The latest MPC meeting was hopeless. There was once again no recorded discussion of money and credit. There were generalised banalities about overseas economies that sounded as if they been taken from a newspaper comment. There was no consideration in the report of how the fall in money will transmit through the banking system. There was no consideration again of why Japan and China had avoided the high inflation the Bank has created here. There was the usual alibi comment that rises in global prices like oil are a given and can cause inflation.
Worse still was there was no explanation of why they persist in wanting to sell £100 bn of bonds at large losses. There is no proper consideration of the impact this will have on long rates in the market and on money. Just as the Bank refuses to discuss or accept its extreme money printing and bond buying had any effect on the inflation so now they refuse to see the adverse impacts of the reverse. Indeed they seem to think these policies are asymmetric. They thought buying bonds at ever crazier high prices was a positive on prices and output when they thought they were fighting deflation. They now think there is no negative effect when they switch to selling bonds at ever lower prices and bigger losses.
The Treasury continues to reimburse them for huge and unacceptable losses. It should tell them to stop the sales. The ECB who made a similar inflationary error by creating money and buying bonds is not making the opposite mistake of selling them in the market at needlessly high losses. The Bank should on this occasion learn from the ECB. Instead they will not even talk about their error, just as they refuse to accept printing loads of money was inflationary.
November 3, 2023
Good morning.
All signed off by the Chancellor and his predecessor, the ‘Little Usurper’.
Is it too late to ask Ministers and Parliament to, “Take back control ?”
Perhaps not.
November 3, 2023
Exactly – Follow the Money. We’re still borrowing, issuing additional gilts, so Sir J, perhaps you could instead tell the government to ‘live within its means’?
November 3, 2023
The BoE does not work for Britain or the tory party.
It still believes we should be in the EU and must bankrupt us to make a point.
Bailey is worse than that Canadian xxxx Carney
November 3, 2023
Sunak and Hunt never fail to disappoint.
November 3, 2023
@Peter Wood – ‘live within its means’ that for you me and the rest of us, we have the Burden of being the paymaster for all their mistakes and personal self-gratification decisions. We have a Parliament to hold these Guys to account and 90 odd % of them refuse, they are just happy to have been paid and had their ego stroked. We live in a World of the entitled, that don’t feel the need to earn their shilling
November 3, 2023
I’m at the end of my tether with this useless Government living beyond my means and the other 46%. Fiscally incontinent fools who after 13 years have never balanced the books and constantly throw my taxes at ever more foolish projects (HS2, foreign aid, foreign wars, money printing, welfare in all its forms including mass immigration subsidy etc) and policies. NO MORE COST OF LIVING PAYMENTS except for the genuine disabled who CANT work in some form. We can’t afford it and it encourages more scrounging. There’s plenty of work but the lazy idle and feckless will always choose the handout option. Start feeling sympathy and expressing publicly the hard pressed tax payer needs a break. So get off your asses and work!.
November 3, 2023
+ Spot on. Exactly.
November 3, 2023
+ 1. The idea that they are doing this without “permission” from the First and Second Lords of the Treasury is risible.
November 3, 2023
+many.
Or the Dr No. character Nadine Dorries refers to? Who is the shady character she thinks is in charge of your party and govt. JR?
November 3, 2023
@Donna +1 That’s the deception
November 3, 2023
@Mark B; Is it too late to ask Ministers and Parliament to, “Take back control ?”
You miss the point, they do not want to take back control, who would they then blame.
A more pertinent question might be of Ministers and Parliament; Will they ever stop taking us mere Plebs as fools?
November 3, 2023
@Mark B – are you sure they are not complicit. 14 Years this Conservative Government has ensured the destruction of the UK, its ability to be self-reliant and resilient. The People of the UK have to be punished, controlled and manipulated. The economy, the future – don’t be silly.
November 3, 2023
Spot on – all agreed by the Tory party, government, MPs and its treasury ….we stand with you but we’re only the Tory voters, we’re nothing
November 3, 2023
Indeed the useless BoE has been appalling under Carney and Andrew (40%+ overdraft rates for all) Bailey. So over 13 years. But clearly Osborne, Cameron, May, Hammond, Boris, Sunak and now Sunak & Hunt are happy with this hugely damaging incompetence.
November 3, 2023
Please wake me up and tell me this was all a bad dream.
November 3, 2023
Fraser Nelson today:- “The real Covid scandal is emerging right in front of the inquiry’s nose
Britain could have escaped the horrors of lockdown, but nobody pulled apart the doom models driving it” No only that but the government (Hancock, Neil O’Brian PPE types … appallingly attempted to silence the many sensible people pushing for this.
Though an even larger scandal is the coercing of dangerous net tech. vaccines into people who never even needed them, even had they been effective and more importantly safe. Winter excess deaths in Scotland 22/23 exceed those during the Covid winters. This when post many Covid deaths brought forwards, they should be sig. lower due to these deaths being brought forwards, similar depressing figure in many other highly vaccinated countries too. So why is this or is no one in government or the NHS remotely interested in these millions worldwide of extra deaths? What can be done if anything to reduce these?
November 3, 2023
Short answer – No, they’re not interested in finding out. Confidence, position, power.
It get’s worse, powerful voices wish to classify the so called ‘global climate change threat’ as a public health crisis; so that the WHO could, if it wins it’s attempt to become the world decision maker on an trans-national health threats, take control of ‘climate response activity’. POWER…
November 3, 2023
LL
The ‘narative’ is falling apart before our eyes. But the narative must be maintained, at all costs!
A bit like the treasury and BoE, I guess.
November 3, 2023
Indeed.
The reality is Sunak/BoE QE caused the inflation and they are now crippling the economy with very high taxes, vast government waste, net zero expensive energy, endless red tape and high interest rates. The vaccines were unsafe and rather ineffective too (and did nothing to stop transmission), the lockdowns just like the vaccines (these even coerced into those who never needed them) did huge net harm.
November 3, 2023
Nothing to do with todays topic and a boring rehash of what you have said umpteen times. Move on or give us a break.
November 3, 2023
Nigel, no one forces you to read.
November 3, 2023
If you see “Lifelogic” at the top you could always skip reading it. Or if you think you can find anything inaccurate you could constructively point this out.
November 3, 2023
+++
Pull the doom models far enough apart and you’d have nothing. Sweet FA.
This has been done to us for no reason.
My greatest horror ( still with me) was how easily receptionists, supermarket workers etc. slipped into roles only seen before in black and white film depictions of the wartime enemy.
November 3, 2023
You have missed a bit from the Nelson article No one was picking apart the models in Britain. No one could: there was shockingly little transparency. Even Cabinet ministers were kept in the dark. One internal report said Covid patients would need up to 600,000 hospital beds; the actual number peaked at 34,000. The PM was told that 90,000 ventilators were needed: in the event, it peaked at 3,700. The extra ventilators ordered in this panic (at a cost of £569 million) ended up in an MoD warehouse in Donnington.
I recall your increasingly shrill posts in March and April 2020 @LL asking why we had not spent more money to have ventilators on call “just in case”.
£569 million. That is less than you wanted them to spend.
November 3, 2023
The Governor doesn’t really have anything to worry about. Even if he is sacked for his incompetence he will probably be in line for an enormous payout along the lines of the NatWest boss. Together with his assured place in the Lords on £300 plus a day tax free, (unlike my pension). to boost his already enormous public sector pension. Why should he care? It’s probably why he is not listening, well secure in his own trough.
November 3, 2023
£342 a day tax free now.
November 4, 2023
Minimum wage for a full day’s work (after tax and NI) is about £65 less than 1/5 of this £342.
November 3, 2023
So what are we witnessing here then?
Incompetence?
A deliberate policy. One of a succession to destroy this nation ?
Both?
I favour the latter to explain it.
The Conservative party must surely know it is on the edge of a precipice and could at least try and help itself by reversing some of the financial pain us plebs are feeling. Yet it doesn’t seem to care at all. Still, why would they if they are following a globalists plan.
I can’t think why else they’d have such a cavalier ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude.
November 3, 2023
I share your view. In the BoE, Treasury and OBR do we have chumps (who have little clue about what they are doing) or charlatans (who know exactly what they are doing but seek to cover it up with statistical mumbo jumbo)? Or perhaps it is a mixture of both.
November 3, 2023
+1 Michelle, sadly.
November 3, 2023
Indeed so. Difficult to explain the Parliamentary Party’s actions – unless they (who put Sunak in Office (but not in Power)) think their remoaner majorities are large enough that they will be re-elected anyway.
November 3, 2023
And how convenient to appear totally useless when there are global pressures to relinquish the reigns of govt.
How quiet they are about the plandemic treaty.
Who is doing the “negotiating”?
What is being said? The “decision” is delayed!
Oh dear! The enquiry found that we handled the plague very badly.
We’d better hand over all (health) control for ever and ever.
KERCHING!
November 3, 2023
***
REINS of govt.
November 3, 2023
@Michelle – Let’s not forget the whole of Parliament is there to hold this Conservative Government and their wayward entities to account, we hear from our kind host (Sir John) but from the others their silence is deadening. Then any day now the whole lot them will be expecting to be voted back in, empowered and paid – WHY?
November 3, 2023
it’s worth doing what I’ve never seen done on this site. Despite many articles by our host about the mistakes made by the BoE and the OBR, there is little or no discussion of who these people actually are, these people regularly taking wrong decisions that affect us all negatively. So I looked them up.
I noticed that two of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee are US Council on Foreign Relations members, and a third is a steering committee member of the Nuffield Foundation-sponsored Economy 2030 Inquiry. That’s the same Nuffield Foundation that claims ‘a just transition to a net zero society must be an inextricable part of the wider determinants of a just society’, so her political agenda looks clear to me.
Of the nine members of the MPC, I can’t help wondering why three out of four external members are from overseas, and how far their interests lie in promoting GB plc. As regards the other five MPC members, the most recent appointee ‘leads the Bank of England’s work on climate change’, and two others are Goldman Sachs International alumni. With their backgrounds, it’s no surprise to me that this group of people seem to be pursuing an agenda very different from Sir John’s preference for economic growth policies that put this country’s interests first.
November 3, 2023
Why is Sunak and Hunt allowing huge losses? I thought Sunak was good at maths!
November 3, 2023
It’s been very clear for some time that the UK’s economic policy is decided elsewhere and is not based on what is best for the UK.
The speed with which the Globalists removed Truss and Kwarteng and installed their chosen puppets was a blatant demonstration that the IMF/WEF controls this country.
November 3, 2023
+++
Yes!
Well researched.
We need to know.
November 3, 2023
Thank you Hat man, Sir John dare not name names, and question personal motives. Clearly his approach has absolutely no influence.
November 3, 2023
This should be writ LARGE by our wonderful national broadcaster – BBC and all other political parties that are not Conservative.
How long has this infiltration been going on?
November 3, 2023
I listened to the statement by Andrew Bailey about interest rates and high inflation and decided he was lying.
But we get that a lot nowadays – lying- don’t we? “Safe and effective ” was drilled into us daily for several years….
November 3, 2023
Why is Bailey )or the FCA) never asked why the FCA effectively forced personal overdrafts from the main banks up from circa base plus 2%-5% to 40%+ one size for all. Surely this is anti-competitive market rigging?
November 3, 2023
I am getting tired of your 40% overdraft. Most people either don’t fall into overdraft or if they need to borrow money are able to get a loan at much better rates.
Right now a loan by a well known internet bank is advertised at 6.4% for any sum between £10k and £30k over a duration of 1 to 8 years.
If as a BtL landlord you are not able to organise your finances properly, tough, but stop the ridiculous moaning that shows you are not particularly clever with your money.
November 3, 2023
Lots of other charges hef.
I expect you don’t run a business.
I expect you haven’t had to go and borrow to expand your business.
To make a profit and employ people and offer a service.
Easy life eh hef?
Lifelogic is right.
November 4, 2023
An overdraft can be much more flexible than repayment loans and often more appropriate as you only pay interest when you use it. Why did the rates suddenly go from circa 4% to 40% with all the bank charging the same regardless of credit rating? They were already making money on the 2%over base rate. It is clearly an anti-competitive rip off where is the competition authority. Effectively banning personal overdrafts for sensible users. The same large banks overseas still offer far cheaper overdrafts. The 40%+ rates just to rip off for british borrowers it seems.
If for example you have property leak and need to pay for £30k of repairs until the insurance pays up in two months time a loan is not a sensible matching product.
November 5, 2023
If your example is anything to go with, 40% annual over two months is less than 7% or about £2k. Don’t tell me that as a multi BtL owner you cannot afford that.
November 3, 2023
Unfortunately, I got the impression he actually believed his own guff…
November 3, 2023
@Sharon – and we have for the most part a Parliament it’s ‘follow the leader’ MP’s all supporting and repeating the same lies daily. What the point in any of them?
November 3, 2023
I continue to stay sane by expecting the worst and thereby not being so disappointed. With that in mind, with a Labour led government we’ll also have an omnipotent OBR to go with the BOE. So much for representative democracy.
November 3, 2023
@MPC – yes, This Conservative Government, the UK Parliament its MPs are all complicit in the destruction of Democracy. There can be no simpler betrayal of trust and contempt shown by these people we empower and pay to work(?) on our behalf.
November 3, 2023
Representative democracy is NOT democracy,just window dressing.I will refer you -again- to Robert Michels “Iron Law of Oligarchy.”
November 3, 2023
This all goes back to March 2009 when Alistair Daring was pretending that the Bank was buying up assets to stimulate the economy when the real purpose was to help fund the Labour government’s massive budget deficit – it having got itself into the position where it was having to borrow a quarter of all the money it was spending.
I’ve scanned back in my files to the numerous comments made at that time and subsequently, if not on this blog then elsewhere; for example this article by Roger Bootle is still on the Daily Telegraph website:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/4957996/Bank-must-react-quickly-to-avoid-the-pitfalls-in-quantitative-easing.html
“Bank must react quickly to avoid the pitfalls in quantitative easing”
and my comment on that article was:
“Why on earth is the Bank of England using £100 billion of newly created money to buy up gilts at all, irrespective of these subtleties around their various maturities?
Gilts are not problem assets – they’re among the highest grade, safest, assets available – and there’s a liquid market for anyone who wants to either sell some of his holdings, or add to his holdings.
It would make sense for the Bank to use newly created money to capitalise a state-owned Resolution Bank, which would take over “toxic assets” from the commercial banks, getting those assets off the balance sheets of its client banks and replacing them with cash.
So removing the poison from the mainstream financial system into a safe place, for gradual disposal – and under tight contracts which ensured that eventually the Resolution Bank would recover all shortfalls and costs from its client banks, and could pay back everything it owed to the Bank of England when it was finally wound up.
But the Bank of England using newly created money to buy up top quality assets, gilts?
That only makes sense if this is understood:
AT THE SAME TIME AS THE BANK OF ENGLAND WILL BUY UP EXISTING GILTS, THE TREASURY’S DEBT MANAGEMENT OFFICE WILL SELL NEW GILTS TO FUND THE GOVERNMENT’S BUDGET DEFICIT.
So – if the Bank is in the market to buy existing gilts, will that make it easier, or harder, for the Debt Management Office to sell new gilts?
The answer is in the article: “This policy has already caused gilt yields to drop sharply”.
In other words, gilt prices have gone up, in anticipation of a shortage – a shortage which the Debt Management Office will be very happy to make good with new issues, thus raising the money the government requires to maintain and increase its expenditure at a time of collapsing tax revenues.
Government revenues go into, and government spending comes out of, an account it holds at the Bank of England – the Consolidated Fund account – and it would have been more transparent if Alistair Darling had simply sent a written instruction to Mervyn King:
“Please credit £100 billion of new money to the Consolidated Fund account”.
Because that must be the end effect of the Bank of England buying existing gilts, while the Treasury is selling new gilts.”
November 3, 2023
This was on here five days later:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2009/03/13/what-the-regulator-should-say-today/
and my comment started:
“Shouldn’t the FSA have a view on the government rigging the market in its own bonds?
And shouldn’t the Official Opposition also have, and forcibly express, a view on that?
Mondays and Wednesdays, Bank of England uses newly created money to buy existing gilts and remove them from circulation.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, Treasury’s Debt Management Office sells new gilts to help fund the government’s budget deficit.
Nothing peculiar about that? And no political or electoral implications worthy of note by the Official Opposition?”
November 4, 2023
Phew …the voice of reason and accurate research again.
November 3, 2023
Their behaviour is endemic throughout the Blob and Public Sector.
It reminds me of that other exercise in denying responsibility and buck-passing which is going on at the (blatantly rigged) Covid Inquiry.
And the refusal of Ministers, MPs and the Public Health Quangocracy to even investigate the appalling level of excess deaths since 2021, let alone acknowledge that the experimental gene therapies they pushed on people who were at no risk from the virus, may be implicated.
Deny, deny, deny …… and pass the buck. And of course, don’t expect any consequences because “your mates in the Establishment” will ensure there won’t be any.
November 3, 2023
Is this a question of differences of opinion or is one side view supported by fact. You will have made these views known to the Chancellor..what is his response, accept, deny, not interested?
Why are Civil Servants again not accountable to elected representatives?
November 3, 2023
Civil Servants are accountable to elected representatives. It is the latter who are at the greater fault, in my opinion, because they are too lazy to challenge, and if necessary, take control.
November 3, 2023
The MPC is like a bunch of merchants enacting a mission statement for loss.
Personal rewards for failure.
November 3, 2023
Hopeless isn’t it John !
Seems like incompetent people are charge of so much now, we have no chance of any joined up thinking at all.
November 3, 2023
Surely it is time to bring the BoE board to task. They are failing dismally in all aspects of finance. Is it not time to clean the swamp & get the bank run properly.
British citizens deserve the best financial minds not market traders!
November 3, 2023
Yawn; In other words BoE doesn’t say what some on the right want to hear…
November 3, 2023
Yawn indeed.
Jerry reacts as usual in the opposite to anyone else’s opinion.
Usual right wing slur Jerry.
Cliché
Very poor.
November 4, 2023
@Sam; Your comment probably says more about yourself than it does me, if you honestly think opinion or belief that doesn’t chime with your own or our hosts should not belong and should not be posted to this site.
Hardly “Cliché” to use a long accepted accepted description, do you object to Labour being called ‘Left (wing)’?
I suspect you read and thus reacted to words I never posted…
November 3, 2023
I think I am right in saying that we have not won the World Cup in football for decades?
Westminster is analogous.
How can anything succeed when it is run by dogma and superstition? ( Used to hide greed and fear).
When players and politicians are chosen for reasons other than their ability to do the job?
And of course those who find themselves on the right side of all this are scarcely going to complain.
No…they just “wing it” and pocket the ample rewards.
And the country slides further into dystopia.
The GOVERNMENT had better actually do something BRAVE about the 11th.
Good Grief. If a right wing English party ( an extinct beast now) threatened disruption…they’d have the tanks out.
November 3, 2023
BOE, Treasury, and OBR should be marked, not required on journey forward to economic recovery. Like ageing shire horses they should be put out to grass.
November 3, 2023
“representative democracy” is not remotely real democracy as once elected they usually do the reverse of what they promised anyway.
November 3, 2023
And how long before our state concedes power and order to supporters of palestine and opponents of Israel? There are not many opponents – most are frightened.
November 3, 2023
You hit on the nub of the problem in the first sentence of your final paragraph: at the end of the day it is the Treasury, in the persons of the First Lord, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that is responsible. They of course find it convenient to hide behind the myth of ‘Independence’ of the Bank, but it is they who should be ensuring that the Bank gets its house in order, and sacking its Governor and Directors if they are not up to the job, which is clearly the case.
November 3, 2023
Carney way dire too.
November 3, 2023
Is this another case of the quango wagging the minister, or simply a deliberate attempt to throw our resources down the nearest drain.
I would suggest that the minister is working very closely with the Bank to achieve their aims. Wealth transfer is but one small part of all of this. Impoverishment of the UK will certainly follow.
A shame that we can no longer trust our government and establishment – They are too busy following the WEF schedule.
November 3, 2023
The MPC meetings will be like those described by Cummings during Covid crisis…
Decisions made with no paper trail, by nameless faceless people chatting over coffee. Chaotic uncontrolled decision making routine at the top of the British state.
Fake meetings called after the decision is already taken, to document the minutes, and reasons the decisions are taken, simply to generate evidence in case of any judicial review.
Reply They publish quite detailed minutes after every meeting along with their wrong forecasts
November 3, 2023
It’s even worse than that.
The vote was 6-3 and the 3 voted to increase to 5.5% !! Despite calls for a drop to 5% from various quarters (due to slow growth and other issues), these people actually voted to raise rates!
I could not believe what I was seeing. And as our host says, the minutes are a depressing read too – it shows people with little grasp of what they are doing (or people with a sinister agenda).
This country is in serious trouble. With the people in the civil service, BoE, Treasury, OBR etc all being pro-EU, woke to a man, incapable of doing the job (and often unwilling to do it)… and the influx of immigrants diluting our culture, as can be seen from the pro-terrorist people rioting in our streets… I don’t see how we survive this.
November 3, 2023
Perhaps one way to make a start is to vote for a party that might actually do something about it, instead of making promises then reneging on them once in power.
I went to the Reform UK web site and read through their policies. I found myself nodding in agreement… yes, yes, yes, oh that’s a new one on me, yes, yes…
There are one or two surprises there, which may be good ideas as well.
But if you want sense re net zero, energy policy, immigration (which is where they use the phrase “net zero” – net zero immigration), BoE, taxes etc etc, then that’s the party to vote for. Check out the policies section of their site, it’s worth a read.
I am tired of the main parties persuading me to vote for them out of fear of getting the other lot. They’re both terrible. I won’t abstain either, they both deserve, at the very least, to voted against. So this time I’ll be actively voting for something I want rather than voting against something I’m afraid of.
November 4, 2023
But Reform have zero chance of power and will be lucky to win a single seat.
November 3, 2023
Just Bank of England groupthink and inability to acknowledge earlier mistakes?
Or deliberate actions to achieve a private policy? One which HM Treasury persuade every Chancellor to wear or be Kwarteng’d.
November 3, 2023
Sir John
It’s hard to rationalize that anyone but our 2 Chancellors and the BoE have caused the high interest rates and inflation that everyone is now burdened with.
As a Democracy having entities that get to play with people’s lives to suit personal self-gratification then dump all the costs on the same people they are punishing is abhorrent.
November 3, 2023
The UK needs to become a Democracy, Parliament needs to step up and insist on it – otherwise what’s the point of MP’s!
It is time to call off the experiment, this Conservative Government has to step up and manage, it has to manage the Treasury. The BoE, the OBR has to come back under the control and management of the Country (Government) and be held accountable and take responsibility for their activities as is the same as anyone else that is in someone else’s pay.
What would you do if you paid someone to service your car, and it broke down on leaving the Garage, would you insist they put things right at their expense – if they refused, would you pay them? That should be the same attitude when this Conservative Government uses our taxpayer money to buy a service on our behalf.
November 3, 2023
Not too sure what to say!
They are obviously controlled by a different agenda, from you and us, whatever it is!
But, I would recommend to you, you keep up your analysis, and publicise as much as possible!
In time, I hope the British People will catch up, and then, question what is going on!
They seem content on losing the next GE, with some MP’s planning their future after the GE?
Which leaves the better MP’s isolated!
BR
RDM.
November 3, 2023
From the BoE – “Banks, building societies and insurance companies also pay us a fee to cover the cost of regulating their activities.” and the Taxpayer bails us out when we get it wrong.
A bad deal for any one that isn’t a direct Bank of England employee
November 3, 2023
The function of the BoE as it stands should be scrapped . Their decisions have crippled the lives of this country particularly the manufacturing sector . Sunak as Prime Minister cannot stand aside in this matter he is the only person who can decide who is managing our economy ; his stance has ruined any chance of the Conservatives remaining as Government . The media have a significant role to play in activating a public revolt and it’s surprising they still do nothing .
November 3, 2023
So the Bank “will not even talk about their error, just as they refuse to accept printing loads of money was inflationary”! The smug complacency of the public sector exemplified, abetted by 649 MPs of doubtful worth.
November 3, 2023
SORRY – is always the hardest word.
November 3, 2023
“Worse still was there was no explanation of why they persist in wanting to sell £100 bn of bonds at large losses.”
How can they judge whether holding on to the bonds will result in recovery of some or all of their losses, or lead to even heavier losses? Perhaps they need to raise some money?
Reply They can hold them to repayment date when they will be worth more. Selling them now costs the Treasury money they have to pay the Bank
November 3, 2023
Thanks for the reminder about the option to hold them to repayment. Perhaps that would be a clearer message to try to get across.
November 3, 2023
NatWest (government owned) is telling customers to stop eating meat and to drive electric cars after combing their accounts to calculate their carbon footprint.
A “Carbon Footprint Tracker” on the bank’s mobile app uses the transaction data of customers and makes recommendations on how to reduce the amount of carbon production their shopping supports. ‘telegraph’
The future is green the future is Tory ….make no mistake, this crusade is sanctioned by our government
November 3, 2023
@ glen cullen – to ape for a moment NatWest’s toxic culture, we might say it “needs to be taken down a peg or two”!
November 3, 2023
But EV cars cause more CO2 than keeping you old car does. And costs far more, depreciated more and gives more tyre and road wear too as heavier. More dangerous for anyone hit by them too as heavier. Do Natwest and the Gov. not know this?
November 3, 2023
None of that matters ….follow UN agenda 21 regardless of facts or history
November 3, 2023
Our elite rulers are only concerned with global matters and have little interest in the UK except where necessary to garner votes. Today it’s all about “saving the planet”, not the UK.
It starts at the very top where our head of state prefers to see himself as defender of all faiths, not just the CoE, to “save the planet” by expanding his reach and remit and consequently has no issue with Sharia Law for the UK.
They make speeches at the UN to say we are responsible for the horrors of the Industrial Revolution and must “save the planet” by implementing the unilateral Net Zero Strategy, a useless task to reduce our 1% contribution to CO2 emissions, whilst destroying our economy in the process.
They tell us we are responsible for slavery throughout the world and all through history and must pay reparations to “save the planet”. They sign us up to as many “save the planet” sovereignty denying treaties as possible – the EU, UN Migration Pact, the WHO pandemic treaty, the ECHR, etc. etc.
They intend to “save the planet” by importing into the country millions from the third world even if it turn us into a mini third world containing dozens of different tribes all living different lives with different laws, cultures and grievances.
To “save the planet”, they are even happy to make our country immeasurably less secure by encouraging into the country tens of thousands of young men of fighting age, with no ID and with completely different cultures, by offering free accommodation, free healthcare and £40/week pocket money, and the freedom to roam our streets until they abscond into the underworld.
The latest trick now is that they must use their time and our money to “save the planet” from AI.
So no wonder the “latest MPC meeting was hopeless”.
When are we going to be saved from our ruling elites?
November 3, 2023
But Hunt and Sunak are happy with the BoE approach clearly because we haven’t heard a word of criticism from them. So the BoE draws the correct conclusion they want more of the same. So why blame the BoE ?
November 3, 2023
The PM made a sensible analysis of AI in his closing speach at Bletchley Park. I think the the essential quality of our relationship with AI is that we humans use it on our own terms and never allow it to use us.
I would like to see one of its earliest uses in the selection and gathering of fruit and vegetables, so eliminating the need to import cheap labour.
November 3, 2023
@ agricola – surely you could be more ambitious. How about using AI to replace cabinet ministers, starting with the Home Office, BEIS and DWP? Thereafter we might not import anyone at all!
November 3, 2023
Well, human nature being as it is, one lot of humans will almost certainly use it to exploit another lot of humans. The key thing to remember is AI will get better and better & do this more and more rapidly. This as the AI today will be used to design even better AI for tomorrow and the better AI of tomorrow will design even better AI even more quickly for the next version and so on. Positive feedback & so it will race away.
I remember 8k bytes of non Volatile memory chips costing £100 this about 40 years back, the cost now is less than 1/1,000,000 of this per byte far smaller and more reliable too. The positive feedback loop will make this development seem very slow compared to AI.
November 3, 2023
We have a pending dilema, ref Rembrance Day events. There is a potential clash between the right to protest and march in demonstration of ones feelings and the rights of I think the majority to show their respect for those who have given their lives defending individual freedoms and our democracy. I would state that in expressing ones feelings, the action should never impinge on others right to freedom.
On balance, seeing the level of anti social and confrontational racist behaviour that has accompanied recent demos in support of Palistinians, I would invoke an absolute ban on any further demo/marches during the time surrounding Remembrance. If this involves heavy handed police action in stopping coaches and reversing their direction on our highways, so be it. The police should be left in no doubt as to what is expected of them. This is an absolute judgement time as to whether our customs and culture are respected.
November 3, 2023
AGRICOLA – “It aint gonna happen” as it it not part of the Globalist plan. They want Chaos and therefore CONTROL. Why do you think the illegals have NOT been prevented from entering our shores?
November 4, 2023
The Establishment hasn’t got the cojones to ban these demonstrations. Appeasement of one “minority” is the name of the game …. and has been for decades.
And when we get the next terrorist atrocity, we’ll be told it was just a lone wolf and “don’t look back in anger.”
November 3, 2023
Bring back Eddie George, I say.
OK, so “Steady Eddie” is no longer alive, but even an AI facsimile would certainly be better than the present incumbent who is no more than a dead man walking.
But seriously, Mervyn King is very much alive and I would bring him back, increase the inflation target to a more realistic 2.5% or 3% and replace all on the MPC with UK nationals committed to a growth strategy.
Mervyn could even put a certain Sir John Redwood on the committee………………….
November 3, 2023
Never liked committees much.
Gianni Agnelli, one time CEO of Fiat, apparently said “The right number for a board of directors is an odd number fewer than five and it is not three.
So just put JR in charge please.
November 3, 2023
‘NHS admits it sold off 6,000 Covid Nightingale beds worth £13m for just £410,000’ Mirror Online
Is this why my taxes are so high ?
November 3, 2023
This multiplied by 1000+
November 4, 2023
Look at what the Mirror and other papers were doing in March 2020 – clamouring for us to do what the Chinese were reportedly doing, building emergency hospitals. NHS England spent £££ millions on seven Nightingale hospitals, but only two of them ever admitted patients, about 150 altogether. Hospitals were never “overwhelmed” by Covid any more than they were by the flu season in previous years.
November 4, 2023
Why would you ‘give away’ 6,000 new beds when they were bought for a pandemic?
It must be possible in many hospital wards to put in an extra bed, or two thus easing the problem of bed-blocking.
November 4, 2023
And I bet other parts of the NHS are still buying new beds at the full price.
Perhaps, Sir John, you could put down a question to the Health Secretary ?
November 4, 2023
What about twice £500 m given to Tata, once to help it build a battery factory, then to ‘save’ Port Talbot despite the threat to 3,000 jobs.
What about you starting to deal with relevant numbers? If you want to talk about Covid, what about recouping the billions of pounds lost to fraud, waste and dodgy contracts?
November 3, 2023
The frustrating thing is what can we do about it. Your analysis is correct, it does not take a genius to prove that selling bonds at big losses does not make sense. But these people seem beyond the influence of ordinary voters.
Have Sunak & Hunt learnt nothing from recent by-election losses, or don’t they care? Have they already given up on the next GE? Do they have no basic economic understanding and lack the humility to ask those who have? Have either of them asked you to discuss your recent suggestions for the budget?
Why is not every conservative MP supporting your proposals?
November 3, 2023
Dear Sir John,
You are right that the Bank’s gilt-sales are now pointless and damaging . The supposed purpose of recycling asset purchases was to allow mild tightening before abandoning ultra-cheap money. But the Bank was so slow to act that it had to go straight to hefty rate rises, leaving the gilts pile as an embarrassing legacy.
As I have argued here before, the best answer is to neutralise the Bank-held gilts, if necessary using similar slightly dodgy ingenuity as used to set up the facility. And given the state of play, it would be best to go for a cross-party solution.
My preference would be to substitute real gilts for the notional gilts that notionally lie behind central government occupational pensions as the first steps towards one or more genuine, separately financed pension funds. We could start with ministers, MPs, civil servants, judges and Directors of Public Prosecution.
The Opposition is keen on what it thinks of as a stand-alone National Wealth Fund. If that is intended to earn decent returns (admittedly a big if) the effect would be similar to funding state sector pensions institutionally. The two ideas could easily be combined.
As you suggest, the big question is whether this Government and the Treasury in particular has the will and determination to do anything.
November 3, 2023
The BoE is part of the Central Bank cabal.
November 3, 2023
How many years have Brits powers been undermined? The dinosaur’s we were called in the 80’s, the past from hundreds of years mocked and as a reason to bring us down in the 90’s,the obvious lack of respect from the EU,the failure to stop our country from being taken over by non British.Financial institutions not getting what is best for our own.Don’t these and many more abuses to our country add up to a general dislike of GB I have heard the voices of power for a long time ,the echoes of the alpha money freaks tells me that theycontinually take the mick.
November 4, 2023
Here we go again, people who aren’t fit to do the job. I was a bank clerk years ago and left when they wanted to put me through the banking exams as I found it rather boring. Maybe I should have stayed as every job I have had has ended up doing the finances. Basic truth is you do not buy or take on mortgages you cannot fund from your salary or savings you should have in reserve. Give up the breeding of kids and fabulous foreign holidays and save money before going into the money business. We have had too much free credit, mortgage rates should have been 5% and rising from 10 years ago to avoid the mess we are now in (I had my mortgage rate at 17% at one stage some years ago). You need to take on debt and really get a grip by paying off the interest as soon as possible so that you just have the actual money loaned or you will never get on top of it.