I see discussion from Treasury sources of a Spring budget with tax cuts, based on updating benefit payments by a smaller amount than the current system would provide next April.Ā This is a bad idea.
It is a bad idea because we need the tax cuts now, not delayed to next Spring. The economy is slowing badly thanks to clumsy Bank of England actions driving rates so high and selling bonds at low prices. We need tax cuts now to stop a drift into recession and provide the growth the Prime Minister has promised.
It is a bad idea because there are many easier and more sensible ways of cutting public spending.Ā Why doesn’t the Treasury tell the Bank to stop selling bonds at big losses – Ā£24 bn so far this financial year – all losses which the Treasury and taxpayer has to pay for? Why doesn’t the Chief Secretary complete his review of public sector productivity which hasĀ nosedived in the last three years and put in measures to boost it? Why doesn’t the government impose a ban on all new external recruitment into the public services save for trained medics, teachers and uniformed personnel?
The government needs to review the huge costs of the net zero programme, stated to be a total public and privateĀ Ā£1.3 tn up to 2050 by the Climate change Committee. It needs to be brought down for the government by re phasing and by relying more on private sector investment and technical advances and less on government subsidy.
The tax cuts we need include ending the IR 35 changes toĀ Ā the self employed, increasing the VAT threshold for small businesses to Ā£250,000, reducing taxes on energy to get inflation down quicker, cutting corporation tax and reducing the carbon taxes which are pricing the UK out of industrial activity. Getting on with producing gas and oil from fields already discovered in the North Sea would help the balance of payments and boost tax revenues.
The way to tackle the welfare bills is to speed up the programmes the government is designing to help more UK people into work. We could then also issue fewer work permits to migrants, cutting the costs of housing and other facilities for low paid new arrivals.
September 10, 2023
All high level government bureaucracts and politicians live in a different world from the bulk of the population. Those in charge decide what the rules are for the rest of us. They do this based on self-interest, and to a lesser extent ideology (usually the latter is a simply a cover to try and dupe us).
We end up with them not doing the many things our host suggests which would improve the lives of the masses.
With the rapid post-covid march towards a totalitarian system of corporate fascism, it’s both frightening (what a bleak futue for most of us) and deeply saddening. I lament what we’re throwing away for my generation and future ones.
September 10, 2023
I agree Wanderer , it looks like the greedy bullies are winning and no one has the guts to lead the country away from them.
I am sad as I an now old and i will not see justice prevail.
September 10, 2023
JR,
Apparently there have been 400 incidents of violence against Christians across 23 States in India this year. Will the son-in-law of India say or do anything about these human rights abuses when speaking about trade to Indian PM? Will his own faith have any bearing on his decision? Will this prevent any further visas being granted to UK?
Same for China and presumably Hunt the son-in-law of China?
September 10, 2023
@Wanderer +1
September 10, 2023
I agree fully but even more is needed..
We needed tax cuts and cuts in government waste even 13 years ago when ālow tax at heart but never in realityā Cameron became PM. Since then we have has vast further increases in tax levels combined with ever more red tape and very poor (and still declining) public services especially the dire rationed monopoly NHS. Furthermore we have the insane energy agenda, the net zero religion, the road blocking and endless market rigging, in effect vast further taxation on top of taxation. Most of the money is then wasted on HS2, bloated inept government, the net zero religion, road blocking, the dire NHS, loans for largely worthless & pointless degrees, the lockdowns, test and trace, the net harm vaccines, hotels for illegal economic migrants and criminalsā¦
Tax cuts just before an election that the Tories have a circa 90% chance of losing is totally worthless. Even if Sunak did win who would trust him an inch or even a thou? He is failing (not even trying it seems) on all five of his promises/pledges even now. We were promised a Ā£1million each IHT threshold by the appalling George Osborne about 15 years back, the threshold is still Ā£325k but now worth only circa Ā£200k in real terms! Lies, lies and more lies from these Con-Socialist fraudsters.
The Tories still keep claiming credit for their āefficientā and vastly expensive multiple dose vaccine roll out. The more extensive Covid vaccinations a country had the higher the excess deaths they now seem to suffer. This is all too clear from the statistics. See the latest Dr John Campbell video. After a high Covid death rate excess death should be well below the normal rate not 10-20% higher. They are lower in countries that did much fewer vaccinations. Vaccinating, especially younger people with zero need for them anyway, was surely criminal negligence? This by government ministers, their revolving door āexpertsā and the bought(?) vaccine regulators? This was obvious at the time so why did they do it? Etc ed
September 10, 2023
Well said.
Can I suggest that readers divert to Richard North’s Turbulent Times blog and in particular his post on 9 September entitled “Energy: the road to madness.”
Here’s an excerpt: “What then elevates this fantasy into the surreal is that, even in the unlikely event that the 50MW target could be reached by 2030, by the time 2050 arrived and net-zero took full effect, every single turbine ā having only working lives of 20 years ā would have to be replaced.”
September 10, 2023
+1
September 10, 2023
Donna,
Hef might like to learn from the article.
September 10, 2023
Hope, If you were following you might have realised that 1/ Iām very concerned by the heating planet, thatās true, but 2/ I favour the development of nuclear energy.
Unfortunately Governments (both Cons and Labour) have let the possibility of developing nuclear energy in this country to (mainly) non-British actors.
Possibly the oldest on this blog could look at themselves and wonder whether their votes in the last 45 years have always been for the best of the country.
September 11, 2023
reply to hefner…
Well I’m among the older, unless majority of readers are 80+.
I have to say looking back, and trying to remember, at the material the electorate was provided with by our inarticulate, scandal focussed red-tops, I might have often voted differently.
Given how our judgement was decided are you suggesting we were mostly foolish or were we deceived on a national level? Going back more than 45 years I have always been puzzled at the rejection of Churchill.
Much more recently talking about deception, I reflect on what has taken place during successive Tory governments. Much a big lie.
Media have a lot to answer for – ‘it can only get better’ ‘no screw ups’ ‘for the many, not the few’ Labour : ‘Europe YES’ ‘Labour isn’t working’ ‘Get Brexit done’.
September 11, 2023
Which party do you suggest we should all have voted for over the last 45 years hefner?
The policies of political parties on nuclear power provision ( and many other issues) seem very similar.
September 13, 2023
The dash for gas at the end of the 80s-then 90s was considered to provide the solution for electric energy by the Government of the day. In the mid-90s about a quarter of the electricity was provided by the nuclear industry. By the 2020s it had gone down to less than 10%.
Successive governments were equally responsible for such a decline as a lack of support for nuclear made various private (mainly foreign-owned) companies leave the UK nuclear electricity market (E.ON, RWE, Horizon Nuclear/Hitachi). Only EDF (with Ā“helpā from China) kept an interest in the UK.
Whether it is with gas, nuclear or renewables, the Government of the day (whatever its colour) does not seem to consider any perspective/time frame much longer than the next GE.
September 10, 2023
We see with the recent failure to get any bids for the new off shore wind farms even at the high price (for intermittent energy) Ā£44 per MWH offered. Good to see this crony tax payer subsidised industry having to start to compete or die.
September 10, 2023
We have an opportunity to give our opinions on the Government’s very belated proposals to tackle the obvious and extremely dangerous conflict of interest between Big Pharma funding Public Health Organisations.
Here’s the link. You have to scroll down through the explanatory guff to the section entitled How To Respond to get to the survey.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-disclosure-of-industry-payments-to-the-healthcare-sector/disclosure-of-industry-payments-to-the-healthcare-sector
September 10, 2023
Does anyone think this survey is likely to make any difference at all? Or indeed any such consultations.
September 10, 2023
Zero.
September 10, 2023
No …. but the Authoritarians need to know we are watching them betray their own people.
September 10, 2023
I think Covid was all about promoting a new kind of vaccine (mRNA) that had failed trials so far and the industry couldn’t get countries’ health authorities to accept. That’s what I see in the pre-2020 period.
But then we had a ‘totally unknown’ virus and a pandemic. So of course we needed a vaccine, didn’t we?
Covid won’t be over till the handcuffs go on the scammers, those in the pharmaceutical industry, the so-called ‘regulators’, and the collaborators in government who scared so many of us into believing their racket.
September 10, 2023
Yes, I agree. After 20 years of trying they had never been able to create an effective vaccine against coronaviruses. So they wanted to fast-track mRNA products via a mass trial in the human population. The appalling consequences are found in the Yellow Card, VAERS, EUdravigilence and DAEN systems …. which are being ignored. Oh and in the hospitals and mortuaries, as well.
September 10, 2023
And shown in the very large differences in all cause excess deaths (alas even of the young) which are far higher in the generally richer countries that (like the UK) had much more extensive vaccination (coercion of) programmes. Well below normal levels in Hungary, Romania, Bulgariaā¦as one would normally expect after all the deaths that were brought forwards by Covid.
September 10, 2023
Hat Man, Donna, ++++++++
September 10, 2023
Good article by Charles Moore today in the Sunday Telegraph on the now dire National Trust and their rather āquestionableā voting system.
September 11, 2023
What is questionable in the NTās voting system?
With the NT autumn magazine, every member is sent a copy of the various resolutions that have been put together by members (including some from various pressure groups (of all obediences, from the British Empire nostalgics to those who want to attract a much wider public to the NT properties) ) and collected by the Council coming out of the 2022 elections, and a copy of the profiles of the different candidates willing to take a position in the Council if elected during the November Annual General Meeting.
In this mail, a code made of two numbers allows either to fill a paper or a internet version of the voting papers, or is an invitation to participate in person in the November Annual General Assembly and to vote there, or (finally) also allows to vote by proxy.
The resolutions concern various questions related to the functioning of the NT related to the properties, the permanent staff, the volunteers, and the visitors, members or not.
As so often, I would guess that our dear Lifelogic has no more knowledge of what he is talking about than what he last read in the Telegraph.
September 12, 2023
Read the Charles Moore article where all is explained! Basically voting one way takes far longer than voting how they clearly wish you to vote!
September 13, 2023
Charles Moore must be considering that the average NT member likely to vote is going to vote from all the recommendations from the council (the Quick Vote). To me, thatās simply ridiculous. People who decide to vote (last year less than 200,000 out of 5 m members) are much more likely to take the time to read the annual report (not available right now, likely to appear mid-October as in the previous years), the actual resolutions (with the pro- and against supporters for each of them) and the profiles of the candidates to the Council.
Last year I must have spent almost two hours on it to try figure out who was what and what the words in the profiles were hiding.
The candidates that Moore supports look good to me, specially if they donāt have any support from āRestore Trustā. This last attempt might have had the opposite effect to what its supporters wanted.
A bit like the uproar about RNLI last year. Could it be that the average member of the NT is more intelligent than Baron Moore of Etchingham?
September 10, 2023
Where have I heard that before? In your last 1001 posts. For heavenās sake, have a day off.
September 11, 2023
+1
If the Tories are certain they will lose the election, then why not be bold rather than constantly fiddling with deckchairs while ignoring the hole below the waterline that is the economy? Make some actual changes rather than dithering.
September 10, 2023
Unfortunately your sensible proposals are unlikely to see the light of day. Higher than previously forecast interest rates will be paraded to justify no easing of the tax burden despite any upward revisions to UK economic performance by the ONS. The chumps in charge are determined that hair shirts must be the order of the day.
September 10, 2023
Politics: Sunak and Hunt think that if they produce some tax cuts next Spring, which will almost certainly be contingent on people voting “the right way” in the looming General Election, they might mitigate the electoral hammering the Not-a-Conservative-Party is currently on course to suffer.
Personally, I doubt if it will make a great deal of difference. The Brexit coalition, which gave Johnson an 80 seat majority to deliver Brexit and real change in the way we are governed, is shattered and won’t be restored by “promises” from the Treacherous Tories.
Their track record on Brexit-betrayal; mass immigration; the criminal dinghy invasion and now the plan to criminalise anyone who refuses a smart meter and pay Ā£tens of thousands to install a heat pump which won’t heat their house, is going to have consequences.
September 10, 2023
+++
On the other hand they have imposed such awfulness on us that just a few repeals could maybe make a difference?
āYou may now have a gas boilerā
āYou will not be arrested if you canāt afford a heat pumpā
āYou can now wear purple knickers on a Fridayā
Iād vote for all thatā¦except that I have internalised the fact that they lie and lie andā¦
September 10, 2023
Who would trust any promises the Tories make this time. Look at their last few manifestos they have kept almost non of the promises they made (other than a few of the ones (like net zero) that they should never have made). They have not even delivered a sensible real Brexit.
Higher taxes, ever more red tape, road blocking, vastly increased legal and illegal migration, ever worse public services, housing shortages, endless public sector waste, a dire rationed NHS with record waiting listsā¦
Vote for us we are appalling but slightly better than Starmer, Libdims or the SNP seems unlikely to work!
September 10, 2023
+++
Exactly!
And to my eternal shame I actually BELIEVED Johnson.
I really thought that seeing as Leave won some PM some time would have to enact it.
What an idiot I am!
I saw the other day that he is bemoaning us taking advantage of all the Brexit advantages!!?
September 10, 2023
Sounds familiar.
September 11, 2023
‘you may keep your ICE a bit longer until it fails an MOT.’
‘paying for road use?, you know it makes sense’
‘go to bed early, save on the heating bill’
‘cut your food bill, lose that excess weight’
September 10, 2023
+1 plus their track record on the gross incompetence over Covid (net harm lockdowns, vaccinations, the excess deathsā¦), their vast tax increases, Sunak/BoE QE inflation, the net zero energy insanity combined with dire and declining public service everywhere.
September 10, 2023
A year on and my stepson is still unemployed. No interviews or training. No sanctions because he doesn’t look for work.
The welfare budget could be massively reduced if the able were made to work but that’s not the aim of the job centre. Keeping their own jibs is paramount.
Every cate home in the area is recruiting and he has done that type of work before but in bed he stays whilst the taxpayer funds him.
September 10, 2023
+++
Dāyou know. I used ( in my youth) to just turn up anywhere and ask for a job. Very often they said āYes. Start now!ā. Paid in cash.
The world/country has now been twisted into this terrifying horror story by politicians.
They, however seem to believe that their crazy schemes have delivered a bl**dy unicorn, kaleidoscope happy fairy land. Well it hasnāt.
And today I would pull the duvet firmly over my head.
The lives like your stepsonās that they have WILFULLY and CRUELLY interfered in and laid waste!
September 10, 2023
I do hope you’re not housing him and facilitating the lazy so-and-so’s chosen lifestyle.
September 10, 2023
Not a chance. The states doing a good enough job. Rent, council tax paid. Spending money from state and he’s laughing all the way. Just like his father and brother.
The government isn’t serious about the client state, they would never vote tory but hey ho we don’t have a tory government. They even import claimants from around the world then tell us we can’t afford proper defence or homes for our own homeless.
September 10, 2023
+1
September 10, 2023
Agreed. No incentive for the welfare class. Just sponge more and more from the 46%. 13 years and little to no reform of our health, public services or welfare scroungers.
September 10, 2023
But even worse.
It is all being done to deliver a commie world government and to crash this stupid country into the dirt.
Finally the Wealthy Few are achieving a long held ambitionā¦
To hand the woes of the poor (poverty caused by the Wealthy few) over to the ordinary man. They have always tried and now they have found the winning formula.
And we will all be much, much poorer. ( Except them of course).
September 10, 2023
The Govt. Are currently piloting a scheme to pay people Ā£1600 per month for doing nothing. Apparently it is trying to prevent stigmatise of people not working.
This is allegedly a Tory party.
Sunak paying EU ā¬2.6 billion each year for Horizon to research/promote schemes for EU growth and competitiveness where EU decides who to allocate our taxpayer funds without ability to withdraw. The man thinks this is good for the country! Could Sunak not work out the govt. could allocate our ā¬2.6 billion of taxes for the same purpose to our research institutions for our own national interests!
September 10, 2023
No, we are.
Since moving to West Dorset – and retiring – I have met a lot more people than when I lived a busy, working life in Berkshire. Iām astonished at how many people, who are way below retirement age, do not work. They all seem to get by and seem to know how to work the benefits system. There seems to be an epidemic of fibromyalgia, anxiety, ME, depression and other similar conditions. Maybe a war with a need for munitions, food, air raid wardens etc. would cure them.
September 10, 2023
Work!!! Why not, like Johnson, go into politics.
September 10, 2023
Who would want to employ anyone in this over-regulated country?
Teams work best when they start at the same time, work together and leave together. But now we have WFH and flexible working so you can never rely on a team.
If one harasses another, blame would rest on the person who harasses, you would have thought. But no, the employer has to pay compensation for the wrong doing he’s supposed to detect.
Employ someone on an agreed wage and that would be it you suppose. But no, your pay must be scrutinised in case you’re underpaying a protected group. How about your pay is between you and your employer and if the employee doesn’t like it they can negotiate for better or get another job?
September 10, 2023
Exactly.
Then you have the discrimination laws, to check their legality to work, disability rights, an inability to fire them easily without substantial risk, the costs of PAYE, workplace pensions to run, student loan deductions, deductions for ex-wives to arrangeā¦ why bother?
September 10, 2023
LL,
Do not forget ESG statement for every business and similar under race for equality schemes for public sector to imbed and promote cultural Marxism.
September 10, 2023
Blame lies mainly with the government and the absurd system. These people are perhaps behaving rationally given the absurd system that prevails. But surely not good for them, the country or the other tax payers who have to carry these parasitic non workers. We have quite enough parasites āworkingā for the state sector without having to carry even more of them sitting at home on benefits.
September 10, 2023
So what state handouts is your stepson getting, Ian, and why?
September 10, 2023
Sir JR, I’m not a politician and I’m not the leader of the current Gov.
If I was I would look and see, I and my party are going to get voted out of power next year. I would therefore try and think of something to attract back the voters who have deserted us.
Will I stop the net zero nonsense? no.
Can I prevent hundreds of illegal migrants arriving every week? no.
Can I reduce hospital waiting lists? no.
Can I reduce inflation? no.
Ah! I know. A few weeks before announcing the date of the next General election. I will hand out a whole slew of tax cuts to bribe the plebs back into our arms, that’ll work …….. won’t it?
So Sir JR, patience is required, Mr Sunak has it all in control.
September 10, 2023
Sunaks five promises in Jan 2023 score so far zero.
These are the five foundations I know can build a better, more secure, more prosperous future that this country deserves.
We will halve inflation this year to ease the cost of living and give people financial security.
Fail & anyway halving the rate means people are still getting poorer each day and he with his QE waste and lockdowns was the cause of this inflation anyway!
We will grow the economy, creating better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country.
Unlikely with such antigrowth taxes, regulations and you war on CO2, businesses, landlords, road usersā¦
We will make sure our national debt is falling so that we can secure the future of public services.
Who nearly doubled it, was it not one Mr Sunak? The proceeds largely wasted too.
NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly.
Dream on still growing despite much fiddling of the figures.
We will pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed.
Yet more proposed ālawsā and hot air yet zero action Sunak! Why do you think they will obey new laws anymore than they do the existing ones?
How would anyone trust these persistently lying Tories to ever cut taxes other than for Starmer or Sunak/Hunt to reverse this the day after an election. We are still waiting for the Ā£1 million IHT threshold promised 15 years back by Osborn – it is still just Ā£325k & now really worth more like Ā£200k.
September 10, 2023
Good morning.
Correction.
Losses which the taxpayer has to pay. The Treasury, like other organs of government, do not create the wealth to pay for such things.
Eat out to help out (mostly large companies) was no FREE lunch like many thought.
September 10, 2023
Further correction – losses which will be added to the borrowing, for the next generation to pay interest on.
September 10, 2023
Off topic, who is going to resist this backsliding?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/forcing-u-turn-horizon-scientists-060244722.html
“In forcing a U-turn on Horizon, scientists are showing that the flaws of Brexit can be overcome”
“It was a moment when it became clear that the high-water mark of Brexit had been reached and the tide was going out fast on what is now a disgraced and palpable failure.”
Not the Tory government, for sure; our vote to leave the EU is as unwelcome now as it was at the time.
September 10, 2023
Similarly off topic, Laura Kuenssberg is launching a series of programmes asking why Brexit became so chaotic:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-66765800
The answer lies in this letter that I had published in the Southern Daily Echo over fifteen years ago:
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/yoursay/letters/2107410.mps-show-where-their-allegiance-is/
“MPs show where their allegiance is”
“Unremarked by the media, the final Commons division on March 5 related to proposed New Clause 9 – an amendment to protect the legal supremacy of Parliament.
Shockingly, only 48 MPs could be bothered to vote for this amendment, while 380 voted against it.
Although those 380 MPs swore the Oath of Allegiance before they took their seats, they have now shown that their primary loyalty is not to this country and its people, but to the EU.”
September 10, 2023
Maybe 380 MPs didn’t want to break the international agreement in which (limited to the EU aquis of course) the sovereign UK gave the legal supremacy to the EU court (ECJ)?
September 11, 2023
Germany has had no compunction announcing that her Courts are superior to EU Courts though. It is against our Constitution (our politicians have no power) and against international law to cede territory in a Treaty. Did you not know that?
Treaty law is a very low level law Peter, trumped by almost every other level.
September 11, 2023
What territory has been ceded? Oh I see, I guess your deluded self consider that NI has left the UK. Is that what it is?
So when various treaties were signed over the centuries with bits of countries given away (eg, Louisiana, bits of Canada, the USA, Alsace-Lorraine, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Libya, Ethiopia, Rhodesia, ā¦) was all that against international law?
As for all your (white) noise about the British Constitution, can you remind me which article(s) of it say(s) that the present situation is equivalent to a loss of territory.
Thanks in advance for your, I donāt doubt that for an instant, intelligent answer.
September 11, 2023
Another passive aggressive post from hefner.
Just imagine being a work colleague.
September 14, 2023
Oh, how I also love your intelligent comments MiB. They certainly make my day. Pleasy please donāt stop them, each new one confirms my view of you.
September 10, 2023
Not only dowe need tax cuts we need cuts in government and in regulation. Every day we hear of yet more ridiculous and horrible rules whilst existing laws about illegal imigration are totally ignored. Britain is sliding into a totalitarian horror show that will be worse than the Soviet Union due to the hi tech nature of the prison created. If I can I will leave this country before it is too late.
September 10, 2023
+++
I wonder how long it will be before newcomers wake up to the ghastly awfulness of this country?
When delivery men were allowed to stop and talk ( convenient virus stopped all that waste of time!) I leaned about the horrors of delivery driving. I doubt if things have got better.
What will the horrible commies do for workers when the newcomers have saved up enough to go home and having heard the truth no more want to come?
Because I wouldnāt darn well want to work for them however free and happy they promised it would make me.
I bet they promise newcomers the earth!
September 10, 2023
Too late now Des, we are already in a totalitarian HORROR show, certainly NOT the British way of life we used have, I now believe Putins Russia is a better place to live!
September 10, 2023
I thought that a semi U turn delay tactic had been applied to the āBack to Workā scheme?
Well they canāt do that to all these poor people can they?
Imagine the cold empty hot tubs and the missed tanning bed appointments! Empty golf courses.
Are benefits the bedrock of the luxury marketā¦the one that workers and retired can not afford?
September 10, 2023
Good Morning,
Sir J. A lot of sound conservative financial principles in today’s piece; how are these received by your colleagues, do they agree or even understand?
I feel your third para is too simplistic. If the BoE were a normal gilt investor you’d be correct; it has ‘bought high and sold low’, the opposite of any normal financial institution. The BoE is not normal. The BoE ‘created’ the money to buy the Gilts from the Treasury in the first place, and selling them now to the pension funds and others at a ‘loss’ doesn’t get ride of them; the Treasury still has to pay the coupon and redemption. Cash received by the BoE from sale goes… well, back to the ‘creator’ and then ‘eliminated’ in a book keeping exercise, as do the ‘losses’ you refer to.
The problem is that the larger part of the cash ‘created’ is still out there in the economy, it is why we are suffering inflation now. We are ALL paying for the mess right now by a loss of value in Ā£. Until the economy expands and we see a positive budget and trade balance, Ā£ will continue to weaken against other currencies, unless they are in an even worse situation than we are. It is why we MUST follow US$ interest rates.
Gold standard anyone?
September 10, 2023
John appears not to understand that gutless woke Socialists now control his party. That’s an expensive cultural shift requiring massive taxpayer funding. The institutions have been captured by the fascist Left. Maybe John should shift his focus away from economic issues and focus on the power of the woke fascists and woke racists who now control huge swathes of taxpayer spending
Thanks for the blog
September 10, 2023
I think SJR is well aware of what I would call the anti-sovereignist tendency in his own party, Dom, and is trying to rally grassroots support for more traditional conservative values that put the national interest first. And possibly rally support from other MPs, though how many of them are prepared to stand up to woke authoritarianism, I’m not sure. What it comes down to in the end is whether Tory MPs want to be re-elected, or whether they are already planning new careers after the next election. The issues where Labour is vulnerable and the Tories can win are clear enough by now.
September 10, 2023
DOM, my thoughts too, when I read the intricacies of bonds and interest rates, etc., etc., and view the monologues by Neil Oliver, Dr. John Campbell, and the courageous fights by Nigel Farage etc., etc., etc., I get the feeling that thereās a somewhat trivial choppy water lagoon which is explored intimately for its small fry, prawns, and hermit crabs when out beyond the reef there is a great churning of active energy threatening to break down the reef and expose the limited horizon lagoon dwellers to be engulfed .
The blog is immensely informative on a narrow range of issues and the comments brilliantly instructive.
The wretched Tories are dead in the water as the tsunami builds force.
September 10, 2023
Because your friends have abandoned Conservative policies and beliefs.
They fool you and you believe that they do wish to change and adopt your traditional views.
Attempts are made to convince us but we don’t believe the lies.
September 10, 2023
Thank goodness you are an independent thinker Sir John. BoE, Sunak and Hunt and the party sheep who blindly follow are hell-bent on dragging this country down – together with Starmer who prefers Davos to Westminster.
Please remeber these people are not elite – there are more suitable adjectives – bad, inferior, poor, second-rate, ordinary, worst.
September 10, 2023
Well said Nan! We need more truth like that!
September 11, 2023
They are elitists.
September 10, 2023
There won’t be any tax cuts in Scotland if the Scottish goverment get their way and reduce the working week from 5 to 4 days for all civil servants.
Also Cambridge council. No one should get a shorter working week unless it’s for everyone nationwide, not just public sector.
September 10, 2023
+1 but many are hardly working (perhaps from home) for even two or three days a week already. Many do nothing of any positive value anyway.
September 10, 2023
In the late 1700s early 1800s the Bank of England had the power of life and death over forgers and passers ( maybe unwitting) of forged currency.
The Bank chose which counterfeiters/forgers would hang. And which would live.
Letters begging for clemency were sent to the Bank and often firmly turned down.
Isnāt that funny?
September 10, 2023
After being attacked by labour for so many decades regarding tax & benefits, the Tories have now become a second labour party and implement legislation that doesn’t just drive us into more socialist pitfalls, they have a devastating effect on the economy.
As far as I can see, HMG has no intention of making life easier for the people they now rule – they have been corrupted by power, and are determined to bring this society to it’s knees, to usher in a new era, where we will slave to the elite.
In an effort to get our votes – just one last time, the Tories try to bribe us with tax cuts – How dare they, when they, and parliament, are responsible for the dire state of the economy and our lack of a real future.
September 10, 2023
+1. Exactly, how dare they! The tax cut won’t work as an election ploy. If they meant us well they would not have raised the tax take in the first place.
Fewer and fewer people trust politicians, unsurprisingly. Unfortunately they don’t often discriminate between the very few sane voices (our host, Anthony Bridgen etc) and the corrupted many.
September 10, 2023
A lost opportunity when the BOE , OBR, Treasury and elements of the Civil Service, along with grifter politicians in your own party decided to usurp power and arrange an undemocratic coupe to remove Liz Truss and her Chancellor from office. From then on it was all downhill. The only positive was that the above plotters have had and used the intervening time to confirm their incompetence.
One of the qualities of the entrepreneur is to duck dive and find ways to succeed despite the unnecessary overhead of a financially useless government. Messages emerging are that the economy is not doing as bad as expected so three cheers for the grafters. Just think of the accelerating curve of success that might have been but for the coupe.
There is much talk of poor productivity (pp) in the UK economy. If private companies suffer pp they go out of business. Anything to do with government just asks for more public money (your tax payments) and descends deeper in the mire. HS2 ckmes to mind. This and the stay at home, don’t answer the telephone civil service are the greatest drag on productivity. No wonder Sir Humphry is so slow and reluctant to report the state of the civil service.
The only answer to all above is an accelerated awakening of the people and a total upheaval at the next election. The casting aside of almost all in the current HoC and Reform to reintroduce Conservatism.
September 10, 2023
Politics is no longer about left and right wing.
Politics is now technocrats vs people.
The left and right wing have created a consensus that technocrats in the civil service know how to manage an economy and a society. Democracy is not wanted.
Autistic technocrats in universities run computer models on the economy, demographics, climate and medicines. Taxes are there to pay for Quantitive Easing, Decolonisation, NetZero and RNA vaccines all predicted to work by computer models.
Technocrats treat people as numbers in computer models. The people will win a fair election but technocrats are going to try to stop them.
Because the people do not want to be run by technocrats the technocrats have reverted to cancel culture, 24×7 MSM propaganda, and lawfare aimed at any opposition.
September 10, 2023
+1
September 10, 2023
What you are asking for John is unobtainable. You are asking for a Conservative government! Clearly that has not been available for the past 25 years and just look at the mess the nation is in.
Does the prospect of Conservative government even exist anymore, anywhere in the western world?
A gem of current established nonsense I hear, that has come out of the US administration is Joe has been funding training sessions for scientists to be compliant with indigenous beliefs and to accommodate ‘dream time’ principles of native knowledge into scientific theory.
Well it does not get much crazier than that, but then again…dream on.
September 10, 2023
Rod,
Conservatism exists in the Reform Party, read their manifesto and views. I acknowledge that apart from convincing the electorate, they need plans to deal with a disfunctional civil service with too much political power and some of their tools used to apply it. The BBC, BOE, OBR, and Treasury come to mind.
September 10, 2023
++
I was always very surprised to learn the MacMillan very keenly built council houses.
That was one of the first steps in sharing around the burden of the poverty caused by the rich.
September 10, 2023
When I read the report of the supposed proposal to pay for tax cuts by changing the way benefits were uprated to produce a lower increase, I thought that this could only have been cooked up by civil servants determined to make tax cuts as unpopular with the voting public as possible. I am amazed that any alert politician would fall for it.
September 10, 2023
Ha, I didnāt think that my revelations about President Putin would see the light of day
We canāt have anyone disagreeing with the government line and media
Heās decided that being patient is only prolonging the bloodshed so he will be acting decisively to bring this to an end
I donāt think that weāll be getting favoured nation status anytime soon, heās perfectly entitled to launch a nuclear strike on the House of Commons and that would solve all our problems
September 10, 2023
Sir John,
I would suggest that the government stops any further spending of taxpayer’s money on HS2 until such time as there is a need for it. Perhaps in a few decades, if ever.
September 10, 2023
With another 356 Conservative MPs that thought like you Sir John, your Party would easily win the next election. Unfortunately, there are only about 19 of you (judging by the recent vote on the energy bill). So the odds aren’t looking that good I’m afraid. A few last minute tax cuts won’t do it, if only because no one will believe you will be around to implement them.
Interesting discussion on the 2-party system on Talk TV last night and how nearly impossible it is for a ‘new’ party to actually win seats. I suspect the only way we can get a (real) Conservative Party in power is for the current one to be in the wilderness for so long that they can flush their system of all the closet socialists in their ranks. That may prove impossible given that our education system is now a breeding ground for many strange ideas. Double Think and Thought Crimes really are the new reality aren’t they?
September 11, 2023
The electorate is gradually taking on board the thought ‘why should I bother, I don’t care anymore’.
September 10, 2023
We speak of getting the unemployed back into work, I wonder how many problems with long term sickness on full pay we now have in āpublicā services are the ex-long term unemployed hired by them and still taking the ā¦.
There is talk of applying the same sick pay to private business that government have accepted in the public sector, thatās the time to retire folks and close down, because you know what ā¦private sector clients donāt keep paying you when youāre not there to provide the service. This nearly bankrupt us as a young company, wet behind the ears. The public sector keeps getting paid our good money to have 40% of them sick in some departments and everyone wonders why nothing is getting done anytime fast.
Lucy Letby was paid a full wage for two years by the public sector, do they claw that back? Itās very easy to be generous with taxpayers money. When they canāt afford this largess they just borrow the money to keep paying for all this failure. There is no innovation, improvement without competition, no reason to work harder or more efficiently, no goals that mean failure results in job loss, in fact what few targets the Home Office had were cut by the conservative government.
Do more productive hospitals get more pay for their efficient staff, no. We reward inefficiency. A failing hospital ends up with more of our money la de da de daā¦
If we paid a fixed sum for 1000 cataract operations the most efficient would get the biggest gain. Instead we have had repeated governments make master hospitals and cut off all offshoots.
How much are we paying per evening meal in hospitals?
All those we pay benefits to that donāt work should be given community work for at least 20 hours per week to start. Dossing shouldnāt be an option after three months of job searching. Charity shops need helpers, hospitals need helpers, churches and other religious near grounds people and cleaners, parks need extra labour current grounds people on the payroll could have assistants and perhaps get a lot more done.
September 10, 2023
Sir
Your comments are eminently sensible. Sadly, I believe that most of us have given up on the current Government.
However, the saving Grace for the Conservative Party might be the forthcoming book of Ms Dorries. I understand that publication has been delayed from this month until 9 November because of āthe required legal process”, according to the publisher. Maybe someone is trying to stop the publication ?
The Conservative Party does not have much time to sort itself out before the next General Election. Hopefully, the publication of the book on 9 November will not be too late for the Party to make a start.
September 10, 2023
Presumably, the Conservative Party Conference in October has nothing to do with delaying the publishing of the book from September to November ?
September 10, 2023
After the stringent measures that have impacted on the economy and livelihoods of the population we need strong incentives now to jerk us back to some sort of normality . I have grave doubts that the Sunak/Hunt relationship will produce enough change for such a movement and I certainly do not believe that they will do anything to restrict the independence of the BoE . There are few Redwoods in the Conservative Benches but , wherever they are ,they must get together and force this important change . The public have had enough .
September 10, 2023
Sir John
We should never have been in the situation of the high tax we have. A responsible well managed Government would have been managing the State to fit income ā but this crowd are Socialist acolytes, with spend, spend, spend on their mind. No responsible politician would have advocated growing the State all the while the money wasnāt there.
However, we have to recognise this crowd are āBlobā puppets and we have seen the damage that happens when their orthodoxy is challenged.
I would suggest, while tax cuts are holding us back the real Elephant in the room is this Governments borrowingā it has never been so high. The Governments continued bowing down to the āBlobsā cries to give them more power, bigger staff pools. State growth with a Conservative Government in fear of suggesting that there should be results a return on the taxpayers money. The Conservative Government has relinquished control. Then we get the UKās interest rate repayments, thanks to an out of control BoE is set to crucify the people of the UK for generations.
So in the round we have a Conservative Government, refusing to manage, refusing to be Conservative
September 10, 2023
A tax-cutting budget in the spring you say! This changes everything: I might have to consider voting to re-elect this rotten government.
September 10, 2023
So Rishi has promised $2Bn donation to a Green Climate Fund.
Where does he find all this money? Because we could use some of it in the UK!
September 10, 2023
Can he use his or his wifeās money for this please rather than pissing even more tax payers money down the drain please? The man is another deluded, scientifically, mathematically and economically illiterate inflation causing, Net Zero believer, lock down enthusiast, tax to death, PPE Oxon grad. and a damn fool. Hot air and zero action!
September 10, 2023
You have no hope of that Bingle
September 10, 2023
Totally agree, a well balanced prescription!
May be, in the longer term we could address some of the structural problems, but that would be a good start!
It’s a pity they won’t listen to you, now!
Hope you, and Priti Patel work well together?
September 10, 2023
Even if Sunk has a Damascene conversion and cuts taxes nobody will believe that they won’t be put up again sharply.
In particular I note that the “Tory press” is flying the kite of Inheritance Tax being cut, or even abolished.
John Major promised that he wanted to see “wealth cascading down the generations”. He did nothing, as did his successors as leader of the Party.
Instead we got wealth cascading into the State’s coffers to be totally wasted.
“Runaway Dave” Cameron was only surpassed as the worst PM by May, who was dire.
Truss wanted to “go for growth”, and it may well have worked if she had been backed by the Party which had a huge Parliamentary majority. Regrettably the Tories “bottled it”…as they always do.
September 10, 2023
Ā£160 Billion thrown away by Sunak at the G20? For world wide climate change – what a load of nonsense , whoās pocket did he slip that into?
We need rid of the lying conman.
September 10, 2023
And a second Challenger burning on the Step. Ā£8 billion up in smoke.
September 11, 2023
Seriously, how much do you think a tank costs? An aircraft carrier costs Ā£3 billion!
September 10, 2023
Other countries manage to do all these things. There is something myopic about UK government and state institutions. When they do look overseas it’s rarely further than the EU. No wonder they don’t and won’t do any of these things.
September 10, 2023
I’m recently retired but keen to work physically hard just to keep myself busy and in beer money. All jobs for major employers (and many small ones) are now done via online recruitment agencies. One submits one’s CV and an application form which disappears off into the ether without human contact.
It’s all rather remote, unresponsive and lonely and most of the jobs being put through to me are unsuitable as I’m not prepared to commute 60 miles for minimum wage. It doesn’t seem to matter which filters one ticks.
I am beginning to have some sympathy with the long-term unemployed. I thank God that I don’t need the money.
September 10, 2023
Sir John:
Your suggestions are all eminently sensible, yet we know that this soft left government will enact non of them. They are bereft of ideas, and Rishi Sunak looks like a school prefect who has suddenly been made head master. He is hopelessly out of his depth.
Net zero will be the death of this country, and any party which rejected it would win the next election. The fact that none of the main parties will do this tells me there are deeper and more sinister forces at work.
September 10, 2023
In general I agree with this blog about the urgent need for business tax cuts to develop more business (though at this stage in the electoral cycle an Income Tax cut with promises of more to come is also needed) and making the easier cuts to public spending. Although I am sympathetic to cutting disability benefits (as they incentivise ‘disability’ and disincentivise work, especially among the only arguably disabled), Sunak and Hunt are being politically stupid. Their floated proposal will get all the flak and very little of the financial benefit of being more radical.
However with a bit of luck Sunak will get his day of reckoning around 30th October after the two needless byelections on 26th October. Nadine Dorries was not being unreasonable, even if she is flamboyant, in expecting to get to the House of Lords as ex-Cabinet Ministers used to get it pretty well as of right and anyhow the biggest political supporter of a Prime Minister would even now get that. Chris Pincher should not have been kicked out of Parliament for an alleged act committed outside of Parliament for which there are specific provisions for expulsion or non-expulsion relating to criminal convictions. In the American House of Representatives the Republicans have rallied round to insist on such a principle despite enormous pressure in the case of Representative George Santos etc ed If Sunak had been any kind of Leader he would have done the same regarding Pincher and reconciled Dorries.
Indeed Sunak was a dope to agree to 26th October for these byelections (instead of 12th October) since then his alleged one year immunity from a party vote of confidence would have just run out.
So the chance for change will come at the end of October – those M.P.s wanting change must make sure that chance is taken.
September 10, 2023
“The tax cuts we need include ending the IR35 changes to the self employed…”
The changes are not the problem, the terrible legislation itself is the real issue. In fact, the tax system is really not fit for purpose if it needs such subjective rules to be brought in – creating such uncertainty. Why is there such a disparity in the tax levelled on different ways of working? Why does employers NI need to exist (which is the major difference in tax paid in different statuses)?
The changes might have at least provided some certainty (since the “payer” – normally the agency – is responsible for the taxes if an “outside” contract is later deemed to be “inside”) but in practice the sneaky agencies are including “indemnity” clauses in contracts to the effect that the worker indemnifies the agency against IR35 costs.
However, insurance coverage is unclear for this eventuality. That means the workers have years of wondering if they will have a problem with each contract they work on. Many don’t even think they need to read contracts any more, so they will be blissfully unaware of the potential problem.
Agencies have been slippery with this stuff for years. They wriggle out of everything. You lot doing the legislation never seem to care if the worker gets stuffed by businesses – why not legislate to say that the payer is not allowed in law to pass their responsibilities/costs on to another party?
Better still – scrap IR35. Improve the tax system.
September 10, 2023
Irs because they’re thick.
September 10, 2023
A budget with tax cuts is not going to happen it’s not Sunaks way and in any case we are not geared up to take advantage for growth yet – we have an inflated civil service that has to be paid then too many still on benefits idle and not working with the NHS and cost of food imports government needs the cash. First of all we would need to find a plan to kick start the economy and for that we need leadership so who or how is that going to happen with the present lot especially when we have no real trading partners. Trading by WTO Rules by themselves is not going to do it either.
September 11, 2023
A useful list of cuts that could be made, particularly anything to do with net zero. But benefits are too generous already and this government has handed out taxpayer funds to benefits recipients to the detriment of everyone who has to fund themselves.
Benefits (and the state and public sector pensions) should never rise by more than average pay. Why should benefits recipients and those receiving a pension from taxpayers receive a greater increase in their income than the average received by workers?
September 11, 2023
I keep reading the government needs to spend more money here, the government need to spend more money there. When are we going to hold the right people to account?
Our town centres are half dead because of the number of supermarkets. Councils allowed them to proliferate and take over everything from flowers to clothes to bedding. Ironically, John Lewis wants a ‘Royal Commission’ when they were happy to have ascent over small mum-and-dad stores. The only place you can get a couple of hours of free parking is if you’re in one of these big take-over companies’ car parks and then only to spend there or you’ll get a fine.
I’d love to know how many independent florists there were, butchers etc. before Waitrose opened in Greenwich, just for one example. Then Councils had the bright idea to charge shoppers to the small independent stores for every hour of shopping, just enough to kill them off and leave store after store empty. Well, Dame Sharon, I’ve news for you I think you are part of the problem and I hope these areas get enough in Business rates from the likes of your stores to pay for all this extra spending you now want!
September 14, 2023
Why not just fire the BOE boss and bring back King?