The inflation was brought on as a result of excessive money creation, bond buying and ultra low rates. It was compounded by shortages of energy, food and other basics. The inflation will now come down as money and credit are much tighter. Inflation is however proving obstinate because there remain some difficult supply shortages, price controls have delayed energy falls in the UK and public sector productivity has fallen a lot leading to too high a level of public spending.
Â
The Bankâs policy is to squeeze demand by raising the price of borrowings. This will put off investment, cutting demand for investment goods and construction.   The main impact is on mortgages,  narrowly targeting the worst hits on the 2 million or so who will need to renew their mortgage loans before the election, and on potential first time buyers who will be excluded from the market. It will take time to hit overall demand as the hit to incomes only occurs at the maturity date of the old lower rate mortgage. Meanwhile the millions of savers with money on deposit will enjoy an increase in income facilitating more demand from them. The Bank is hitting mortgages especially hard by selling ÂŁ80bn of bonds a year, given the way the price and rate on the bonds of the right maturity  is directly relevant to fixing commercial mortgage rates.
To get inflation down the government needs to undertake a series of supply side boosting measures. The UK can extract more of its own oil and gas with a big boost to its revenues and reduction in the balance of trade deficit. Grants to farmers not to farm should be replaced with grants and loans to encourage a big increase in domestic outputs, especially of fruit and vegetables where we have lost a lot of market share this century.
Â
Reform of IR 35 allowing more people to work for themselves and to attract contracts from companies could lead to a reversal of the big decline in self employment and greatly add to capacity and flexibility in a range of markets. Raising the VAT threshold from £85,000 to £250,000 would lead to a same year boost to output by many small companies that decline business or have a temporary shut down to avoid going through the threshold.
Â
These two tax measures will be costed as losing revenue, which is debatable. To cover estimated Treasury costs of say  £4bn the government could rephase and reduce the £20bn carbon expenditures, suspend the free smart meter programme to save £1bn a year and transfer more of the costs of housing new migrant arrivals to the Overseas Aid budget.
Â
There are many other ways of creating some fiscal space. It would be good to immediately cut inflation by temporarily taking VAT off vehicle and domestic heating fuels. There will be savings on the interest rate programme for a lower inflation rate, given the way the Treasury accounts for the non cash item of indexation costs on Index linked gilts. The government should press on with asset and property sales to release cash and lower spending.
Expanding supply with selective tax cuts paid for by spending controls is the best way to cut inflation whilst allowing some growth. Growth is the best way to get the deficit down.
Â
July 7, 2023
Good morning.
There is no debate about it, Sir John. All what will happen is that the money will move around the economy with the government taking evermore bits off it through various taxes. Think of it as lubricating oil (money) in an engine (the economy). As you reduce the lubricant you increase the danger of the engine seizing (recession). This is something that the Chancellor has said he favours. But what he fails to understand is that seizure (recession) comes at price and that price is to damage the engine (ie loss of business and jobs etc). The man is a bloody fool as no sane person would think that way.
We need a mechanic at the wheel, not an oily rag.
July 7, 2023
A brilliant analogy, Mark B
July 7, 2023
Thanks
July 7, 2023
I suggest Sir John moves over to Reform UK, people with sensible plans who would benefit from his expertise!
We need a clean sheet and more trustworthy people to rescue our country from world fraud!
July 7, 2023
Perhaps he doesn’t want to join the Richard Tice Appreciation Society.
July 8, 2023
+1
July 7, 2023
Mark.B.
Currently the government is running a 6.0L Bentley it needs to reduce to a 1.2L diesel Qashqai. Then we could all afford mobility.
July 7, 2023
Yes, and that Bentley is on finance at over 6% and rising. Sooner or later the wheels are going to come off.
July 7, 2023
Those in charge will no doubt continue to do the opposite to your proposals. They have no vision as to what they want to achieve and merely occupy office and continue with their failing policies.
July 7, 2023
Oh Mark – so the Treasury is the âJust Stop Oilâ campaign!
July 8, 2023
Well who else do you think is funding them ?
July 8, 2023
Sorry, Lynn I did not see your joke. Very good. It is very early in the morning though.
July 7, 2023
The existing Conservative Party leadership acts like the Opposition:
THE OPPOSITION TO COMMON SENSE.
July 7, 2023
This is the most anti business government in history.
In pursuit of the stupid net zero target they are bankrupting this country whilst supporting others like China and the USA.
Why is the government determined to buy in foreign SMRs rather than supporting uk industries.
Why are Spain and Poland building warships instead of uk yards.
Opposition is too good for you.
July 7, 2023
Government are the drunken conductor, the orchestra are PPE scribes wjth no musical training.
July 7, 2023
Probably Ian we are not really out of the EU, the building of our warships show we still obey their rules.
Hey! They want to destroy our industry! Man
July 7, 2023
Agreed ! Bloke
July 7, 2023
We talk a lot about all this.
And I am certain that JR knows exactly ( barring good old â Black Swans ) what would work.
However, we are also aware that like most things now, the economy is run on ideological lines.
Growth is regarded as bad, western , capitalist, imperialist and goodness know what else.
Yesterday, someone asked what is the TRUE reason for allowing/encouraging the small boats.
A Labour MP on a hustling answered that and the economic conundrumâŠ.
âCrash the countryâ she squawked.
( And then letâs have global communism) How nice!
July 7, 2023
**
( on the ) HUSTINGS
Although, in context hustling might be ok?
July 7, 2023
This morning my window cleaner asked if we knew of any private landlord,2 bedroom flats to rent. His landlord is selling up and he’s struggling to find one that’s decent, they’re overrun with people looking … after he’d left I went back indoors to hear on the radio that a council has secured so many millions of pounds to teach migrants English and give them money for deposits for homes!
What is wrong with this government?
July 12, 2023
Everything and Labour will be worse!
July 7, 2023
Bailey’s performed admirably in helping to finance the State’s power grab in the last 3-5 years. From Covid authoritarianism which was the test-bed for State oppression of our freedoms and movements through to the Communist inspired Net Zero political project which John it seems simply refuses to condemn since it would lead to his expulsion from political society. All of this vileness demands gargantuan levels of funding and huge levels of huge spending by the Socialist State to buy public compliance. All of this is inflationary as capacity is deliberately withdrawn and money finds no home (zero savings rates) except more spending ie prices skywards
If someone like John with his small State, pro-free market, pro-individual stance isn’t going to condemn the rise of Communist thought ideology the State now openly embraces then it’s game over as there’s no serious opposition to Labour and their even growing band of activists ie unions etc who seek total control of all things
The Times this week is correct. The Tory party’s appeasement of the Left is causing huge damage to this nation
John and his colleagues must attack the cancerous ideology first.
July 7, 2023
Agreed, Dom!
But what puzzles me is while the western leaders are deliberately destroying the west with their aim for global communism, China, Iran, India etc are grouping together… Do the western leaders really think that at the end of the day – they’ll be in charge at the top table? I think they’ll be regarded as useful idiots and discarded and replaced. Essentially all they’ll achieve is a failed attempt to dominate the world and leave behind a crushed west. Crazy, crazy!
July 7, 2023
You may be right. Bailey, the BoE, just borrowed 2 year money at 5.66%, highest in 17 years. Now if UK gilts get rolled over at maturity at these levels then we’re really in the brown stuff.
Sir J’s remedies, well intentioned no doubt, won’t make a real difference to the mess we’re in now.
There has to be drastic cuts in expenditures, either voluntarily, or by force from the IMF.
The PCP, what use are they?
July 7, 2023
I now ( rightly or wrongly) regard regulations as long-term, intended curbs on growth.
How could we have ever believed they were for our good?
They were to crush small enterprises.
How can anything improve whilst everything is wrapped in red tape and no one is concentrating on the job in hand?
July 7, 2023
Indeed everything seem to be designed to kill growth and damage living standards – tax levels, over regulation, the size of the the state sector, net zero, restrictive planning, energy policy, the dire NHS, poor monopoly education…
July 7, 2023
stand by for the copy of the USSR 5-year plan. Oh! and the realism of a complete horlicks of productivity, motivation, sufficiency, crashing living standards, criminality and after decades complete and vicious rebellion.
July 7, 2023
Attacks on private industry by the state are nothing new. How quickly people forget that when British Eagle failed, Labour MPs cheered.
July 7, 2023
Daily Express has a new poll out with the Conservatives on less than 100 seats. Let me explain in clear English where you went wrong.
Ignoring the democratic referendum to leave the EU for 7 years. Choosing a prime minister with no democratic vote at all.
Two years copying the Chinese political policy of lockdowns, arresting people for free speech, censoring people and shutting their bank accounts down if you disagreed politically.
Letting the green lobby attempting to drag the UK back to pre industrial war to turn out. What a crazy policy.
Then to make things worse to import 5 million people from pre industrial countries. Let hundreds of thousands of tax taking men into the country.
Then to make matters even worse to destroy our history by making us all ashamed.
Meanwhile in the Woke London bubble the mayor tries to Balkanize the capital city.
I think youâll get about 85 seats.
July 7, 2023
Correct in all repects
July 7, 2023
85 too many
July 7, 2023
84 More than they deserve by my reckoning.
July 7, 2023
And Martin Lewis now understands what AI is all about.
And of course you did not mention the war!
July 7, 2023
By relying on increased interest rates and severely punishing those who (probably foolishly) took out large mortgages in the past couple of years on the basis of very low interest rates Bailey, Sunak and Hunt are deliberately punishing
(a) a relatively small section of the population
(b) a section which is more likely to vote for the Not-a-Conservative-Party than some other sections of the electorate
It’s hardly good politics, let alone good economics.
The inflation problem wasn’t and isn’t being caused by people over-spending. It’s been caused by the Government ramping up debt and creating ÂŁbillions of “funny money” to pay for their economy-wrecking lockdowns; the Nut Zero lunacy and America’s proxy war in Ukraine.
Cut Government spending and lower taxes: starting with the Nut Zero subsidies and VAT on energy (domestic and fuel) and scrap the HS2 white elephant.
July 7, 2023
Please scrap HS2, and all Foreign Aid, and all payments to the EU & UN
July 7, 2023
+1
July 7, 2023
I think it is bizarre, electoral suicide. Sunakâs lack of leadership taking you to oblivion and no one is doing anything about it and we suffer.
July 7, 2023
I see that it is reported today that the Public Accounts Committee have suggested that HS2, and in particular the proposed Euston Station project is in some sort of chaos, with its design and use not yet fixed after 8 years of planning and design, that the budget for it could double, and the two year delay imposed (to save money) will actually cost even more money.
This delay, expenditure, and general chaos seems somewhat typical of many taxpayer funded Government projects that are undertaken, so much so that it is almost now regarded as the norm !
All Governments of all colours talk a good game, but the cost, management, application, planning, design and timescale always seem to fail.
Could anything be more simple that to stop and send back immediately illegal immigrants/entrants who have knowingly destroyed their own identity papers.
Who in their right mind would assist such people to access to the UK with the provision of a water taxi, give them a health check (and treat any problems) feed them, make them comfortable in hotel accommodation with heat, light, and power, and then give them some pocket money to then be able to roam free.
July 7, 2023
Rishi Sunak has been accused by Conservative MPs of “leading the party to catastrophe” as the latest Techne UK weekly tracker poll has given Labour a 21 point lead. It means that almost all the gains made in the polls since Mr Sunak took over from Liz Truss have been lost and his party is, according to electoral Calculus, on course to win less than 100 seats for the first time in their 345 year history.
The findings from a survey of 1,632 voters put Labour on 47 points with the Tories on a mere 26 percent.
If this was the result of an election sir Keir Starmer would enter Downing Street with a 328 seat majority while the Tories would be virtually wiped out on just 89 seats.
07.36
July 7, 2023
This held back, but Javelin’s included? Do I detect a new censorship going on Sir John .?
July 7, 2023
well of course unless the same 1600 voter cross party, cross socioeconomic status, refreshed opinion voting same day of the week is taken by the sample – then we could reasonably expect odd outcomes. Voters just receiving a horrendous credit card bill, notice of employment cessation, children’s poor GCSE/ mock ‘A’ levels all could influence how a vote might be cast. A pinch of salt needs to be taken, unless the trend is in one direction?
July 7, 2023
Hi John, I agree with all the suggestions you make but I think you are missing one large component that is not being addressed at all by any politicians or the media, and that is the size of the public sector workforce. I believe the UK has crossed the rubicon in terms of people working for the state that now means the public sector is crowding out the private sector across the economy, helping cause labour shortages across the whole of the UK. The public sector therefore needs to start releasing (or I would say emancipating) people so they can get gainful employment in the private sector, thereby helping ease the pressure for private employers and removing cost from the public purse. The frontline workers do not need to be touched at all (I would argue in alot of areas they should be increased), but the vast amount of people doing things that are not really necessary (e.g shutting QUANGOs down), removing the layers of managers, as well as all the diversity folk etc, would make a real difference. In short, the UK public sector needs a full restructuring, and I believe it would come out stronger and more productive, as it provide an opportunity to remove those with low productivity and high absentee rates and ensure those left know they have to work properly to keep their jobs. Can you and others please start bringing this topic into the public debate, as no one is at the moment.
Reply I have proposed a staff freeze and run off of numbers for non front line and uniformed personnel
July 7, 2023
You mean correcting the disastrous policies of money printing and economic lockdown which are 100% the causes of our current troubles. Come on and admit it, government is the problem, never the solution.
July 7, 2023
It’s Credit Crunch time Des – with Thames Water being the canary in the mine.
This morning a money transfer didn’t happen as quickly as I’d normally expect and for a few hours I was left wondering if one of the parties involved was suffering a cash flow problem. Everything is now resolved but I am still nervous. Everyone is focused on rising mortgage costs etc but no one seems too concerned that Gilt yields are now back where they were when some UK pension funds had an LDI meltdown (and it’s not Liz Truss in charge this time around!).
Looking across the channel, the German Bundesbank must be getting very nervous about the ECBs debt levels, with debt servicing costs also set to double by next year. The tide is really going out fast for the first time in a while and (as Mr Buffet says) we will soon see who has no pants on…
July 7, 2023
Growth might help to cut the deficit, but then it won’t because the government will just borrow and spend more, using higher GDP as leverage.
The way to cut the deficit is to reduce waste, something the government is both unwilling and unable to do.
July 7, 2023
Indeed it seems so. Governments seem to delight in over taxing and pissing money down the drain.
JR says “The inflation was brought on as a result of excessive money creation, bond buying and ultra low rates. It was compounded by shortages of energy, food and other basics.”
Well yes but also the pointless counterporductive lockdowns, a moronic energy policy, net zero, pushing EV cars, heatpumps, renewables, the duff NHS and poor education, the vaccines that killed circa 100K so far and injured even more, the vast government waste and over taxation, the vast over regulation, road blocking, the war on landlords and road users, test and trace, HS2, many Covid loans, eat out to help out… Sunak perhaps the main culprit.
July 7, 2023
We need to starve the Government of money.
A taxpayer strike.
July 7, 2023
please explain how we do that …..millions waiting on your every word!
July 8, 2023
If you are in business itâs easy to invest and show no profit – or minimal profit. Easy not to undertake anything that attracts a tax – easy to avoid death duty, stamp duty, capitol gains tax and many others.
Easy to target one bank and leave it, (en mass) causing it to collapse.
All these banks and institutions are just âa couple of months away from bankruptcyâ – like the British people.
All funnel our money to the Government.
July 7, 2023
Inflation kicked off after the fossil fuel cartel imposed a quadrupling of the price of gas and a doubling of the price of oil in 2021. Arguing that we will save money by producing more hydrocarbons ourselves is entirely spurious as the cartel will demand the market price for the oil and gas. We could reduce the cost by cutting N Sea taxes but with the country approaching bankruptcy Hunt will not do that. Producing more onshore renewable energy and moving to EVâs would increase our energy security at a fraction of the costs of oil and gas
Now we are suffering an epidemic of price gouging as many firms discover they have pricing power for the first time since Thatcher. Clearly the government has lost control of inflation and once homes start getting repossessed again the party will suffer a generation and maybe two in the wilderness after the next election
July 7, 2023
“Arguing that we will save money by producing more hydrocarbons ourselves is entirely spurious as the cartel will demand the market price for the oil and gas.”
Not so – the market price in the USA and many other places is far lower than the UK about 1/3 often. There is no world market price as it cost loads to transport the gas around and the markets are different. Also if extracted in the UK it creates jobs and tax revenue here and help the balance of payments deficit!
If it is an illegal cartel (like the main UK banks surely are with 40% overdrafts for all) then this needs the competition authorities to act.
July 7, 2023
Price is subject to Supply & Demand SG.
If demand outstrips supply, prices go up. Germany made itself reliant on Russian gas and when that was cut off, everyone on the continent suffered to some degree or another. We were especially vunerable because we had made ourselves very much more dependent on energy imports than was neccessary (because of Net Zero theology). It’s that simple. Energy prices have dropped, partially because Europe now has more access to LPG supplies shipped across the Atlantic from the US. In America energy prices did not rise to anything like the same level becuase they has acess to fracked gas (which they are now shipping to Europe in the form of LPG).
If we continue with Net Zero, demand is going to continue to exceed supply and prices will remain high. In practice we will need fossil fuels for decades to come, there is no viable alternative at this time. You can wear a hair shirt if you wish to but I have no great desire to join you in your religiuos zeal.
July 7, 2023
SK in the last fifteen years have we not put any investment in offshore and onshore renewables, to read your posts it seems that you don’t believe we’re producing and creating capacity. Do you know how much has been invested by government and our workplace pensions in this method of energy creation?
July 7, 2023
Rubbish. Inflation in China and Switzerland, two countries that did not print loads of money, have low inflation. Both those countries, unlike our own, do not have oil and gas reserves.
July 7, 2023
but the former can currently manufacture for the world until demand dries up in massive recession, the latter tends to cater for the very wealthy which shows no sign of abating.
It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame,
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure,
Isn’t it a blooming shame?
July 8, 2023
Only the west is facing a self-imposed recession.
July 7, 2023
SK : “Arguing that we will save money by producing more hydrocarbons ourselves is entirely spurious as the cartel will demand the market price for the oil and gas.”
Nonsense.
If the Government has the power to grant licences to extract from the North Sea and frack on the mainland it has the power to fix the prices for UK consumption in return for granting these licences.
And anyway, renewables cannot exist without fossil fuels for grid stability and backup for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun isn’t shining, when even maths deficient politicians ought to understand that N x 0 = 0.
Backup using either hydrogen or batteries is so expensive it is not even being contemplated – there are no storage flows shown on the National Grid ESO DES energy flow diagrams for 2035 or even 2050.
So we need gas, and lots of it, to quote Professor Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford.
July 7, 2023
FES, not DES (Future Energy Scenario)
July 7, 2023
You seem to have ignored the fact that the Wind Industry is blackmailing the British Government by demanding massively increased subsidies.
It’s not “free” energy; it’s not even cheap energy …..it’s intermittent, unreliable and expensive energy which has no business case without massive subsidies and back up from gas/oil/coal/nuclear.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/07/05/wind-industry-blackmails-u-k-demanding-huge-ramp-up-of-subsidies/
July 7, 2023
Donna – ALL part of the Globalist plan.
July 7, 2023
Nothing to do with sanctioning your energy supplier then? đđ€Łđ€Żđ€Żđ€Ż
July 7, 2023
If we produce more of our own fruits and vegetables who will pick them?
July 7, 2023
People who have had their âbenifitsâ stopped! Unemployment should only be payed for eight weeks.
July 7, 2023
Spot on! Let people realize what reality is and choose between working or starving. I mean you have the right to starve – Bobby Sands proved that.
July 7, 2023
We already have ‘Pick your own’ farms – don’t you?
I imagine market and stall holders will flock to them at sunrise to gather their produce.
July 7, 2023
If we needed more canals, who would dig them? At one time they were dug by hand, these days we’d use a JCB. There are always solutions if you want them but in so many areas it has been easier and cheaper to just import labour. Fine if that is seasonal labour here under time limited work visas (and housed by the employer), not so good if we just bring in unskilled labour permanently.
Not so long ago, the Poles came here to work because a) they could and b) the wages here were bout six times better than in Poland. Brexit was blamed when many Poles returned home but in fact wages improved in Poland (compared to UK) and it was no longer as attractive to work here and be away from friends and family. Cheap European labour is a thing of the past and we should assume that cheap labour from further away potentially has many more problems attached.
July 7, 2023
don’t forget EU social benefits – great for the poor economies, but eventually the bill has to be paid.
July 7, 2023
You can pick them
July 7, 2023
Perhaps that is what immigrants that are appealing their refusal should be doing to pay their own way. Those that won’t do it and do it well, bye bye.
July 7, 2023
Sensible solutions offered today Sir John.
Interest rates at 6% are not a problem and are probably correct if house prices are in a reasonable range. We can not precipitate a fall in house prices as too much of the economy is underpinned by our property investments but we should aim to maintain the prices with only small increments for the foreseeable future to bring overall prices back into historical multiples.
That requires more supply side reforms (such as actually building houses) and of course a change to the pipeline of demand.
Slightly off topic but on the subject of supply and demand, speaking as a renter who has just been looking for a new property your government’s attack on landlords has really screwed the market and disadvantaged tenants in a way that only government could.
July 7, 2023
NS I don’t know about you but where I live loads of houses are being built (affordable ones too), apartments for the first time, if only the housing association would get on and build more retirement complexes to free up the large social houses once children have moved on. Same where my parents live a large field has just got permission for 500 houses. Where do you live that there isn’t house building by the thousand?
July 7, 2023
Flats a-tracy, not too many houses and the houses that are being built are tiny.
July 7, 2023
I think they call them apartments to make them sound fancy, youâre right theyâre just flats with tiny windows no balconies. Weâve had around 5000 in about ten years. I quite like the 3 story ones for families with the master ensuite in the roof space and the living room at the back of the house. Less to clean đ
July 8, 2023
Sounds like the communist era of the USSR.
ANY property that is constrained as to who can live in it (retirement homes) or when (holiday homes) is a nonsense! Thatâs not how humans live.
July 8, 2023
Lynn, humans used to live with their own families, but generations in the uK no longer want to live together and look after their own elderly relatives, the younger generation used to live near their parents if not with them, that is often not the case now and older people are getting very lonely and have a lack of support and money to pay people for that support.
The retirement complexes near me are successful, they maintain independent living so people donât end up in homes getting cold tea or coffee and food at a time to suit the staff. They get less interference from the local youths and disruptive neighbours playing their loud music in their gardens or selling their drugs and smoking cannabis like little chimneys, their area is restricted access, so they have less noise, its a great position near the doctors, shops, plenty of people passing, more companionship I see the residents often sat out together in the garden quad, they have a communal greenhouse all have their own private balconies and the ground floor have their own private garden, two bedrooms so relatives can stay with them for babysitting and visits and parking spaces.
It helps district nurses to visit their patients in one spot and maybe see 7-8 patients instead of having lots of wasted travelling time. They swapped their 3 bed housing association homes willingly and there was a waiting list to get in.
July 7, 2023
SJR we have been over this ground many times before. I would add that government needs to stop predatory and opportunistic pricing by supermarkets and the rest of the road fuel distribution outlets. Sort out the pricing structure for all other fuel. End green fuel levies. Reverse the crazy climate act. Reduce government spending heavily. Rewrite the tax book. Reduce immigration to tens of thousands, 1,200,000 per annum is unsustainable economically and socially.
You have governed so appallingly badly since 2016 and 2019 when you were gifted the opportunity to return to Conservatism that your days are numbered. If Reform get their act together nationally, they will get my vote, but failing that I will abstain.
July 7, 2023
The first move Agricola must be to stop giving any of our money to to other countries where it disappears into corrupt pockets.
We are no longer a rich country so we must start to accumulate capital again.
July 7, 2023
but the rich here like to acquire saintly praise for handing out the poor’s money!
July 8, 2023
Thatâs how many get rich!
July 7, 2023
Inflation down & growth up – thats easy, just get rid of net-zero
July 7, 2023
“Meanwhile the millions of savers with money on deposit will enjoy an increase in income facilitating more demand from them.”
Not true of me, for whilst facilitated to spend I continue to save, mindful that the after tax return is still well below inflation.
July 7, 2023
Why don’t you ask the asylum seekers which ones of them are farm hands or willing and fit enough and put them in the accommodation on the farms we are told can’t get workers?
They can get brownie points to stay if they have a skill/service ability that we need. How many of them actually have any skills or do we have to start with them as none English speaking, none skilled trainees from scratch?
July 7, 2023
Because they need to be removed, not given jobs that some of the 55 million or so native British will do as soon as they cease to be paid not to work. Do you think we donât have enough people of our own?
July 7, 2023
Lynn I read over 90% of the applicants are being granted asylum. We seem to be contracted to take a certain number.
I wouldnât pay benefits at all to under 25âs they can all be placed into work, they should have to pay in for a couple of years before they become eligible for benefits. Problem is weâd have more young single mothers to get properties. They can even do home working now that this is available. Iâm sick of hearing what they wonât do and getting money stuffed in their pockets. In London, single parents canât allow their teenage kids to work as their housing and other benefits reduce, so if they arenât bright enough for college they end up on the streets working in the black economy, question is if Mum isnât working why should they be allowed free housing in the centre of our main City where social housing for key WORKERS is so necessary. It is the workers commuting in at great expense. Problem is there arenât many that believe people should work anymore, it has become acceptable to scrounge.
July 10, 2023
The Government pays people not to work. The minute they stop, there will be plenty of workers.
We are NOT contracted to take a single asylum seeker. Government issued documents are as nothing in the real world. Itâs a good thing that Europe is going to be very poor, all the aliens will âgo homeâ.
This situation is not acceptable. The redistribution of our hard earned money by a distant minority is not acceptable.
Whatever it takes, it will be made to stop. Politicians need to consider that removing the ability for us to redress our grievances via the ballot box is a very dangerous and idiotic thing to have accomplished.
July 12, 2023
In 2021, the top five most common countries of nationality of people who applied for asylum in the UK were Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Albania and Syria. Of all refugees resettled in the UK from January 2010 to December 2021, around 70% were Syrian citizens. source ox.ac.uk
I don’t understand why the UN allows Syria to treat its population so appallingly that over half want to leave. 6.8m refugees due to conflict! (14,000+ children killed since the ‘war’ started, have been reported by the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-43578469 ) 15.3m needing emergency aid in 2023. Why is the Syrian government allowed to make so many feel unsafe in the Country they were born in?
Doesn’t this cause the UK a problem in removal? ‘The UK is one of the original signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which recognizes that refugees may have to enter a country of asylum irregularly.8 Mar 2023’. The UN Convention on Refugees is an international convention that pertains to refugee protection worldwide. It was adopted in 1951 and entered into force in 1954.
In mid-2022, Turkey was the largest refugee-hosting country in the world. According to data available by the The UN Refugee Agency there were around 3.7 million refugees in Turkey. Germany was second with around 2.2 million.12 Jan 2023
July 7, 2023
We need a short sharp recession to get things back on track – growth will follow afterwards.
First thing to do is close off retail banking for new borrowings for period at least four to six months and thereafter only release money credit little by little
Cap all borrowing interest rates for the duration up to two years then review
Cap food prices and if the multiples cannot meet that then let us do without.
As a country we have all being living well beyond our means – time for belt tightening
Well I can have an opinion same as everyone else
July 7, 2023
“First thing to do is close off retail banking for new borrowings for period at least four to six months and thereafter only release money credit little by little”
I don’t think you need worry about that happening FS. The Banks are already going into ‘risk-off’ mode in both retail and commercial sectors. The problem is that this will impact our healthy businesses as well as the zombie ones (that will finally die…completely crushed by debt)
July 7, 2023
Want to get inflation down and growth up?
Then just stop Net Zero, a communist device to destroy our economy with expensive and unreliable intermittent energy which cannot even provide the power for our electrical energy without a parallel system let alone power the rest of our energy needs. It doesnât matter how many wind turbines or solar panels are built, when the wind doesnât blow and the sun doesnât shine N x 0 = 0.
Note that the climate activists are quite happy for China and India to continue to burn 8 billion tonnes of coal each year.
There is no climate crisis, the oceans are not boiling as claimed by ex VP Al Gore at the last WEF conference. We have a small benign warming of 0.13 degrees C per decade since the Little Ice Age, the end of which coincided with the Industrial Revolution, which many believe will be reversed, and we need to increase our historically very low levels of CO2 to increase food production. There is even plenty of evidence of our planet being warmer than today even since the last ice age which ended just 11,000 years ago, let alone since the start of the Cambrian Explosion 500m years ago.
July 7, 2023
Original Richard
“Note that the climate activists are quite happy for China and India to continue to burn 8 billion tonnes of coal each year.”
And that coal is being used to produce energy for making solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles to sell to the west!
July 7, 2023
Reported today that Benefits fraud is at ÂŁ8.6 Billion.
Hardly helps growth does it?
Yet more of our money down the plughole.
July 7, 2023
Even if it comes down the inflation we have had is embedded into our outgoings. Take for example my house and car insurance this year which has increased by 50%. It wonât come down if inflation is lower it will just rise more slowly. I believe companies have used the excuse of inflation to hike their prices well beyond what is appropriate. What is it that all these watchdogs do?
July 7, 2023
As before I believe your proposals are absolutely correct however the Office for National Statistics, ONS, would declare the war on Net Zero had been lost and the Government would no longer be able to claim “World leadership” on Net Zero. Also Lamont and Hammond, both sadly completely missing the point would take pot shots from outside of the boundary, not to mention Osborne. Putting interest rates up to bring interest rates down has to be an oximoron when really the only answer is to grow the economy which for the previously mentioned; ex chancellors, all Conservative’s, probably the Treasury, certainly the MPC, the FT, the Fed the ECB would consider to be madness. Thus the Prime Minister would be inclined to play it safe and repeat the past rather than strike out as the much needed leader and go for growth rather than to go down the tubes like Liz Truss.
July 7, 2023
The economy is stagnant and the mood that exists in the country is at an all time low . Inspiration and growth can only be achieved if there is attraction for it to happen . As it stands the Government lacks positive leadership and the BoE has been sucked into a trend that does not recognise our own particular needs . There is no doubt in my mind that a revolt in the Conservative Party is necessary and important ; the Sunak/Hunt leadership and stance has to be removed . Opinion polls indicate the urgency of this matter . Everything happens from the top down and time is of the essence for it to happen .
July 7, 2023
B+Y – It does not matter who you vote for the Globalist UK Establishment control the agenda and have done for decades and until our whole system of government is changed Nothing will happen. We do not a have a LEADER in the league of Donald Trump and the BoE is part of the centrla bank system and who controls the central banks?
July 7, 2023
The idea is or was that the government should govern in the best interests of the people so that they can pursue growth or maybe happiness. The European Journal of Clinical Investigation has announced that a big chunk of the Pfizer/Biontech covid vaccines given out In Germany were in fact placebos and the manufacturer and regulator knew this. May I suggest that this is something you and your colleagues in the House of Commons should investigate at once as it shows that the government there and here is malicious?
July 7, 2023
Reduce inflation and encourage growth by removing costly EU regulations like the Ports Directive, bans on selling branded goods imported from markets outside the EU and cookie pop-ups on websites.
July 7, 2023
All UK governments of the past thirty years have been busy legislating, regulating and taxing the UK to ensure its unrelenting decline to 3rd world status. Brexit offered the possibility for a different approach to halt this decline and possibly reverse it. That opportunity has not only been squandered. It has also been actively opposed by a majority in Parliament. Nothing will change while the current two main parties remain in control. The minor parties are even worse. All of them are far too eager to grasp the nearest passing straw if it offers a fleeting moment of popularity. Your proposals are all very sensible but the chances of them being taken up are next to zero.
July 7, 2023
Davis Andrews
Spot on!
July 7, 2023
Oh dear, sound ideas with very positive objectives. It is clear why your are not at least the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, SJ – you know too much. And that would never do for the elitists residing there who wish to retain control of our economy and our livelihoods.
They were successful in removing their previous nemesis, Mr Kwarteng and I suspect they provided some ‘iffy’ data to Ms Truss to ensure the economic plan failed.
While the ‘T’ focus on the weak demand side we’ll remain in the doldrums as the RotW moves on.
Surely, it is obvious, even to those in Whitehall, that if supply is rapidly increased, prices will fall and take down inflation with them? Just what is wrong with boosting our own resources?
Why they prefer to buy from overseas at additional cost is beyond comprehension.
July 7, 2023
Hello Sir John,
Don’t you get fed up with suggesting the same things when the government studiously ignores you? I have never known a government like this, which stubbornly does the opposite of what people want. Have they forgotten that people have a vote? It may only be every five years, but I shudder to think what the conservatives will look like after the next GE. Sunak & Hunt seem determined to do it their way, even if that leads to disaster, & neither seems to be able to think, apply some common sense or even talk to people like Sir John!
July 7, 2023
‘It’ will look and actually be a Party without wide support, occupied by those who managed to secure ‘safe’ seats but not enjoy majority support across the country. Across from the new Government benches will sit the ageing, previously ignored MPs who like the warning they gave ‘beware the Ides of March’ had been totally ignored in the ‘build back better’ nonsense espoused with net-zero a failed strategy.
Those members will mostly retire to comfortable circumstances whilst the previous upholding of decades of sensible policies lie in ruins resembling Dresden years ago.
July 7, 2023
But you need to get rid of the socliasts in government and their civil “servant” masters.
July 7, 2023
There needs to be a complete clear out of civil servants from the Environment department and the NHS. This would give a massive boost to the economy as farmers could once again farm and fishermen could fish because there would be no civil servants to enforce the insane Net Zero policies of the Tory Party as well as that of preventing English people from training as doctors and nurses. Is it insanity though or is it treason? I suggest the latter.
July 7, 2023
We have been promised IR35 reform or removal many times, and it never happens. HMRC are now boasting that they have expanded MSC legislation to go after anyone who is a client of an accountancy firm that provides services to contractors – whether or not that individual is a contractor, or inside IR35. (computerweekly, 08 Apr 2022)
Effectively, make the tax laws so complicated that people have to engage specialists to handle them and then state that those people work for the specialists they are paying – it is a very nice scam.
I’d love to say this lunacy has to end, but that would require competent government to reign in the civil service, and I don’t think our current one has the will.
July 7, 2023
Sir John this is all common sense but will increase our CO2 production, but lower the global total generated. This will not look good on our CO2 production score sheet. So good for the world, but not for our Green liberal left Government’s ” look how Green we are” at any costs agenda and image. In short, as always they never take your advice.
July 7, 2023
Not been on MSM or on your site for a while, as I needed a rest from the downward & depressing trajectory Sunak/Hunt are taking us all down.
Very glad to see you’re still banging the drum for precisely the right things needed to turn it all around, tho I fear it’s mostly falling on deaf ears. There is no real choice between the current Tory goverment policies and Labour. 2019 mainfesto was ditched as the technocrats aim to deliver on an unelected globalist net-zero agenda.
Sunak’s 5 tests will be seen to fail and in the eyes of the livid silent majority the tories are toast for at least 2 terms.
July 7, 2023
Yep ! And welcome back.
July 7, 2023
Good luck getting IR35 reformed with Sunak as PM. (Personal allegation left out Ed)
The consultancies want it because it hobbles their one-man band competitors: self-employed accountants, engineers, IT workers etc, but it hits everyone on “zero hours” contracts, including lorry drivers, agency health care staff etc.
It would actually increase tax revenues to abolish it since many people have to sit out of the workplace while waiting for the right contract terms to be available. Many of them work by being contacted by agencies, who are on the end client company’s “preferred supplier list” of 3-5 agencies and no-one else gets to know of the work’s existence. Some agencies these days have overarching agreements with the end client to supply all their temporary workers on standard terms, effectively they have outsourced their HR department to an agency.
This leaves the workers only hearing of these roles through agencies, who design the agency-worker contract’s terms so that the agency doesn’t carry the can for any IR35 hit – even though the current legislation says that “the payer” (normally the agency) is liable. They introduce clauses to say that the worker “will indemnify and keep indemnified” the agency, which passes the hit back onto the worker, often with a terrible contract that is likely to be deemed inside at some point in the future.
So the sensible workers turn down the contract, since the effect of HMRC’s highly punitive interest rates (9% last time I looked) combined with penalties starting at 100% are enormous – bearing in mind that often the investigation starts years after the work is done, so that the compound interest adds up and the sums demanded are often, in the end, compounded up to be in six figures.
People dont want to gamble with losing their home and being bankrupted, so they have a choice of taking a terrible contract and risking that, or turning down the work and sitting on the sidelines until something acceptable turns up. All that time “on the bench” is lost tax revenue for the country. But the politicians pander to the green-eyed monster – they imagine that the media will be all over it if IR35 is repealed (example headline: “Tories look after their own by removing obstacles to tax dodge”).
July 7, 2023
P.S. This is why I’m certain that you’re doomed with Sunak as leader – his record on IR35 and his connections to those lobbying for it… there are many self-employed people in this country, over 300,000 – plus their extended families – who are now much more aware of who’s responsible for these things. They see Sunak as someone destroying their livelihood, while bleating vague conservative-sounding platitudes.
Simply put: many people affected by IR35 will not vote for Sunak.
However bad the alternative looks, it’s better than Sunak as your leader in the next election. If he loses these by-elections you need to be ready to ditch him fast.
July 8, 2023
I am happy for Sunak to remain in place. For once I really want to see the Captain and the man mostly responsible for this mess to go down with his ship.
July 7, 2023
Dear Sir John,
This is really a comment for your ‘Net Zero’ thread – not sure if you see comments left on old posts, so I shall post it here.
One way of meeting Net Zero requirements is to dress agricultural fields with rock dust: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/managing-uk-agriculture-rock-dust-could-absorb-45-cent-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-needed-net-zero – the numbers are quite extraordinary, with Sheffield University claiming that 45% of our Net Zero requirement could be met this way.
There are also side benefits to using rock dust – the soil is more nourished, leading to better and bigger yields, more nourishing produce, and less soil erosion too. A book called ‘We Want Real Food’ by Graham Harvey is excellent on this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1596309.We_Want_Real_Food – He even suggests that rock dust can be a good alternative to nitrogen fertilisers.
The problem with this, and indeed any of the creative approaches to meeting our Net Zero goals, is that the economical pain, and reduction in standard of living, is, for many, the whole point. One will often see ‘concerns’ raised about creative solutions that they will allow people to continue with their ‘high carbon lifestyles’.
Kind regards
July 7, 2023
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE BEAUTIFUL POWER OF SCIENCE TO SAVE OUR ECONOMY AND PLANET (AS CONSUMERS WANT)!
(Our economy and planet is at war with short-term, lazy capitalists, on the one hand who are destroying the planet and our economy in the long-term (instead of more entrepreneurial, long-term-minded capitalists – including in China – who are using science to make lots of money whilst protecting the environment at same time – and as consumers want!) and hysterical greenies on the other who are destroying our economy whilst failing to protect the planet because they turn their nose up at the power of science – as if science is something unnatural or something)
Safe laser is now being used instead of harmful insecticides to protect crops and so protect farmers’ revenues as well!
This is a GREAT example of what science can do both toprotect our environment and the economy!
Lastly, entrepreneurial-minded capitalist aren’t just developing this tech to make money (although this a key reason!) but also because they enjoy the adventure of developing new technologies, and hiring highly-skilled people to develop and roll out. True Capitalists are adventurists like St Francis Chichester but with money instead of boats – money is important to them – but it is secondary to the THRILL OF THE ADVENTURE! Where as boring capitalists are just focused on money (at any cost) – like Scrooge.
July 7, 2023
And there you have it – who cares about people? Letâs worry about the effect on the election.
July 12, 2023
Absolutely agree John. We need to focus on growth, productivity and self-sufficiency in useful and usable hydrocarbon energy production and food production; the next step would be to encourage more industry to be at home with less imported goods from Asia. We should direct our work force and unemployed to get into agriculture and industries and we should scrap IR35 and reduce overall tax burdens for businesses and households. Lower interest rates for borrowers looking to set up businesses or expand would also be beneficial. We could also encourage greater investment in machinery and automation in agriculture but that requires cheap loans, cheap energy and ideally reliable machine and parts supply chains. We should not be covering fields with solar panels and wind-farms, rewilding or building houses on our arable land! This leads to getting immigration and demand for housing, goods and services down also. We should be putting people straight back into boats and returning them to France. Our points based system should impede all but the most urgent critical roles to be filled by foreigners, and every measure of training, apprenticeship etc should be undertaken to get our youth and unemployed working in the economy on jobs that deliver societal benefits and needs. Basically take everything the government is doing (and Labour want to do for that matter) and do the opposite!