representing immaterial change.
December 30, 2022
formula57, ++++, succinct and both sentences appear to be wholly valid for our contemplation, thank you.
December 30, 2022
Sir John
I love your optimism, but as yet there is not even a smell of interest from Government to solve, move things forward or create a resilient economy.
The ever increasing growth in the State Sector is met with more demands on the taxpayer. This growth is unchecked. There is no compunction from Government to demand or ensure all the extra money taken from the taxpayer or the loans Government takes on behalf of the taxpayer is used to provide additional and improved services.
The BIG problem is that Government is desperate for credit by trying to do things on a virtual personal basis that are better left to those that can actually deliver. All the while at the same time the Government refuses to take responsibility for expenditure, they just give our money away and remove accountability for its use from everyone in receipt of it.
Lets not loose sight this is still the Boris Johnson Government, the spend, spend, spend Government. The Government is always a collective with every member taking equal responsibility for outcomes and direction. The Conservative Party dismissed BJ but kept his empire intact, so we all still pay the price, of the inept, ill-informed, responsibility shirkers ā that blame everyone but themselves, instead of standing up and managing this what could be a Great Country.
December 30, 2022
‘More people can succeed in their personal journeys, getting more skills, better paid jobs and owning their own homes’
Really? Most people are looking at 2023 and thinking of their increasing debt, the inability to have any effect on the most appalling Government they can remember. They will not book expensive holidays as the 2022 increase in everything bites hard. They remain confused as to what to do about personal transport, can they do without increasingly unaffordable cars.? Can they hope to use buses and the rarity of trains running to allow them to have security of work, education and shopping? Those who wish for skills have to pay further education costs, and university is becoming for the relatively rich unless you are convinced Ā£20k, Ā£30k even Ā£40k debt is worth it! Everybody wishes for better paid jobs, yet more and more find they can adapt to existing on top up benefits – so why struggle with a personal career? This next year will bring home for many the horrendous jump in mortgage cost, and those who escape it for now, know it will hit them before the next GE, or soon after. Typically it is younger people who hold a dream of buying their own home, with the recession underway and inflation roaring, banks and other methods of providing mortgages will find few takers. Some lucky ones will hope for parents taking equity out of their homes to set them up for a barely affordable mortgage.
In conclusion Sir John I see nothing but loss of hope and years of misery ahead. This is what Tory Britain has become and will leave a legacy for the next pretenders to sort out. Not a chance!
December 31, 2022
MT :
I donāt think those working for the Civil Service, quangos or other taxpayer funded organisations will be curbing their 2023 holidays and spending plans.
December 30, 2022
2023 needs a major cull of civil servants. When some recently didn’t show up for work not many people even noticed, such is their ineffectiveness when they do show up.
We need to stop immigration from China and any other regions carrying exotic diseases and drastically reduce immigration in general.
We need lower taxes across the board and allow businesses and people to spend their own money.
December 30, 2022
How is the debate going on testing/isolating/banning all of the Chinese entries into the UK.
Two days to go before they start arriving.
How long does this need to be thought through, surely we have not forgotten the lessons on 2 years ago ?
Does our government wait until all of our own hospitals are full of covid cases again. ?
Think of the UK first, see my earlier posting.
Likewise the rubber dingy illegals, now over 45,000 and still rising, been happening for 3 years now !!
Action, Action, Action please, we have had enough words !
December 30, 2022
action might mean moving RNLI boats nearer the Channel !
December 31, 2022
MT
The RNLI is supposed to be a charity, not a taxi service, the crews are voluntary and have jobs to support their own families, they are not full time crew !.
December 30, 2022
@Berkshire Alan. +1 just like last time ensure the virus is spreading well before closing the door
December 30, 2022
Dear Mr. Redwood,
In 2016 the British people voted to leave the European Union. They wanted freedom. Freedom from the EU to make their own laws and the ability to remove those in power who did follow through on their commitments to the electorate. They wanted stronger borders and less immigration, a working NHS and to see a doctor when needed, a strong police force dedicated to preventing crime and trains and roads that would take them to their destinations and other things besides.
In 2019 the electorate gave the Conservative party an 80-seat majority to enable it to do this. Instead, we have tens of thousands turning up on our beaches with holidaymakers turfed out of hotels to make way for them and an NHS permanently on the verge of collapse with people forced to sit besides the phone waiting for a doctor to deign to call them. We have taxpayer-subsidised trains that sit in the sidings and roads that are blocked by eco-zealots while the police hand out cups of tea and ask the protestors if they need anything. Meanwhile, the government demands that its citizens spend Ā£30k+ on an electric car and Ā£15k+ on a heat pump and almost fails to provide enough power to run the present system let alone the infrastructure for future needs.
The British people voted in the hope and the promise of better times as you now suggest they do so once again. They have kept their side of the bargain and been let down badly. With apologies to your recent missive about keeping language clean and to quote a frequent contributor to this blog, the Conservative party has pissed it all away. It is no longer recognisable as a party that is conservative nor as a party even capable of doing the things you suggest to lead this nation forward. The capability of the other parties I will not even go into.
I apologise for the length of my comment.
December 30, 2022
APJ, Surely no need to apologise for your sound comments but how tragic that the Conservative Party has long since left the room.
December 30, 2022
@Jim Whitehead +1 taking a UK Government of any discription with them
December 30, 2022
Correct +11111
December 30, 2022
APJ. Utterly brilliant post full of nothing but the truth.
December 30, 2022
@Alan Paul Joyce. 100% with you in agreement
December 30, 2022
From the MsM
“Lord Lawson was able to slash income tax in his 1988 Budget only because the Thatcher government had kept spending under tight control.”
A Country can be managed, if there are those in charge with the capability.
Everyone but Government sees the problem, could it be they are the problem ?
Reply The Incone tax rate cuts brought in more revenue! It was not about spending.
December 30, 2022
Hello Sir John,
How exactly do we join you in calling for a growth agenda? Don’t the opinion polls make clear that people feel this government is about punishing us, rather than supporting us? All the various suggestions you make for cutting expenditures are sensible, but the elephant in the room is this government’s refusal to cut government cost. We have had 20 years of living beyond our means & still, MPs sit complacently like nodding donkeys! Why are you not leading a massive rebellion by conservative MPs against the socialist tax & spend policies of the Sunak/Hunt government? If you can’t get them to listen, what chance do we have? Tell us how we can call for a proper conservative government with a proper growth plan & a determination to cut taxes & we’ll happily join in!
December 30, 2022
I support your comments Sir John, however, weāve had twelve years of conservative administrations where the sensible necessary policies you have been advocating have not been adopted. We are now an over populated country witnessing a steady decline in standards from all public services led regrettably by the NHS. Wokeism dominates public discourse and policy rather than the central issues affecting the nation. The media and academia have much to answer for as freedom of speech remains under threat. Throughout these twelve years the CCA 2008 and the ill conceived push for Net Zero haunts political discourse undermining energy security and supply of the very lifeblood of our economy. Reliance on Russian gas by the EU has highlighted the ineptitude of EU and UK energy policies and we are all paying the price. The supply of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine principally by America is certain to prolong and risk escalating the war in Ukraine. This conflict has become yet another American proxy war. If only America had realised eastward expansion of NATO would be seen as an existential threat by Russia this conflict could have been avoided. Instead they doubled down as indeed theyāve done in previous conflicts. Will escalation risk a nuclear conflict in Europe? How will this end if escalation continues, surely we need a ceasefire and a settlement? These are the dominant issues for 2023 in my view. Wishing you a happy new year.
December 30, 2022
Americans are mainly concerned with what is happening in their own country such as the foreign invasion through their southern border. Foreign policy is an ‘elite’ competence which roughly translated means its controlled by crazies of alien origin who will never cease to strive for world domination wherever they live or whatever political agenda they purport to espouse.
December 30, 2022
Unfortunately the British government does not have its own foreign policy but simply adopts whatever the
madmen in Washington promote, hence the cost to us over the years in blood and treasure from which we have never derived an iota of benefit.
December 30, 2022
If the whole of the UK has been vaccinated against covid, weāve nothing to worry about ā¦.was the vaccination to protect against getting covid ā so why is the media in panic again
Was the vaccination just a placebo ā¦.stay safe 2023
December 30, 2022
nothing to worry about if you think Wuhan bat virus experiments have been closed down.
December 30, 2022
Iām sure the Chinese and the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) wouldnāt lie to us ā¦youāve given me piece of mind, Iām no longer worried
December 30, 2022
I wonder how many of the queue of Chinese will bring in the latest version of (lab) Covid, without even knowing it?
December 30, 2022
Like so many of your responders Sir John I do not think that the present leadership combination will pursue and achieve your wishes for the new year . I fully support the direction of what you would like to happen and I wish you had more influence . As it stands the Conservative Party is in disarray and it will be a miracle if it can get back on track before the next election .
December 30, 2022
The govtās New Year pressie to the tax payer.
Ā£226 BILLION to get rid of ICEs.
Apparently there is a call for a referendum re Net Zero.
December 30, 2022
If the govt regained its sanity and got us out of all climate/immigration treaties etc it would save the tax payer Ā£50 BILLION a year!!
I just let that sink in! šµāš«
December 30, 2022
This is marxist social engineering in the extreme ā¦the people dictate the shape of our country and not a few elites in government
December 30, 2022
New Laws For EV Home Chargers
āāFrom tomorrow (New Yearās Eve), any installers wishing to fit non-compliant EV chargers will have to seek approval from the Office for Product Safety and Standards. In a bid to protect peopleās personal data, owners must ensure that the charge point has a unique passport and is not set by them.
The Government says that charge points must have smart functionality in order to comply with the new regulations. This includes the ability to send and receive information and the ability to respond to signals to increase the rate or time at which electricity flows through the charge point.āā https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/12/30/new-laws-for-ev-home-chargers/
Can anyone remember this law new law was in the Tory manifesto and when it was passed in the HoCs
December 31, 2022
Includes a facility to prevent charging, presumably at times of peak demand!
December 30, 2022
Unfortunately it is hard to see ‘no-mandate’ Sunak changing anything…
December 30, 2022
Too many shoulds and coulds.
We all know in reality three fifths of nothing will actually change.
The state of play at the moment is about five leagues lower of what is required because of the standard and suitability of 92% of our parliamentary players. Another term of lost opportunities and relegation.
December 30, 2022
If we really do want to ‘put lockdowns behind us’, we should a) close the UK borders to all travellers from China until it has run through its policy reversal and achieved some herd immunity, and b) accept for all future epidemics that the future of the country – which depends on the economy – is more important than temporary waves of mortality.
December 30, 2022
Easy money policies encourage speculation, and speculation has always accompanied paradigm shifting technologies : personal computers , the internet , smartphones , and even the railroads of the 1800ās .
The above is quoted from Around The Block coinbase ventures 06.2022 by Connor Dempsey and Mile Cohen – a look at the overall macro downturn and the role of central banks etcā¦.
December 30, 2022
Transport Secretary Mark Harper has made the first official trip through a tunnel on the HS2 high-speed rail route.
I got all excited thinking WOW we have train line at last. Then read on to find it was 1 mile long and dug through, no rails no links to anything else – I suppose he had to walk it. Still – progress of a sort – how many years has it been?
December 30, 2022
I want to see Northern Ireland reinstated as an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Plus I want to see an end to the gaslighting of the UK public over the economic impact of Brexit. However neither of those things will happen unless enough Tory MPs insist on them happening.
December 30, 2022
It seems they must have copied your partyās menu. Tax thresholds not to rise until 2028! Corporation tax up. Itās the way you tell them.
December 30, 2022
2023 is going to be an extremely grim year economically with very many businesses going bust. Because of huge inflation, especially of fuel and essential items and tax increases, people won’t have any money or otherwise nowhere near as much money as previously to buy non-essential goods. People may have had a reasonable Xmas but reality will hit in the new year.
It is unrealistic to expect anything much good from Sunak who has limited intelligence, negligible charisma and an inability to face down the civil service advisers on whom he depends. In summary he is not up to being Prime Minister nor to even being competitive in terrible economic circumstances at a general election. He has somehow mesmerised the vast majority of Conservative M.P.s (who are living in a bubble of delusion and unreality) outside two minority blocs (the real tax cutters and the remaining Boris Johnson faction).
The best that might realistically happen in 2023 is that many of those deluded Conservative M.P.s awake from their folly and restore Boris Johnson as Prime Minister which would I suppose result in modest tax cuts and modest measures to generate growth and a viable Conservative Party.
December 30, 2022
We can only hope that the country survives all the government failures to live up to what we voted for regardless of the false friends who think they have a moral right to be in charge. We deserve better than this Sir John. Turning democracy on its head and going through the motions of in independent Britain instead of serving up thin gruel will not encourage them to think that the conservatives are the answer but the problem. Confused are we.
December 30, 2022
Sir John
You have deleted my post of complaint.
I’ve been a supporter of you and this site for many years.
But if everytime I comment you allow one poster to troll me and you take no action then I’m off.
December 31, 2022
Happy New Year.
December 31, 2022
There is no CAGW. The hype and urgency is to implement Net Zero before there is the possibility it is stopped by global cooling.
Net Zero is designed to bring not only impoverishment with meagre supplies of expensive and intermittent energy but also to make us totally dependent upon coal-fired China whilst allowing the control of the population down to the level of each individual through the electrification of everything and the use of smart meters.