Treasury briefing keeps telling us unfunded tax cuts will cause inflation. We have just lived through two years of surging and high inflation with increased taxes. That should lead them to question their bizarre view of inflation. If they believe that tax is the key to inflation why donât  the Treasury think the tax rises also caused the inflation? In one sense some of them did, as they heaped higher taxes on energy as energy prices soared.
The Office of Budget Responsibility acknowledges that it has overstated this yearâs borrowing so far by ÂŁ20 bn yet carries on asserting there is no scope to cut taxes. The reason borrowing is lower is once again they got their forecasts of tax revenue wrong. I read in the press they keep sending the Chancellor very different forecasts of how much borrowing there might be in five years time. The Government uses this to decide what tax cuts they can afford. The OBR forecasts though wildly fluctuating never seem to fluctuate to allow tax cuts according to the press briefings that filter out. Why does the government use the five  year forecast to decide anything? It is bound to be wrong. The last three years have seen many overstatements of future borrowing by the OBR for the immediate year which should be a lot easier to get right than five years out.
The Treasury and Bank need to think again about the inflation they have just presided over. Let me give them some thoughts on what did cause it. The Bank should grasp that printing £150 bn and paying very high prices for bonds to keep interest rates close to zero was inflationary. The Treasury should understand that boosting spending by £350 bn a year over three years and borrowing the money to pay for much of the extra  spending was inflationary. They ended up borrowing it at overdraft rates from the Bank of England. These rates then surged as the Bank decided to  hike them. It means it was very unwise to borrow like that. If they had funded it long it would have been a lot cheaper and arguably less inflationary. The Government needs to grasp that recruiting 103,000 more civil servants over six years and allowing a 7.5% collapse in productivity was inflationary.
They will reply that the surge in oil prices from the Ukraine war was inflationary. It certainly drove up energy prices but does not account for why UK inflation was already three times target before that happened. Nor does it explain  how big energy importers China and Japan did not have a big inflationary surge as we did, but then they did not print lots of extra money and drive their interest rates lower.
The budget needs to cut taxes. It also needs to help bring inflation down and it needs to push downwards on the deficit. Far from being  impossible to do these three things at the same time, the right policies will indeed do all three together. If only the Treasury had a model of revenues that picked up how increases  in growth deliver higher revenues more accurately it would be easier to persuade them. If only  they were better at controlling public spending and at avoiding big falls in public sector productivity that would help too.
Letâs have a go at a budget that they should grudgingly agree using their wayward models will achieve these ends. Letâs start with getting inflation down more quickly. Suspend the 5% VAT on domestic energy for heating for the  year ahead. Take 5% off petrol and diesel by a temporary cut in fuel duty. This will give a useful nudge down to energy costs just as world prices are increasing again. Some of the revenue lost will be compensated by higher profit and windfall taxes on the energy companies  as they benefit from higher world prices. Cover the rest with some of the proceeds of selling the whole remaining holding in Nat West shares. A lower rate of inflation earlier will also save some money on public spending which is very geared to the inflation rate.
The budget should proceed to expand the supply side of the economy to offset some of slowdown the Bank is creating. The VAT threshold for registering small businesses should be raised to ÂŁ250,000 from ÂŁ85,000. This would release a lot of new capacity quickly which in turn would produce a bit of downward pressure on prices. More importantly it would generate additional tax on incomes and profits as the small businesses did more. Treasury models will score this as a revenue loss so offset their fictional figure with rephasing some of the ÂŁ20 bn carbon capture and storage spend. It is unlikely anyway that large scale projects with good business cases will be available to subsidise any time soon.
We have lost 800,000 self employed from the workforce since February 2020. Some  of this may be Covid related. It is also the result of tax changes in 2017 and 2021 which make it too difficult for some to grow their businesses in the way they used to, particularly where they need business customers. Change the rules back. Again Treasury will claim a loss, though it should save government  money especially where people move back into self employment from benefits. This could be more than offset by imposing a strengthened version of the civil service recruitment controls the Government is talking about. Natural wastage should slim the civil service after the increase of 103,000 in just six years.
Switch farming grants for the future away from stopping people growing food to supporting them for doing so. That will generate more business success to tax. It will  cut imports which do not deliver any income tax, national insurance and corporation tax on the food growing,
Save on anti driver schemes the Transport Department helps fund, in accordance with the welcome new approach outlined by the Prime Minister.
There are many other places for reducing the costs of government. All this means we can have lower taxes, a lower deficit and lower inflation. This is a cautious package. It would be possible to move further and faster to generate more growth. Look at the USA which has managed to get inflation lower than us despite their Central Bank making the same mistakes as ours. It has also just recorded 4.9% growth.
Just do something to cheer us up. We are fed up with being controlled by wrong forecasts by the OBR. Nor should we have to pay further for the wild policy swings of the Bank of England who did much to give us inflation  in the first place. We do need higher public sector productivity, lower costs of Government and a lower deficit. This can advanced with tax cuts which lower prices, create more supply and boost incomes and profits to tax at home.
November 1, 2023
P45 time for the OBR and Andrew Bailey
November 1, 2023
No …. the Blob protects its own. They’ve just engineered events so that it will be P45 time for the useless First Lord of the Treasury, the incompetent Second Lord of the Treasury and a great many of their cohorts.
November 1, 2023
And for anyone who uses their ‘forecasts’ to run the economy.
November 1, 2023
My thoughts exactly. Bailey should be retired immediately. He cannot be allowed another public sector job as he has done too much damage already.
Ditto Howard Davies. As a Retired Independent Financial Adviser, I am only too aware of the disastrous effect his stewardship had on the Financial sector and we have seen how damaging his appointment of Rose at Natwest has been, made even worse by his behaviour since she was found to have committed the worst crime in the book of banking – breaching client confidentiality.
How Davies could have thought she could carry on in those circumstances beggars belief, instead, she should have faced instant dismissal for bringing the bank into disrepute. How typical of the establishment to stick together against allcomers. Hunt and Sunak should have sacked Davies at the same time, along with everyone on the board who voted for Rose to remain in post.
November 1, 2023
@ ChrisS “How Davies could have thought she could carry on in those circumstances beggars belief” – true, and the same can be said of this rotten government that has left Davies in place.
November 1, 2023
Same old, same old.
How many times is there yet another post about the Bank of England?
There are other important issues in the world that are never touched on.
Probably too toxic.
November 1, 2023
Good morning.
It’s too late. Your party is facing annihilation and anything you might try and do will simply not work. Your party had a glimmer of hope with Liz Truss MP at the helm, but the ambitions of the ‘Little Usurper’ and the fear that a real Conservative Government might actually do something for the nation, and not for vested interests, put paid to all that.
To those who do not follow the official narrative like sheep, it was an opportunity lost.
I am reading that there are many companies in my sector going bust. Decades of cheap money have created a ‘junky’ culture and now that has been withdrawn many who over borrowed are feeling it. This is going to end very badly.
November 1, 2023
Indeed.
Number of firms going bust is poised to hit biggest annual figure since 2009 it seems. A great way to go into an election.
Highest taxes for 70 years and still increasing due to inflation and frozen allowances, largest ever NHS waiting lists, negative growth per cap for many years, high inflation, net zero rip off energy, vast government waste, roads being blocked, a war on motorists, landlords, small businesses and the self employed, an open door to illegal and legal immigration, hotel prices and rent going through the roof, over regulation of everything, a vast bloated and totally misdirected state sector, crime out of control (bike thefts and railway stations up 40%), do nothing if at all possible police… Sunak failing on all his five pledges except perhaps halving the inflation he caused.
But hot air & zero action Sunak does hope to force people who do not want to study more maths and english to 18 to do so and he has an absurd idea about banning smoking from a certain birth date and he has ideas about regulating and doubtless taxing AI!
November 1, 2023
Sunak has not exactly got his finger on the pulse of what voter are looking for has he?
Let me explain Rishi:- ditch net zero, frack, mine and drill, cut taxes, halve the size of government, stop all the net harm Covid Vaccines, deregulate, relax planning, stop all low skilled migration, get public services to be half competent, stop road blocking and attacking road users, kill HS2 fully…
November 1, 2023
JR says “Civil Service staff increases of 103,000 in six years” – just that must cost each household about ÂŁ400 PA in extra tax with wages, pensions, offices, collection costs and doubtless most are producing nothing of any value indeed probably negative value output – like road blocking, the war on landlords, the self employed, the productive and motorists.
November 1, 2023
Thats unsustainable
November 1, 2023
Yes, the recession is arriving – in addition to corporate insolvencies there are Councils short on income to pay expenses. Taxes are going to RISE to pay for national and local government waste/costs, not fall. Sir J’s tinkering around the edges of an autumn statement isn’t going to amount to a ‘hill o’ beans’.
Our trade deficit is the biggest worry, this winter we are going to pay for more imported fuel making it worse; who is going to keep buying the Gilts?
November 1, 2023
Obviously the Tories will not be able to fight the next election on their political and economic record. So it will be interesting to see what they do. Get out of politics, seems to be the route that some Conservatives are choosing. Those that still want to fight the election may see their best chance in a crisis that they can cope with better than Labour. Given their poor record on the home front, it would probably have to be some kind of foreign war, or possibly a major energy crisis triggered by it. I see Labour as vulnerable in two areas. One is where the ethnic affiliations of much of its membership conflict with party policy, as with the current Middle East crisis. Here Labour can probably best be left to its internal wrangling. The other is its extreme worship of the net zero creed, which will undoubtedly create an energy crisis for this country in not too many years, if allowed to have its way. This creates an opportunity for Sunak and co. to take a much more restrained approach to net zero and effectively ‘play Starmer offside’. We’ll see if the Tory leadership has the will to win by putting Labour under sustained pressure on this front, not just making a few gestures as we’ve had so far. It would mean putting the Blue-Greens in the Tory Party back in their box, and using the Tory parliamentary majority to modify ‘climate change’ (= eco-corporate enrichment) legislation appropriately.
November 1, 2023
Isn’t Rishi just keeping up with the European skills agenda and a concentration on STEAM (much to your displeasure it contains the Arts). Upskilling pathways to stay in lockstep.
November 1, 2023
Boris Johnson suggested Covid was ânatureâs way of dealing with old peopleâ the inquiry was told.
Well Boris sure got that wrong not “nature” as it was government funded lab research and an accidental (I hope accidental?) lab leak after gain of function processing. So not natural anymore than the vaccines were “natural”.
November 1, 2023
@Mark B
Which sector are you in?
November 1, 2023
Liz Truss was no glimmer of hope. Her plan was to increase borrowing to reduce taxes, rather than shrink the bloated state.
November 1, 2023
Correct.Both Liz and Boris were patently unsuitable and unqualified for any government role.Both should be subject to damnatio memoriae and never heard from again.
November 1, 2023
Indeed, what matters is not so much tax levels as the level of government spending and the vast government waste. Once it is wasted they will have to find the money somehow – in higher taxes, printing the money to debase the currency or by borrowing. Taxpayers will pay in the end.
November 1, 2023
I fully agree. The Conservatives should bring back Liz Truss immediately. John Redwood as Chancellor. Tax cuts for the rich, very much the way forward. Please please do this.
November 1, 2023
@Mark B The Establishment the collective ‘Blob’ will fight to retain their Socialist WEF control over the UK. Anyone suggestion that those in receipt of Taxpayer money should be held accountable and responsible will be briefed against and ultimately removed.
November 1, 2023
Indeed I read yesterday that after an initial jump in asset prices those companies, trusts and other investment vehicles who have signed up to ESG are dropping like a stone. New purchases are also falling off a cliff. Remember the old adage, “Go Woke, Go Broke”. In an investing world who’d have thought that asset price increases, dividends and profits would be more important than “climate change, positive action (discrimination) and gender assignment”. I wonder why the London Markets aren’t going ……..anywhere and new listings are going elsewhere, away from the mad Westminster village Woksters.
I also read that our security services (MI5 etc) will no longer recruit any white men in their drive to achieve positive action. Those undercover Afghans ( All translators of course) will go down well in Londinistan.
The Tory’s are finished we want true conservative representation, we want REFORM!
November 1, 2023
Indeed the government spending (indeed usually wasting or even to producing active harm) rather less and giving this back as tax cuts for people to spend themselves is clearly not remotely inflationary. It will also be spent or invested far more sensibly than it is by government (not difficult) and will encourage more inward and other investments and growth too.
The real causes of inflation are Sunak/BoE currency debasing with their QE (in effect yet another tax), the net zero delusion, pushing up energy, heating, lighting and transport costs, the net harm lockdowns and vast government waste on duff degrees, test and trace, net harm lockdowns, eat out to help out, duff and dangerous vaccines…
I see that winter deaths in 2022/23 in Scotland are the worst in 30 Years, worse than in the âPandemicâ winters and this when after the Covid excess deaths brought forwards one would expect significantly fewer. So the causes are? Perhaps dangerous Covid vaccines causing heart, cancer and blood clot and other issues, the dire NHS service in Scotland, ambulance and other treatment delays, extra suicides, drugs, alcohol deaths, depression, freezing pensioners who cannot heat their houses… I wonder?
I assume there will be a very urgent and serious investigation, then again probably not as they clearly do not want us to know the answers? They surely know already.
November 1, 2023
Boris Johnson apparently asked âwhy are we destroying the economy for people who will
die anyway soonâ shortly before announcing the first Covid-19 lockdown, contemporaneous notes suggest.
A very sensible question Boris (you were on the right side of the argument initially) but you should have gone on to point out (which was surely fairly obvious even at the time) that:- In as much as any lockdown âmightâ delay some Covid infections very slightly it also obviously delays (for younger healthy people) many safe, free and effective natural vaccinations from them catching Covid earlier. This then delays overall herd immunity so on average it is far from clearly that the even older victims do on average even get to live a few weeks longer. This is especially true as the (much later) Covid vaccines have proved to be neither safe nor even very effective.
Boris was however a bit daft to say âget Covid live longerâ confusing cause and effect. A favourite activity of politicians:- Are people less healthy because they are poor or poor as they are ill and cannot work much?
Does more atmospheric CO2 cause warming or does warming cause more atmospheric CO2?
Do people earn more due to their learning from university degrees or earn more because they were brighter on average when they started off?
November 1, 2023
Boris was also on the right side on Net Zero and Renewables (could not pull the skin off a rice pudding) initially until he ditched Marina for Carrie.
November 1, 2023
After he said that he very nearly died from it at age 56, and about a quarter of the population are older than that.
November 1, 2023
More winter death in Scotland this year than the Covid winters!
November 2, 2023
So?
November 2, 2023
and he got dedicated specialist care….perhaps things ran better without him?
November 1, 2023
@LL; “[Boris was] on the right side of the argument initially”
Come off it Mr Life, you were panicking worse than most in early 2020, anyone can search for your comments from early 2020. You were demanding vacuum cleaners be converted into ventilators, demanding the elderly be protected etc.
November 1, 2023
Not so if you actually read what I said. Of course I did not want people to die for lack of hospital care, suitable equipment and capacity if it was avoidable and I pointed out how poorly equipped the NHS was relative to many countries in terms of intensive care facilities per head.
November 1, 2023
Not so. I obviously I did not want people to due for lack of IC facilities and pointed out how poorly equipped the NHS was relative to many places in terms of facilities they had per million people.
November 2, 2023
@LL; I read your comments at the time, with great interest, it was very clear you were in a full panic mode (as were a few others, such as ‘@Libertarian’), and that had someone suggested allowing people to die you would have given them hell. Hence your comments about the NHS IC facilities, just a pity you had not thought of such things before, and nor since, preferring the mantra of ever more tax cuts.
Many suggest Germany has first class Hospitals, most are private, and most people have to take out private health care insurance, but the premium they pay is set by the Federal government, in effect a Federal tax, and far more than what is paid here in the UK…
November 1, 2023
You show us things do not have to be the way they are – but under this rotten government we cannot expect such changes for the better.
November 1, 2023
Sir John
I don’t understand this obsession with the OBR. Call for its abolition rather than attacking its politicised output which serves only to prop up the Socialist state and prepare the groundwork for a possible verminous, scum Labour government, who by the way will finish the job they intended to implement in 1997 ie the dismantling of normality and morality to be replaced by an ideological environment (Marxist in tone)
November 1, 2023
The OBR was set up by IHT ratter and landlord/tenant robber one George Osborne yet another idiotic thing he did on top of appointing Mark Carney to the BoE at vast expense in wages and through his misguided policies.
November 1, 2023
Osborne also set up the “Office of Tax Simplification” in 2010 since then UK tax complexity has surely doubled (at the very least). Still lots more work for essentially parasitic tax advisors, accounts, civil servants and tax lawyers at the expense of those who actually produce useful products.
November 1, 2023
Dom
My thoughts too – the various departments and organisations are wittingly or unwittingly implementing the great reset ideals. And it’s working, it’s really damaging our culture and economy. We need much stronger ministers and more of them, such as Suella Braverman, and make the necessary changes to stop it! Abolish the OBR and any other quangos that are detrimental. Remove Common Purpose individuals.
November 1, 2023
DOM
I don’t think Labour has been left with much to do.
November 1, 2023
I agree DOM, we also need to give a lot of other useless so-called civil servants their P45âs.
Too many are sitting at home unsupervised producing nothing!
November 1, 2023
@DOM – the OBR is a recent Conservative Government invention, like most things they dont know how to admit they were wrong. Gte rid of it go back to the original competent ways and would we notice the difference? But we would save the Country money
November 1, 2023
I don’t think the UK controls it Dom. “The OBR is one of a growing number of independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) that have been established around the world to provide non-partisan analysis” https://obr.uk/about-the-obr/international-engagement/
November 1, 2023
Agree – Call for the abolition of the OBR today
November 1, 2023
@glen cullen; Abolition of the OBR doesn’t change the facts, a future govt who wants to control the message would also have to repeal the FOI Act…
Shoot the messenger why not!
November 2, 2023
But the messenger has become king maker
November 3, 2023
@glen cullen; But as you say, the govt could abolish the OBR, so how is the OBR King maker, they could effectively cease to exist come lunchtime Tuesday 7 November…
The Conservatives, once back in government, though they could distance themselves from their own decisions by creating the OBR who merely report the facts, shinning a spot light on the success or failure of polices emanating from No.11. Gordon Brown though he could do the same by way of an “Independent” BoE.
November 1, 2023
âAustraliaâs Maritime Safety Authority has issued a domestic commercial vessel safety alert on the risks of ferrying battery powered cars (EVs). Each ferry operator must conduct a risk assessment for their vessel to ensure that they are capable of dealing with potential EV fires.â
So how exactly are they going to do that when they cannot ever put them out very safely and quickly on land? Perhaps tow them in an unmanned boat behind the ferry that can be sunk when any catch alight? But easier and far cheaper just to ban EVs on ferries I would have thought. Yet another reason EV cars cost so much more to buy, they depreciate more and to insure. Plus they cause more CO2 and tyre road wear/particulates per mile too.
November 1, 2023
+1_LL
Many good observations this morning! I did here about a Norwegian ferry company that will not carry ev’s.
November 1, 2023
Very sensible of them it would be a nightmare to put one out on a boat – especially in a rough sea.
November 1, 2023
Yes. It will be interesting to see how the first EV ferry fire is dealt with.
Meantime, since EV car insurance is sky-rocketing, the same must be (or will) happen to maritime insurance. Expect your holiday ferry to start costing a great deal more in the very near future.
November 1, 2023
Donna ;
Everybody’s car insurance will increase either because of the costs of an accident with an ev or even because of the increased danger to be in the vicinity of an ev fire – especially one on a ferry, tunnel, bridge or car park.
November 1, 2023
I’m hearing anecdotally that car insurance for over 80s has skyrocketed whatever you drive.
November 1, 2023
Lifelogic
Not yet had the report on the Luton Airport Car Park Fire, but no matter what or how it was caused, if battery cars were involved, and fed the fire making it more difficult to put out, then I suggest the writing may be on the wall.
Only wants one EV fire on a ferry or in a tunnel, and the thought Police, Health & Safety, and Insurance Companies will make it happen.
November 1, 2023
Indeed just the presence of some EVs nearby makes tackling the fire far more of an issue even if it was a fully diesel vehicle that started it. Though the fire did look a bit fierce and on the videos for a normal diesel car fire. What was burning so violently in the front N/S of the car?
November 1, 2023
yep – they might be banned on multistorey carparks, ferries, through tunnels, in car-transporters, in school carparks… anybody want to buy a used EV – going cheap (I don’t have one)?
November 1, 2023
Oh dear Socialist Michael (VAT on School Fees) Gove is at it again. âThe accumulation of wealth for its own sake is immoralâ he thinks. Nonsense Gove it is surely good to spend and invest wealth wisely & if you do so you then accumulate more. Also you create jobs, pay more taxes and generate growth and innovation to the benefit everyone. Generally this does substantial net good.
Though perhaps not in the case of the Covid Vaccines it seems coerced in to people who never even needed them by Governments.
The problem is that the government generally piss money down the drain doing the reverse. If you have more money than you need surely investing it wisely is the best thing to do Gove. What does he suggest for it?
He said “Big corporations have âco-optedâ diversity and inclusion to âinsulate themselvesâ from resentment at their wealth”, âthe accumulation of wealth for its own sakeâ as âimmoralâ he attacked asset managersâ focus on getting returns on investments as working to undermine capitalism.
Bonkers Gove, even by Oxford English Graduate standards totally irrational & and a deluded net zero pushing socialist. Anyway the diversity and inclusion agenda is mainly pushed by this Government and the State Sector and then forced on to the private sector by them. Look at the dire NHS for example, endlessly recruiting diversity officers on twice the pay of many junior doctors.
November 1, 2023
@ Lifelogic “So how exactly are they going to do that when they cannot ever put them out very safely and quickly on land?” – I understand some car-carrying vessels are able to pump seawater aboard to smother fire.
Evidence from the U.S.A. market shows EVs catch fire very much less frequently than other vehicles (hybrids were worse than ICE). Clearly, the issue is that lithium battery fires burn with more intensity and are more difficult to extinguish than those arising from other sources in vehicles.
November 1, 2023
chucking water at a battery fire will not solve it.
November 1, 2023
I read it too :
Some risks associated with EV fires include:
High voltage shocks
Direct jet flames
Fires develop in intensity quickly and rapidly reach their maximum intensity (typically within 2-3 minutes)
Toxic gases
Gas explosion (if the released gas accumulates for a while before being ignited)
Long lasting re-ignition risk (can ignite or re-ignite weeks, or maybe months after the
provoking incident)
Once established fires are difficult to stop/extinguish
Thermal runaway
It’s here :
https://www.amsa.gov.au/…/dcv-safety-alert-022023-risks…
November 1, 2023
Corrected Link that works :
https://www.amsa.gov.au/vessels-operators/domestic-commercial-vessels/dcv-safety-alert-022023-risks-associated-carriage?fbclid=IwAR0biS4OND7_0vp0yUYrXnwxb4VXf7bcsVZSOw9Pp-o2xYREWae5YHnK0ik
November 1, 2023
+1
November 1, 2023
…and why wont they release the details about the luton airport fire, was it a diesel or diesel hybrid ?
November 1, 2023
Good article. Where does the delusion come from that the printing of all those ÂŁbillions did not cause inflation?
As a parting gift from the Conservative government how about a windfall tax on pharmaceutical companies that have made vast profits on poorly tested gene therapies that have caused great harm including death.
The money could go to properly compensating the injured and families of those that died.
November 1, 2023
Why do you read it in the press? Youâre an MP, you work for us. The Chancellor works for us. The OBR (heaven help us) works for us. The forecasts they send the Chancellor should be public.
November 1, 2023
@Mike Wilson; “The forecasts [the OBR] send the Chancellor should be public.”
China would love that, as indeed would any of our competitors…
November 1, 2023
The weather forecasts don’t advise beyond 2 weeks, and that is being optimistic!
So why does anyone imagine 5 years out is plausable for Government borrowing, interest rates etc?
November 1, 2023
Why has a Tory government employed 103,000 more civil servants over the last 6 years?
What are they doing? They are not answering the phones if you have the misfortune to need to communicate with a government department.
November 1, 2023
Theyâre not fixing pot-holes, nor repelling the small boats, nor policing the streets or even cleaning the streets âŠwhat do all these people do ? I wished that half of them worked for british gas as I’ve been on hold all morning !
November 1, 2023
I expect a sizeable proportion are spying on us.
November 1, 2023
Sir John, your frustration with the Treasury/OBR/BoE Blob, which includes Sunak and Hunt, is obvious.
However, they caused the misery, with the support of far too many MPs who are basically not Conservatives, let alone conservatives. After 13.5 years of so-called Conservative Government all the policies which have been rammed down our throats are Globalist and/or Socialist.
Nothing they do now will cheer us up ….. unless they resign en masse of course.
November 1, 2023
I haven’t looked at your diaries for a long time John but decided to read back on a few topics this morning. I am even more depressed from what I’ve read and feel vindicated by my absence. I felt that nothing any sensible contributor wrote here was making a difference even though much of what was written was common sense and good advice for a government in trouble. The answers to most of the UKs problems were solvable if only all the net zero and woke rubbish plus the back biting in your party were addressed. But no. If anything it’s worse and this country will find itself with a completely soul destroying government called Labour who will hammer the final nail into the coffin. Your party should be ashamed that they listened to the minority of woke idiots such a Just Stop Oil and BLM and we find ourselves where we are today. We have allowed our nation to be infiltrated by other nations that will seek to bring great harm to us all as highlighted by Israel’s envoy speaking at the UN. Most of the people I speak to are glad they are of an age where they wont see the UK ground into the dust. Its tragic as it was all so avoidable. I know my little voice on it’s own means nothing and my vocabulary isnt as fine as others here but I’m sure many others get the gist of what I’m saying. It’s all very sad.
November 1, 2023
You make a compelling case.
November 1, 2023
We have been here before, all too frequently, but what the real world tells them is ignored. Sit back and wait for the election to confirm that we think our financial institutions are run by economic pathologists, and not very good ones at that. Treasury, OBR, andBOE are the Titanic under captain Jeremy heading for a political iceberg.
November 1, 2023
Off topic:
“Excess mortality continuing surge causes concern
Despite some signs that excess mortality rates are declining, life insurance executives and actuaries believe the numbers are alarming and could continue to drag earnings and surge death claims for years to come.”
https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/excess-mortality-continuing-surge-causes-concerns
Well it’s causing concern for the Insurance industry, but the Government and MPs seem to be completely relaxed about it ….. apart from Mr Bridgen, a qualified Scientist, of course.
Meanwhile The Daily Sceptic reports that Mark Groeneveld, age 20, becomes the fifth Dutch cyclist to die or suffer serious heart problems this year. It would seem that professional cyclists dropping dead with heart attacks is evidence of safe and effective medical interventions.
November 1, 2023
..dropping dead is evidence of safe and effective medical interventions. ??
Did you mean to have a negative in there somewhere?
November 2, 2023
Surely you don’t think I’d question the propaganda we’ve been bombarded with for the past 2+ years đ
November 1, 2023
Replace the inept Chancellor and PM with sensible people and the problems should then become more easily solved.
November 1, 2023
Here’s some more misinformation/disinformation from the OBR, and another favourite Rejoiner source.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23892788.brexit-ian-mcconnell-insolvencies-show-truth-folly/
“The enormous damage to the overall economy from Brexit is plain for all to see and has been quantified astutely by many experts.
Back in the spring, Office for Budget Responsibility chairman Richard Hughes summed up Brexitâs effect as follows: âWe think that in the long run it reduces our overall output by around 4% compared with had we remained in the EU.â
He added: âItâs a shock to the UK economy of the order of magnitude of those sorts of other shocks that weâve seen from the pandemic, from the energy crisis.â
Centre for European Reform deputy director John Springfordâs latest report on the cost of leaving the European Union to the UK economy, published last December, estimates that Brexit had, by the second quarter of 2022, reduced the countryâs gross domestic product by 5.5%.
These are huge figures.”
November 1, 2023
‘Natural wastage should slim the civil service after the increase of 103,000 in just six years.’
The natural wasters who choose to leave the civil service are probably not the actual wasters who should be sacked.âThose who choose to leave may be fed up by the civil service, think it will only get worse, and want to work somewhere better.âThey may have been put off by the poor staff who drag down their colleagues.âThese poor-quality staff are rarely sacked but instead just languish.âThey become long-term staff because they know they’re well off compared to working in the private sector which wouldn’t put up with them.
‘We are fed up with being controlled by wrong forecasts by the OBR.’
I think the OBR are aided in steering Government policy by HM Treasury, the Bank of England, and the other main central banks and BIS with which the BoE communes.
November 2, 2023
CS being among the best sinecures suffers from natural wastage? Really?
November 1, 2023
I don’t know any of this financial modelling stuff, but I do know that it is important and that the economists regularly disagree on conclusions for the economy and what to do about it.. An excellent case study for a new Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) system, just feed it the same input data and see what comes out. Of course the AI wont be able tell you why it arrived at itâ s conclusions but then th economists canât do that either. I propose that we call the new AI based economic modelling system âBig Cheeseâ. Sorry, but the economists jobs must go in order to save millions for taxpayers.
November 1, 2023
Sir John
Oh so correct on every level.
There needs to be a big reset, a New Government, with its advisors replaced.
If the Conservative Party canât get a grip, it will be the electorate that does the resetting. The defense of the other crowd would be worse is becoming very leaky. Think about it the Conservative Party thinks they are OK because the others would be worse than them, seemingly acknowledging they are rubbish as well.
As a member of the electorate I want to vote for someone that is ‘Good’
November 1, 2023
I hope you realise that the OBR is staffed by a bunch of pro-EU anti-Brexiteers. As any follower of Guido Fawkes would know, since they follow the appointments and check the record of new appointees. The latest appointment (by Hunt) was a truly rabid version of anti-Brexit with a questionable cv re economics. Anyone wondering why Hunt chose that person?
Also, on the site where you posted the article… be prepared for ridiculous comments. The people whose accounts are still active there are a mix of various malign actors including foreign agent trolls, masquerading as bleeding-hearted liberals (they stealth-moderate anyone with actual conservative views).
Any site that still has an expelled MP as a regular columnist cannot claim to be conservative. Especially when, for a very long time after he left parliament, it still had MP after his name on that site.
November 1, 2023
Sir JR, I don’t make any claim to be an expert on the economy. But I do know a temporary removal of VAT on domestic energy is next to worthless. It needs to be removed permanently.
Ditto a temporary 5% cut in fuel duty. Like the recent so called, cut to alcohol duty, the customer will never see it.
As has been said above. Waving some tiny tax cuts under the nose of the electorate ain’t going to save the Conservative party. You’re doomed and we’re doomed to a Labour Gov. under sir Keir.
November 1, 2023
That should be required reading for every single member of parliament – they all need educating, but especially the Chancellor.
This government though, and I include administrations back to 2019, have always gone against standard wisdom.
Look at how they threw away the long established rules on how a virus should be handled, after which they invented dystopian rules on the spot.
So they have done the same with the economy. Thatcher showed the way by establishing that working to a budget and easing the tax burden brought prosperity. That’s not what the current regime want to do, for clearly they believe in wealth transfer, from us to anybody else.
During the early covid years, the word ‘extrapolate’ was used a lot – but it is so easy now to put this word to good use, to see exactly where HMG is taking us, and it is not a place any of us would desire.
November 1, 2023
âWe are fed up with being controlled by wrong forecasts by the OBR.â
I am also fed up with the wrong forecasts by the CCC. Both organisations are stuffed with Communists who wish to destroy our economy.
We should just stop Net Zero as :
– It is unnecessary : There is no climate emergency, as demonstrated by the IPCC WG1 (âthe scienceâ)âs own Table 12.12 on p1856 showing no worsening weather and just a slight benign warming of 0.14 degrees C per decade leading to some melting of ice and snow. The work of Happer & Wijngaarden on IR saturation shows doubling atmospheric CO2 leads to a negligible (less than 1%) increase of global temperature. In fact their calculations on the real atmosphere, which include all the GHGs in the atmosphere, including water vapour (unlike the IPCC models), fits the experimental data so well that it even calculates correctly that CO2 above Antarctica COOLS rather than warms.
– It is pointless : Our CO2 emissions are only 1% of the global total and large CO2 emitting countries such as China, India, Indonesia etc are ignoring the whole climate change emergency narrative and rightly continuing with hydrocarbon energy.
– It is impossible : Net Zero using expensive, resource hungry, environmentally damaging and chaotically intermittent renewables will only lead to impoverishment. Renewable energy is worthless. It cannot provide affordable, reliable power and neither can it provide load fallowing, dispatchable power. So it serves no purpose and can only exist at all with a parallel energy source to back it up (viz hydrocarbon generated energy).
November 2, 2023
Positively ridiculous, you donât know what youâre talking about, man. Harper and Wijngaardenâs model includes water vapour, as the IPCC models do. The difference is that HW model does not include the H2O positive feedback (ie the 7% increase in absolute humidity per 1 K temperature increase, aka the Clausius-Clapeyron effect), but how could they as their computations are static computations (*).
To get that, one would need as a minimum a one-dimensional radiative convective model as what had been introduced by Syukuro Manabe in 1964 and 1967.
Thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere with a convective adjustment, 1964, S.Manabe, R.F. Strickler, J.Atmos.Sci., 21, 361-385.
Thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere with a given distribution of relative humidity, 1967, S. Manabe, R. T. Wetherald, J.Atmos.Sci., 24, 241-259.
I happen to have had to develop such a model in the early 1980s as a student for an exercise to be solved over a week.
So I dare you to go ahead with such a task, it is not that difficult, it can be easily done by anybody who knows how to program and what a Newton-Raphson algorithm is.
But I wonât hold my breath.
(*) which is the reason why nobody, especially within the IPCC scientists, takes Harper and Wijngaarden seriously.
November 1, 2023
Sir John’s last paragraph says it all . The country is absolutely fed up with the state of the economy and desperately seek change . His guidance ought to be immediately adopted by the Sunak/Hunt regime and thereby restore faith in the Conservative Party .
November 1, 2023
The OBR and the treasury are ignoring economics they are now political entities supporting their masters Hunt and Sunak.
Hunt and Sunak lost the argument and the membershipâs vote but still insist on following their failed fiscal model.
No truth from the mountain (insert your holly mountain here) will change their mind.
November 1, 2023
Good ideas of course but there are 2 problems.
1. No-one, especially an âexpertâ,is ever likely to admit they were wrong. Preening mr carney is still constantly in the media despite his manifold failures as BoE governor; and
2. The trouble with these policies is they might be popular and work quite quickly. That might endanger the likely Labour election victory, and the blob now scents victory. A Starmer govt will more or less mean a merger of the government with the blob. Itâs going to get very blobbish indeed unless Sunak can be persuaded to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Perhaps a change of chancellor even at this late hour might be worthwhile. One things for certain – something needs to change. No change no chance as our host said in 1995.
November 1, 2023
Your party could have done great things with an 80-plus seat majority but what has it delivered for this country â more immigration, more taxes, more regulations, and Brexit betrayed. You donât deserve to be given another chance. It didnât have to be this way. MPs and the House of Fraudâs should be ashamed of their track record.
November 1, 2023
âLook at the USA which has managed to get inflation lower than us despite their Central Bank making the same mistakes as ours. It has also just recorded 4.9% growth.â
This isnât real growth. When a country borrows a staggering half a trillion dollars in 20 days and personal debt on credit cards and mortgages is at an all-time high, all it is doing is accelerating the timescale for the next great depression. The US economic model is totally unsustainable and not one we should be emulating.
November 1, 2023
Spot on.They are literally printing their growth – and downfall.
November 1, 2023
Sounds like the OBR forecasters as as good as the climate forecasters. Are they the same lot?!
November 1, 2023
Anyone else noticed that the UK banking sector has been tanking for the past 2 weeks
November 1, 2023
But I have noticed Trump in Court – any connection?
November 1, 2023
Your government has had 13 years to sell of Natwest why would you try to sell it off at the bottom when it has just lost a lot of ground, its shares slid down, because of the Farage affair.
“The operating profit or loss of the retail banking division of NatWest Group dropped markedly between 2018 and 2020, from around 1.85 billion British pounds down to 849 million British two years later.” Statista
This is at a time when they’re closing branches at a rate of knots.
The bank is posting pre-tax profits though so how much is the governments cut of those profits?
“In Q3 2023, the bank posted a pre-tax profit of ÂŁ1.3 billion, up from ÂŁ1.1 billion a year ago. NatWest’s total income increased by 3% year-over-year, driven by the impact of volume growth and favourable yield curve movements. For the year to date, total income increased by 17% to ÂŁ10.9 billion.” tipranks
November 1, 2023
+1
November 1, 2023
âBletchley Parkâ awe inspiring place and history, unbelievable output during WW11 in the barest of facilities. Even today brilliant knowledgable staff.
Yet today see the start of the blind leading the blind. Clearly this Conservative Government needed to deflect the electorate and the media away from its refusal to manage and creating the dire strait the UK is in. So, to suggest âit can lead the Worldâ on the strait and narrow? When it cant manage it own simple prolific expenditure and control those they give away UK taxpayers money too, makes them look the Worlds Clowns.
It is noted that those that do lead the World in technology, have full capability in the ability to scrap the data from the published tomes that litter the internet, both in software and hardware are not turning up to Bletchley. Why donât the turn up? Not only have better things to do, they are not about to curtail any commercial advantage they have in Controlling the World.
From the âsound-bitesâ that have emerged on what this Conservative Government hopes to achieve, everything suggests it for them is about keeping the power with those that have it and deter any up start competing. Not of course can the have any real say in any of it. Yet at Home, the UK, they have been empowered and paid by the electorate/taxpayer to do a fundamentally straightforward job of managing the UK, creating the framework for a healthy resilient economy, in keeping us all safe and secure. So what do they do, nothing they are lost on the fundamentals of Government so go for self preening grandstanding to ingratiate their personal self-gratification. They are sending the Country down the drain and do they care? Of course not, they donât know how or feel they need to.
November 1, 2023
This is an excellent article, but Sunak & Hunt will continue to ignore you. Are they both thick or just dead from the neck up?
November 2, 2023
bit of both?
November 1, 2023
We cannot cut taxes as we have to fund the Globalistsd Agenda.
November 1, 2023
Sir
Everything you say is common sense.
I am not sure how HM Treasury, the OBR and the BofE have made such a mess of things. However, I recollect having read that many of the economists who are employed by the OBR and by the BofE, previously worked at HM Treasury. It would therefore seem that HM Treasury may be the centre of the infection. Perhaps the OBR and the BofE should be instructed to recruit non-HMT personnel in future in order to obtain fresh and independent thinking ?
November 1, 2023
As I have stated before, Conservative Home isn’t Conservative.
You are wasting your time posting anything on that site.
In any event, the Conservative Party is finished. Hopefully a true Right of Centre party will arise after the inevitable Starmer disaster.