I read and hear in various places that Kemi Badenoch is out to woo the right. I know she has been very loyal to Rishi Sunak. Contrary to some briefings she sent no message of support to the sponsors and supporters of the amendments to the Rwanda Bill . The sponsors in their discussions with No 10 and the Home Office did not report back on any interventions from the Business department to help them amend the draft. She has kept out of the difficult issues preventing GB to Northern Ireland trade.
The  relevant groups on the so called right that would  like to help her in her important job as Business secretary include the Growth Group, the European Research Group, the NTB and the Net Zero realism group.  These Groups were very disappointed when she abandoned the Jacob Rees Mogg Retained EU Laws Bill, which was designed to remove and amend bad or needless inherited EU laws.
We have offered to work with her and the other Business Ministers on a programme of better and less regulation. We have been pressing the need for more and cheaper UK  produced energy. The EU carbon emissions and interconnectors framework for more imported power are particular concerns. It is leading to much industry closing down in the UK making us more dependent on imports. We await a response on how the UK can retain a basic new steel making capability. We are worried that current regulations  to force Electric vehicles will lead to too rapid a decline in car industry based in the UK and to more Chinese imports.
January 22, 2024
The BEIS needs to be led by a second Ludwig Erhard: in that context “rejuvenate” becomes something of a euphemism.
January 22, 2024
The fact she abandoned the Retained EU Law Bill tells us all we need to know. She will follow the WEF/UN instructions.
The fact that Fishy is sanctioning the continued destruction of the country shows us where the non tory party is going
Why don’t you publish the official documen on Net Zero by 2050 and illuminate us as to our future.
Your party and the other legacy parties have to go. It’s happening all over Europe. Enough is enough.
January 22, 2024
Not at all. She only abandoned the Jacob Rees Mogg Retained EU Laws Bill after Jacob Rees Mogg and his fellow right wingers failed to come up with any ideas whatsoever about which EU laws we could usefully get rid of – except for blue passports (which we could do anyway when in the EU) and imperial measures (which we could do anyway when in the EU). I like Ms Badenoch. Unlike most Brexiters she actually deals in reality not fantasy
Reply She did not implement the published Duncan Smith review which identified dozens of regulations for reform and repeal. See also this website with plenty of ideas set out in previous blogs.
January 22, 2024
The Duncan Smith review suggested we should allow imperial measures. Something we could do in the EU. That is why no one took the Duncan Smith review seriously. It also talked a lot about “digital sandboxes”. Me neither
Reply Try reading it, or go to a site that agrees with your prejudices.
January 22, 2024
Lemming The point is we didn’t do this in the EU. It might have been technically feasible but would probably have led to us being ostracised more than we already were, or just paying into the EU more for less.
January 22, 2024
Buyers and seller should be allowed to use any measures they mutually want and both agree too. What business is it of government to dictate such things what do they know of these trades. Be they hands for horses or troy ounces and Karats for gold or chains, acres or furlongs for land or Knots for speed. With computers and electronics conversion (if ever needed) takes but microseconds.
January 22, 2024
Reply to reply: People should really look at the report by IDS, T.Villiers & G.Freeman, 2023, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk âTaskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reformâ, 130 pp. The Summary is between pages 5 and 10.
Despite discussing with 125 top expert participants, one can only be shocked at how vacuous most of the 29 conclusions are: the main thrust seems to be that regulations are important for the various economic actors, and that a 100% UK regulatory framework can only better than the pre-Brexit EU framework. OK, why not?
Then when one looks at what is proposed for the various individual domains (be it Financial services, Smart energy grid, Net Zero technologies, Transport technologies, Clinical trials, Digital health, Agri-environmental developments, Agricultural genomics, UK Satellites, Nutraceuticals) it is difficult not to realise that either what is being proposed already exists, or if not is put as âThe Government shouldâ where in fact the Government is unlikely to be a sizeable actor, or if it becomes so it will be reactively not pro-actively.
The chapters on GDPR (p.49+), Smart energy grid (p.54+), Net Zero technologies (p.59+), Future transport (p.52+), UK satellites (p.106+) were places where I expected some brand new bright ideas. Some, ie, related to Earth Observations are in fact 20 years late wrt to what the present space agencies have been doing for years.
Well, âle souffleâ au fromage sâest degonfleâ .
To me very few of the 526 points (I didnât read them all, only 93 really seriously) bring anything out of the ordinary apart from the message âPresent regulations are bad, whatever the UK Government/Parliament [NB with their dearth of experts] will bring will be âthe best in the worldââ
Another IDSâs report with Nash Squared was also emphasizing âusing word processing software, setting up video calls, uploading files to cloud storage servicesâ.
To me that does not look anything like âan industrial strategyâ.
January 23, 2024
Lemming – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Martyrs
January 22, 2024
Indeed.
âWe await a response on how the UK can retain a basic new steel making capability.â
Simple ditch the insanity of net zero and us coal.
âWe are worried that current regulations to force Electric vehicles will lead to too rapid a decline in car industry based in the UK and to more Chinese imports.â Indeed and it will do not to even reduce CO2 (keeping an older car is nearly always better for CO2 than building a new EV and even if it did then reducing CO2 in the UK or even worldwide would do nothing positive for the climate or the for the world. A bit more CO2 plant food is on balance a net positive.
January 22, 2024
Todays Telegraph, car hire and taxi fleets abandoning EVs in favour of Diesel and Petrol. Uber drivers say they are reluctant to take on airport or longer journeys due to range anxiety car hire firms confirm a 23% depreciation last year and lack of customer interest.
Handing over the motor industry to China is just a progression from the steel industry to India and China.
We now hear that we will have to import scrap to feed the electric arc furnaces. You really couldn’t make it up.
January 22, 2024
From the Sunday Times âLord Hammond warned last year that politicians of all stripes were being âsystematically dishonestâ with the public about the costs and trade-offs associated with net zero.â
No trade offs Philip Hammond just vast net costs and huge net harms mate.
But was not âtax to deathâ deluded EUphile Philip Hammond the chancellor when Theresa May moronically enshrined the UKâs 2050 carbon emissions target into law in 2019?
January 22, 2024
BBC faces tougher scrutiny over bias it seems. Lucy Frazer will announce that the BBCâs website and social media channels will be policed by Ofcom in an attempt to ensure impartiality.
But Ofcom has been anything but âimpartialâ in pushing the idiotic lockdowns, masks, net harm Covid vaccines (even to children and people who had even had Covid). Ofcom is, like the BBC, just another evil and deluded government propaganda outfit. Who will guard the guards.
Are the NHS or Government looking into the vast numbers of almost certainly Covid Vaccine caused excess deaths yet (in hearth conditions, blood clots, cancersâŠ) or still studiously trying to bury and delays the issue. The blood contaminations scandal & post office scandal times by about 10,000 in scale. Not just in the UK it will not be buries. See the excellent excess deaths speech debate by Andrew Bridgen.
January 22, 2024
@Lifelogic
âWe await a response on how the UK can retain a basic new steel making capability.â It can’t, if there was an honest real reason behind this lunacy of undermining the UK’s safety and security, there would be the additional requirement that steel much needed in the UK but made elsewhere had to be constrained by the same limitation or banned.
So it comes down to this Conservative Government is banning the UKs future while ensuring growth elsewhere and massive increases in World pollution and emissions. On every level it has absolutely nothing to do with NetZero – just the UKs destruction. May(Her laws) should hang her head in shame and so should all members of this Conservative Government for such subterfuge in the way they are perusing the destruction of the UK.
Of the whole worlds population only 5% has remotely set out to destroy its own population while the other 95% gets richer
January 22, 2024
How can we even have a credible defence system without steel, concrete, chemicals, fossil fuels and so much of other vital manufacturing – which is so often being exported by Mayâs moronic net zero lunacy.
January 22, 2024
We said Sir John, there are a lot of deluded people in Britain!
January 22, 2024
Oh dear! If Lemming is coming out to bat for you, Kemi, Id be worried.
January 22, 2024
Ian Wragg
Yes, all the legacy parties are out harm us. They must go.
January 22, 2024
Seems so. Sunak certainly seems to have no interest in the good of the UK whatsoever and he seems to come out with a new or repeated lie every single day. The latest one âPort Talbot 3,000 job losses have nothing to do with his moronic net zero lunacyâ.
âChancellor Jeremy Hunt hints at further tax cutsâ says the BBC – further? But he is still putting taxes up hugely. Who on earth at the BBC thought âfurtherâ made any sense?
January 22, 2024
Too many politicians are NOT true Brits and in reality should not be in the job. Its only a well payed easy occupation for them.
A lot of the present day members of Parliament no longer live up too or deserve the title âRight Honourableâ and many no longer get my respect.
Present company excepted Sir John.
January 22, 2024
A couple of years ago Vladimir Putin said that what was coming to the west would be the equivalent of a revolution.
(He wasn’t talking about the green revolution)
January 22, 2024
Good morning.
Kemi Badenoch, another one whose ambitions exceed her ability. Your party is plagued with such people, Sir John.
January 22, 2024
Mark B , i would go further, that most politicians should not be in their job, their intelligence is lacking!
January 22, 2024
Watching Oxbridge boneheads in the Tory party tugging at each other while our nation sinks into a Labour-Tory engineered cultural and social abyss is beyond offensive.
I am bored of the so called Tory right remaining silent on so many issues that now infect our daily lives. It’s pathetic. Either stand up and declare your opposition to the Neo-Marxist infection of this nation, its laws, its culture, at work, on tv etc etc or retire.
The Tories working with nauseating Labour slime pass oppressive speech, internet and race based laws against us and then expect our support.
The Tory right is becoming tediously grating in their silence on issues that are slowly eating away at our nation.
OFCOM purges GB News of presenters prepared to speak out and they’re purged as if Stalin was in office. The Tory right NEVER SPEAK OUT AGAINST THIS.
If I was PM Oxbridge grads would be barred from public life. They have become a threat to morality, normality and decency with their fancy ideas
January 22, 2024
@DOM
Their Socialist WEF masters have instructed them to expose the UKs centre ground as right wing.
If you are not part of a Group, not subject to group think you fall into the trap of being an honest individual â parliament doesnât allow that. Thatâs why the gang bosses choose and arrange funds for those that are said to represent you â itâs based on their loyalty to their leader not their constituents, serving a master not the voter.
As it is the teachings of Klaus Schwab they are following, they are moving so far left they have aligned with his former allies in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party â strangely a pure socialist party that was called right-wing.
Socialism is a party for the workers as long as they become part of the collective and teaching s of the one and only leader that knows what is best for them
January 22, 2024
Kemi isn’t Oxbridge. She studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex, completed her MEng in 2003, and afterwards worked as a software engineer.
The BBC say she is a darling of the right. Not if she won’t even talk to them.
January 22, 2024
Do tell me which media you use, DOM. I would love the Tory right to be silent, but you can’t open the Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph or Times nor listen to the BBC or GB News without being battered over the head by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mark Francois, John Redwood, Suella Braverman, Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis, not to mention Nigel Farage.
January 23, 2024
Right wing – or more likely right thinking!
January 23, 2024
Lemming, I’ve seen JRM, LA and JR on GB News, two of them have their own shows. However, I never see MF or JG (I don’t even know who JG is?). So how are we battered over the head with them?
I don’t see them in the newspapers I read anymore than anyone else other than articles to disagree with them.
January 22, 2024
Cambridge and (even some Oxford) Physicists, Mathematicians & Engineers are usually fine I find but certainly anything with politics or indeed often Science (as in Social Science, Political Science, Economic Science, Media Science, Environmental Science, Climate Science in the name of the degree are usually a bit dodgy and often religious. Perhaps mainly due to the types of people who are often drawn to such subjects.
January 22, 2024
Good mathematicians are fine for getting pupils through exams in good time. However we found it best to ignore them when they went off topic. They often held dogmatic, oddball views on every subject under the sun.
Unfortunately, you have to concentrate on maths and understand it as you go along. You cannot just mug up on it before the exam. So they have your full attention and you just have to put up with the nonsense on other matters.
Other scientists were often a bit strange too, including chemistry teachers. Lack of balance seemed to be a common feature.
January 23, 2024
‘on the spectrum’ can have a very wide range.
January 23, 2024
So that’s how we end up with arts graduates who appear to talk straight but understand little of the world.
January 23, 2024
You should make it simpler, Lifelogic: you are the most intelligent person in the world and all the rest of us, simple humans, whatever education, degree or not, whatever subsequent life experience, are just âto incline our ears, hear your wisdom, and apply our hearts to your knowledgeâ (sorry, Proverbs 22:17).
January 24, 2024
Plus one
January 23, 2024
oxymoron alert – Political science !
January 23, 2024
Warwick? There are other top universities in STEM in the UK your bias is quite unique.
January 23, 2024
26/10/2023 timeshighereducation.com âBest universities for physics, chemistry and maths 2024â with position in world comparisons:
Cambridge (5), Oxford (8), Imperial College London (11), UCL (41), U.Edinburgh (44), U.Manchester (51), U.Bristol (62), U.Southampton (81), Kingâs College London (93), U.Leeds (98).
January 22, 2024
I’d say you deserve a knighthood, but you’ve already got one. For the rest of us, we see time has run out, the Tory Party ceased representing us a long time ago, and Labour will soon be in power but the thrust of policies will be in the same globalist direction (albeit speeded up). It’s a damn shame. I admire your tenacity.
January 22, 2024
Wanderer
Tenacity and loyalty maybe, but knowing that the frain left long ago demands judgement in knowing when to let go.
January 22, 2024
SirJ never left the parliamentary party …the party left him
January 23, 2024
a slight amendment? …the Party in disarray left him?
January 22, 2024
Why has she kept out of the difficult issues relating to GB/NI trade?
If it’s within her remit which I assume it is, then as the one at the top she should be front and centre surely.
I wonder if she is out of her depth.
If she’s loyal to Sunak and trying to woo this so -called ‘right’ faction within the party is she straddling the lines and hedging her bets for her own career prospects.
I suppose some would say it is to try and bring about some party cohesion before the election.
It’s a shame all these various groups didn’t try to arrest the decline of the party into the Labour tribute band it has become a long time ago. From Cameron onward.
January 22, 2024
In terms of Tribute bands, I’m afraid many Tory MPs sound more like closet Lib Dems than Labour Michelle.
I sometimes wonder if Boris sat down and wrote two letters, debating with himself ‘Shall I be a Tory or a Lib Dem?’ He probably then considered which was more likely to make him “King of the World” and decided that the Tories were the best bet. I also wonder how many ‘One Nation’ MPs would stay Tory if PR was ever introduced?
January 23, 2024
PR makes me chuckle. The Lib Dems got their dream in the coalition from 2010 to 2015, top cabinet positions, votes on policy. Yet now they call those the Tory years. Unbelievable, they don’t take ownership of anything even when they are in power, and why do all our media allow this, discussing 14 Tory years? Well, no, actually, it’s 9 Tory years alone and a coalition of two lead parties just what some people say they want. Just a perfect example of why I hate that system.
January 22, 2024
Nice bit of backstabbing Sir John. Fairly subtle, but makes it absolutely clear that she’s just another Treacherous Tory who will “promise” much but deliver little – and certainly not what WE vote for.
Jenrick was out posturing on the Camilla Tominey Show yesterday. He’s lost weight; had a Caesar haircut and is quite obviously preparing for a bid at the Leadership. I wonder if he’s been practising his Power Stand as well? Javid or Osborne will be able to advise him ….. not that it did them much good, they just looked ridiculous.
Still, at least Jenrick has grasped that there’s no way to power for the Not-a-Conservative-Party that doesn’t depend on “stopping the boats” and slashing legal immigration, which is more than most of the Turkeys sitting on the Tory benches. He’s also not a complete Eco Nutter.
January 22, 2024
âthereâs no way to power for the Not-a-Conservative-Party that doesnât depend on âstopping the boatsâ, slashing legal immigration and ditching net zero, slashing the size of government, cutting taxes, having a bonfire of red tape⊠and just occasionally delivering some public services NHS, law and order, police, roads, schools of some actual value. Rather than the dire largely worthless dross we currently get delivered or not delivered.
January 22, 2024
No, Donna, I don’t see it this way. Backstabbing is secretive, sneaky. John’s been nothing but transparent with us.
January 23, 2024
Gove didn’t attend that lecture.
January 22, 2024
I didnt realise that there are so many so called right wing groups amongst Tory MPs. Isnt this part of the problem? Too much division and infighting at Westminster holding back progress for the country.
January 22, 2024
Yes if only the free market, realists in your party could coalesce around one grouping and rid itself of the interventionists – Conservatives perhaps.
January 22, 2024
Odd when the far preferable route would be to join an outfit which is in line with their views. Why keep flogging a dead horse?
January 22, 2024
@ChrisS
If you are not part of a Group, not subject to group think you fall into the trap of being an honest individual â parliament doesnât allow that. Thatâs why the gang bosses choose and arrange funds for those that are to be the candidates said to represent you, not you â itâs based on their loyalty to their leader not their constituents, serving a master not the voter.
January 22, 2024
Yes I agree Chris, if they can’t come together then they will be weaker.
January 22, 2024
Chris,
You are so right
January 22, 2024
It would seem that KB is not what she might wish to be seen as. Ironically she mirrors your party. Proud of its broad church credentials, but blithely unaware that a church that spans everything from zen bhuddism to paganism via the Pope does not have a credible message, nor is it likely to be able to achieve anything significant.
So from an electorate’s point of view, who cares what KB thinks or does not do, she is on the Titanic. The ship only hit an iceberg, the conservative party has been manufacturing them since 2019 and then playing pinball amongst them.
January 23, 2024
Having identified the size and shape of the biggest iceberg around it is ‘ Full ahead both engines!’
January 22, 2024
All talk of rejuvenating the UKs manufacturing industries is for the birds until the huge blockage of Net Zero is removed. The name of the Minister notionally responsible for Industry, matters not at all, until we are honest and able to speak about what is actually designed to shut down all manufacturing in the Western world.
Our ongoing policy of offshoring any activity involving significant energy use will continue to beggar our economy and advance the hegemony of Chinese manufacturers.
Until we actively access our own indigenous energy resources, (which is greater than most nations possess), we will be forever prevented, from recovering our place in the world as one of the prime innovators and providers of advanced manufactures.
It really is that simple.
January 22, 2024
Itâs reported that mr hunt wants to unleash a Nigel Lawson style boom with tax cuts! Well I guess joy shall there be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth etc. but I fear ERM 2.0 under Truss has done for us as surely as ERM 1.0 did for us in the 90s. Given where we are in the polls hunt should be really radical to signal a new direction and draw a clear dividing line with (even) higher taxing, borrowing, spending, intervening Labour.
January 22, 2024
Another one who thinks she can âbuck the marketâ with her leadership skills. Whereas all she can do is reduce market activity with red tape.
January 22, 2024
Confusion within the ranks John, loyalty or common sense, many of your Mp’s simply cannot decide, hence the mixed message and failure on almost everything.
January 22, 2024
I see from Guido’s website that Rishi’s Christmas cards are now only just being delivered to Conservative Councillors, so a few weeks late, the excuse (enclosed) suggests it was a big operation to co-ordinate. !
For goodness sake everyone knows that the Post Office has been in chaos for years, and Christmas day has been the same date for over 2000 years.
How absolutely bl…y pathetic, just how much organisation does it take to sort out this mammoth task, when I guess all the cards are the same, and would have been automatically pre signed and printed.
Just about sums up the lack of competence of this Government.
January 23, 2024
What is this talk of stopping Saturday deliveries? Wake up you lot, it has been quietly the case for years!
January 22, 2024
Here’s something you’ll never hear from politicans or the media. Since Heath committed treason and took us into the Common Market thereby desposing the Queen and making her head of state not monarch all legislation has been void. No bill has ever received Royal Assent since we do not have a Royal family despite the lies we’re fed every day.
January 22, 2024
The UK needs a better leader of government and one who can appoint sensible, capable ministers, acting to achieve high performance. Many in the present crew are a worthless sham causing obstruction and harm through ineptitude.
January 22, 2024
An ambitious Ministerâs âfriendsâ briefing out to fool us that she is leaning in a certain direction etc where as she is an elite captured one nation politician because thatâs where she sees the future.
At least until wiped out in polls, when surprise surprise she will (pretend) to turn right.
Who would have thought it?
And Sir JRs decision to go public shows his dissatisfaction with usual channels.
Says it all.
January 22, 2024
The various right wing groups appear a good fit with Reform. The latter providing the much needed leadership and back bone
January 22, 2024
To rejuvenate the business department you first have to believe in the principals of capitalism, consumer freedom of choice and competition
January 23, 2024
ah! that could be a problem….
January 23, 2024
The principle problem, surely?
January 22, 2024
But this Government’s idea of what constitutes good business, is to allow its obsession with Climate Change to emasculate this country’s capacity to make high quality steel. What hope is there that it will even consider any of the things you suggest? On the steel question, it seems to me that for the first time I can recall, the biggest prospect of common sense is coming from the reaction and suggestions of the Trades Unions.
January 22, 2024
Groups, groups and more groups, that alone highlights the dire state of UK politics. The World, the UK is made up of very special individuals, we are all those special ones – individuals. All different and all the better for it
Groups are never out to achieve a universal benefit to all, but a singular benefit to those that will take their orders and follow in their image. Thatâs not even democracy, they refuse those that donât need to be part of a collective.
Here in the UK our political systems is corrupt in its thought process, its desperate need to signal a virtue overrides pure human sensibilities. As it stands our political class are either disciples of what the see as their foreign unaccountable masters, or they have a dire need to appease and allow just a noisy 1% of the population to dictate the agenda.
The other 99%, the real people just need them out of their lives, be allowed to reach the potential that they desire.
January 22, 2024
The fundamental political situation for Sunak and the party is grim. The Conservatives have consistantly trailed Labour by around 20 points since the Truss/Kwarteng “fiscal event” debacle. Tory morale is low, the right is in revolt, Suella Braverman is causing difficulties over illegal immigration.There is concern that Nigel Farage is poised to return to front-line politics and further damage the Toriesâ standing.
The right of the parliamentary party has caused plenty of trouble in this parliament. Even a few weeks ago there seemed a possibility that the Safety of Rwanda Bill would trigger a new Tory civil war. The revolt of the right, however, fizzled out when not a single Conservative MP voted against the legislation – fearing that Sunak would choose to go to the country in the spring if they did.
Looking at the recent and detailed poll published in the right-wing press, it looks very much like the right of the party is going to be destroyed on election night with many MP’s suffering tactical voting.
Sir John Redwood has a good reputation as a constituency MP in the Wokingham area. He would do well to focus on the issues that are attracting hitherto Tory voters to the Lib Dems and capitalise on the many good things that he has done for his constituency.
Reply 11 Conservative MPs voted against the Bill. None of us thought the PM would call an election!
January 23, 2024
reply …still waiting for the sweeteners to be handed out to the electorate?.
January 23, 2024
It is Tory Libdim/Labour Socialist policies (Net zero, climate alarmism, very high and still increasing taxes, failure to deliver a clean Brexit, over regulation of everything, open door immigration, market rigging in healthcare, housing, transport, banking, education, broadcasting/the BBCâŠ) that is the main reason they are so hated. They have delivered the reverse of what they promised to with the 80 seat majority they were given by Farage and the Country.
January 22, 2024
Just in case anyone thinks that the slow industrial eco suicide of our Industry is unique to UK, there is a well informed article on ‘Spiked’ by Fraser Myers – “Germany: so much for the âgrown-up countryâ ” which I think has strong parallels to what is unfortunately happening here.
Of course, you won’t hear these views about the German economic woes or the problems with Green Policies on the BBC or Sky. After all the science is settled, even if the practical solutions are certainly not…
January 23, 2024
Yes, Germany is rapidly becoming a de-industrialised basket-case economy, saddled with millions of poor, and very troublesome immigrants, just like the UK.
Now why would that be? Perhaps you should ask Klaus Schwab and the WEF because German politicians won’t tell their people the truth, any more than “ours” will. The WEF is “levelling down” the West; our economies must be destroyed so that 2nd and 3rd world ones can be developed.
The only difference between the UK and Germany is that the German people are less likely to suck it up than Brits.
January 23, 2024
There were articles in the Guardian (05/01/2024 âWhy is German economy struggling – and the Government fix it?) and Daily Mail (12/01/2024 âFrom economic powerhouse to âthe sick man of Europeâ).
Also oecd.org 11/2023 âEconomic Outlook Note – Germanyâ.
January 22, 2024
“Other business Ministers”. Should that be, ‘Business Minister in Name Only’ (BUMINO)?
Given her distinct lack of interest in the sound business ideas from those fully qualified MPs, I presume she is just another who has been ‘guided’ by the unelected, faceless Civil Servants within her department. As if they had any relevant knowledge of the subject!
We only have to look at the fiascos running through Government departments to know profligacy rules their lives.
As ex-RN, I weep at the stupidity of commissioning 2 very expensive A/C Carriers without catapults, which would have provided a floating base for a multitude of aircraft to aid in the protection of our overseas assets and the carriers themselves. Including the AWACs which was badly missed in the Falklands War and remains a significant part of 21st Century USA carrier battle groups. Furthermore, catapult launched a/c are much cheaper to buy and to run than the very few VSTOL we can afford. And that’s more waste just at the MoD. How many other ÂŁ Billions have been lost through business incompetence?
January 22, 2024
Sir John
Daniel Hanna, pointing out a similar scenario that comes to the same set of conclusions as the general thread and thinking alluded to here. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/20/smug-world-elites-should-fear-chainsaw-wielding-libertarian/
The comments to his item has attracted broadly the same comments you have here today
Everyone sees it but this Conservative Government
January 22, 2024
I can’t say much about Badenoch ; her profile would not match the ingredients I would like to see in a Prime Minister . Qualities of leadership do not rely on ” positioning ” ; there are other much more important features . The important priorities Sir John mentions today I do agree with ; I only wish they could be implemented without any more delay .
January 22, 2024
Kemi Badenoch was invited to and attended the WEF/Davos conference last year with Grant Shapps.
Having said that I no longer believe our elected MPs are in charge of their departments.
Certainly not having witnessed the Permanent Secretary of BEIS giving oral evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on the Net Zero Follow Up and as yet another Oxford PPE I donât hold out any hope for her new department, Science, Innovation and Technology or for its Secretary of State (BA History & Politics)
January 22, 2024
Sir John, I’m a constituent and a past supporter, I’ve met you and voted for you to retain the Wokingham nomination and I detest the LibDems with a passion. But over many years you’ve made a choice, preferring to remain on the backbenches to influence Government policy rather than to positively take ownership of it as a Minister. Having been knighted it cannot be that you were never offered a position over the pre- and post-Brexit years, such was the strong alignment of your views with the electorate and the experience you could’ve brought to bear in Cabinet. But all your daily missives here and speeches in Parliament are falling on deaf ears, the country is going to Hell in a handcart, the latest tragedy being Port Talbot blast furnace closure, the loss of 3000 jobs at the altar of Net Zero and our future reliance on imported steel. Conservatives in the electorate don’t buy in Kemi Badenoch’s stance or to the Net Zero madness, amply demonstrated by lacklustre take-up of EVs and heat pumps.
So for me it’ll be a hard choice to lend you my support this year, the party has let us all down, and you’ve enabled that to happen.
Reply I was not offered a Ministerial job
January 23, 2024
reply to reply …relax Sir John, most of us know you have to be classified as silent sheep to get a post!
January 22, 2024
Sir John â what is right? Genuine question
I get right and wrong, but in politics it no longer appears to have meaning.
In a previous world âleftâ meant big State, penalties and restrictions for no real practical reason other than virtue signalling. It also meant high, prolific, egotistical, uncontrolled and unaccountable spending. The emphasis being on spend then see where the taxes could come from.
In that same world thinking from those said to be on the ârightâ was for a small State, penalties and restriction where for were a proven a balanced result could be achieved â not to indoctrinate by punishment. It also meant tax was simple, specific and achieved a mutual to all service, infrastructure and it was at all times controlled. The emphasis was on a growing economy to fund a future.
The last 14 years have seen the removal of purpose from all parties, its now not about left or right but compliance with the Socialist WEF that no one gets to vote on.
January 23, 2024
Politicians and their smart=arse advisors have developed expertise in presently right as wrong, and often wrong as right. This not just for the gullible but also for the normally level-headed. Rather like scams pay careful attention at all times.
January 22, 2024
Sir John
âwoo the rightâ?
Over the last 14 years the Conservative Party has had a few leaders, but none of them ever reflected the centre ground of the UK Citizen. In the parlance of the day, they have all been âleft-wingâ luvvies.
Not one has put the UK first. Not one has chosen to serve the electorate. We donât know about âTrussâ it appears she was assassinated by those that feared she might be a Conservative.
One of the reasons for being stuck in the merry-go-round of the same ole, same ole, is that Government, the Cabinet is quite rightly a âcollectiveâ responsibility unit. Changing the leader and retaining the Cabinet changes nothing â the âcollectiveâ is still there.
When the Conservative Party pushed Boris Johnson aside and the Cabinet was largely kept unchanged it meant the problem was unchanged the âcollectiveâ is still there. We still have a remain Conservative Government, with a spend, spend attitude with no intention of managing or controlling anything â they refused Brexit! We still have a Conservative Government that places personal self-gratification and egotistical esteem above serving the Country. The âcollectiveâ is still there placing looking after its âownâ above the Country and those the pretend to serve.
January 22, 2024
I would suggest my comment refer equally to all those in Parliament that perceive themselves as party leaders, to a degree that would include the greater majority that have wound up in the HoC. Its impossible to find one that will serve, govern and advance the UK, they all appear to want to Kowtow to anyone other than those that elect them. Electing any of them is to commit suicide
January 22, 2024
From the MsM, could be just âclick-baitâ
âNearly 50,000 companies were in critical financial distress at the end of last yearâ
This if true would be as a direct result of Sunak/Hunt putting up costs to us all, therefore increasing inflation and interest rates. The decided to squeeze the Country rather than manage their expenditure. They decided to spend, spend and grow the State rather than manage it. They had a choice, the chose a Socialist doctrine
Is that left or right wing management?
January 22, 2024
from the same item – “After a difficult year for British businesses that was characterised by high interest rates, rampant inflation, weak consumer confidence and rising and unpredictable input costs, we are now seeing this perfect storm impacting every corner of the economy.”
January 22, 2024
UK public sector debt stood at about ÂŁ2.7trillion in the three months to November, which was about 97.5pc of GDP.
January 22, 2024
ÂŁ2 trillion of that debt will soon be the cost of net-zero
January 23, 2024
GC: I hope you realise that the ÂŁ2.7 tn debt you refer to has been accumulated over the years from successive annual deficits including years where there was no hint of renewable energy.
You will need to explain how suddenly renewables/net-zero are going to be 74% of the debt accumulated since the 1970s. Thanks in advance.
ons.gov.uk 27/10/2023 âUK government debt and deficit: June 2023â (the latest report available).
And ons.gov.uk 31/01/2022 âUK government debt and deficit: September 2021â (this one has the debt as a percentage of GDP since 1974/75 to 2020/21).
January 23, 2024
From the FT – “Public sector borrowing fell to ÂŁ7.8bn last month, about half the sum borrowed a year earlier and the lowest figure for a December since 2019, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics.
The figure, which was driven down by inflation-related debt interest costs, is substantially lower than the ÂŁ14bn prediction for the month from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UKâs fiscal watchdog.”
That’s quite far from the estimate (6.2 billion pounds). So if Hunts decides to hurt businesses with his 25% corporate tax, removing incentives for growth, reduced dividends, and high national insurance, the break at the higher rate doesn’t apply to businesses. They pay employers NI over retirement age, the two lots of 10% minimum wage increases causing pay match differentials the clients won’t stomach, no one should be ‘shocked’ at the report.
January 22, 2024
Someone in Government with the power to ask and demand an answer must ask,”Is CO2 a problem?” The correct answer will be No. Then the UK can abandon Net Zero and all of the stupidity around it. Surely, the closure of the Steelworks in Port Talbot, with 2800 people thrown out of work, is a big wake-up call to the Government. If not then they are such a shambles they will lose the next General Election.
I note there is now a concerted effort to say a vote for Reform is a vote for a Labour Government. They also claim Reform won’t win a single seat. I don’t agree; remember the Canadian election in the 1990s when the ruling party got wiped out? I have voted conservative all my life, but I am moving towards voting for Reform. Imagine a Reform/ Conservative Government and we might see a better tomorrow!
January 22, 2024
Sir John,
Badenoch actually seems quite sensible to me she abandoned the Retained EU laws bill from Jacob, because the proposal was a mess and not well structured or thought through and it would have created more problems than not doing it.
But I know when it comes to the EU we will fundamentally all disagree
January 22, 2024
Yet again brilliant summing up Sir John!
Recent publication âThe Plotâ, suggests Kemi lined up to replace PM Sunak! More of the same!
January 22, 2024
There is one easy way the government could quickly increase energy supply and help tax payers. A home owner can get SEG payments when they have a energy producing device, such as solar panels, fitted to their home and sell the excess energy to the grid. However the government has set it up in such a way that the energy companies require the homeowner has to have a MCS certificate of installation before they can get such a payment. There are many people that have excess energy and do not sell it back to the grid as they have had an installation the was not done by a MCS qualified installer. They are connected to the grid, having to notify the DNO, in exactly the same way as those with the MCS. The only difference is a piece of paper causing less power to the grid.
January 22, 2024
James :
The National Grid cannot handle millions of chaotically intermittent unsynchronised solar energy suppliers, it would collapse. In addition, the UK is not well suited to solar power anyway because in winter, when we need the power for heating, solar panels produce almost no energy and grid-scale energy storage does not yet exist – and there are no plans to implement energy storage only for demand destruction to keep the grid from a total collapse.
January 23, 2024
You miss my point. They are already connected to the grid and the grid is not stopping them from getting payments.
January 24, 2024
Plus one
January 22, 2024
Frankly SJR the business department is but a small part of the problem. The whole damned country is in dire need of rejeuvanation. Only endemic incompetence can achieve the UK’s structural disintegration while charging the highest tax bill in 70 years. I have spent my working life in Europe, the Far and Middle East, and the USA. The last fifteen years resident in Europe. Many of the countries I have spent time in do not aspire to the accolade of a high position in the GDP list of high performers. It is only when you return to the UK that you realise what a comprehensive disaster our politicians have created while charging the population and its industry record sums for the joy of being here. The only joy is the natural good will and humour of the people of the UK.
I see no sign of resolution from conservative or any other incumbents of Parliament. We need an electoral revolution, nothing less.
January 22, 2024
Clearly Badenoch is only interested in her ascendancy to the top job in opposition when Sunak loses the election, as seems extremely likely, unless Starmer and Co slip up badly and Sunal wakes up.
Badenoch isn’t going to side with the right of the party when the One Nation Group is so much larger.
That will just perpetuate the disgust that most voters feel for the severe left wing tilt that the party has acquired.
We want our Conservative party back ! We need the constituency parties to sort out the worst of the wets and select some proper Conservative candidates in the Redwood mould.
Reply One Nation is considerably smaller than the Conservative groupings. The much vaunted 100 is far higher than reality. There are 350 Conservative MPs
January 23, 2024
Sunak is unelectable – even in the Not-a-Conservative-Party. Waking him up won’t make a scrap of difference ….. in fact, sending him out to “meet the voters” usually results in a decline in his polling.
January 22, 2024
I met Kevin Hollinrake MP small business minister…
He doesnt know the first thing about small business…
He is rabidly in favour of IR35, and thinks freelancers are a massive problem to the economy and abusing the tax system
He reels off the entire Indian outsourcer slide deck playbook from memory, how great it is we print so many visas for Indian nationals, fantastic that we give tax perks to them, we must stop native freelancers and replace them with imported Indian nationals…
The guy is arrogant and clueless, and simply refuses to listen to people who know far more about topics than he does
This is yet another reason the Conservatives don’t have any chance whatsoever of getting elected, no matter how bad Labour are…
The government needs to do far more than “rejuvenate the Business department”
January 23, 2024
Do you think Labour will stop the Indian visas and tax perks?
January 23, 2024
no they wont. Blair started dishing them out originally.
they are not really pro British, they like doing crooked deals behind the scenes, and this is that allover.
January 22, 2024
It seems like the early rumblings of political earthquakes are happening on both sides of the Atlantic. Small but significant events are suddenly exposing the hypocrisy of fake democracy and grandstanding by too many politicians who have no clue how ordinary people now view then with contempt.
From the Post Office Scandal here and fake Brexit, fake SNP, fake Labour, especially in Wales to the disastrous legacy of the Biden clan across the pond many people are being through the smoke and mirrors, foggy plausible spinning, divide and rule.
People want results and are fed up with the present crop of pretenders.
Trump knows this and here we continue to ignore the signs.