The UK public sector is letting many people down and upsetting a lot of voters. Opposition parties in Parliament are good at criticising. They blame Ministers, as our system invites them to do. Opposition parties fail to ask why so many of the failures are in so called independent bodies with highly paid public sector chiefs paid many times a Minister. They Ā claim just small extra sums – compared to the huge extra Ā sums this government has tipped in – would make all the difference.
If only. If extra money would bring the NHS Ā waiting Ā lists down or would fix the Post Office and the railway things should be improving well by now. Ministers have tried this. Any Conservative MP will vote for a few extra billions of spending if it could deliver the end of waiting lists, good border control or a new railway line on time and to budget. We have often so voted.
There are three obvious flaws in our current governing structure, all undermining the power of Ministers to act whilst leaving them to blame. The first is independent bodies.
1. Independent bodies that get things hopelessly wrong. There is the Bank of England delivering 11% inflation whilst forecasting 2%. There is the Bank delivering recession and huge bond losses.
There is the nationalised Post Office putting honest sub postmasters into prison Ā for its own bungled computer system, whilst losing taxpayers Ā£1400 m and turning the PO into a bankrupt company surviving on big state subsidy.
There is HS 2, a nationalised company, trebling the cost of a new railway line and failing to deliver it on time.
There is the Board of NHS England denying the strikes of its employees are anything to with the highly paid managers who employ and roster them .
There is the Environment Agency and Ofwat failing to get the industry to put in enough reservoir capacity for a rising population or sufficient drainage capacity to keep us dry.
There is UK Government Investments charging us their big salaries to supervise the state ownership of the Post Office and most of the railway, who leave the huge losses and bad management unchallenged. They have approved large CEO salaries and bonuses to leave both these industries only able to trade with guaranteed payments of all the losses by taxpayers.
I have urged Ministers to insist on an annual budget meeting with each nationalised industry themselves to approve policy and targets, and an annual end of year meeting to discuss results Ā and the draft annual report. A badly run industry, missing targets, should be put on a tougher regime Ā of regular in year reviews. CEOs should not get bonuses for large losses and underperformance should lead to the sack where warnings are ignored and improvement plans fail.
April 12, 2024
Good morning.
But is the system that you support set up to all that you would like to see as stated in your last paragraph. As you stated yesterday, you are happy for Ministers’ to carry the can for their failing departments.
May I remind you Sir John, that your Party has been in power / office for 14 years and is university recognised as being a complete failure.
How is the Little Usurper getting along with his 5 promises ? It has all gone very quiet on that. š
April 12, 2024
Exactly Mark! Mr Redwood complains that Opposition parties fail to ask why so many of the failures are in so called independent bodies with highly paid public sector chiefs, and the answer is becuase you Conservatives have had 14 years to sort this out. And you have failed
April 12, 2024
Compounded by the fact that ministers are very often not in the same role for very long. They get moved on, or are on the lookout for more senior ministerial positions. So often not very long to assess the situation and make improvements. Civil servants can give them the runaround.
Even then, a lengthy tenure will not necessarily be for the better. Jeremy Hunt had six years at Health. He was terrible. There was even a Petition registering āNo Confidenceā in him. However, the committee overseeing petitions decided not to have this debated in parliament.
April 12, 2024
JR, we read the EU one nation part of your party is already seeking funding/sponsorship to build consensus views around the left wing leadership to ensure conservatives do not get their hands on power in your party.
Therefore I am unsure why you think the opposition is an issue when a large part of your party conspired with Labour to thwart the will of the people to leave the EU. Its current aim, give away N.Ireland, give away fishing grounds and is determined to align and act in lock step with EU and prevent divergence from EU.
Your party built on Labourās policy to bankrupt the country through net stupid, DEI, Equality, mass immigration to rid us of our nation state, way of life and culture! Your leader even hired former Labour ministers rather than Tory ones! The opposition is not very different from your party, most ideas and policies derived from Labour or EU.
Reform is the only conservative choice.
April 12, 2024
Mark more to the point “The Opposition needs to understand the problems with UK government”
The opposion will be the UK government in 6 months time. Tories can make these challenges to Labour directly at that stage – assuming we have any Tory MPs left in the House by then….
April 12, 2024
For the next 3 years or so a Labour government will simply blame the previous Tory administration and claim it is taking all their efforts to remedy the problems.
April 12, 2024
Miami.mode
Yep afraid so, that is the way politics works, unfortunately it does not make anything run better or more efficiently.
April 13, 2024
Accepting that they will not succeed even before taking office, what an indictment.
The political class think that so long as they have excuses for failure, or apologise for the failure of others in the past, they can continue to fail the nation with impunity.
We should try a whole new politics for a change, I think it will be popular, itās called āConservatismā, it encompasses ārule by consentā and ācapitalismā.
April 13, 2024
They’re still blaming The Blessed Margaret, so I think 3 years of blaming Johnson and Sunak is an under-estimation.
April 12, 2024
Apparently all the many many failures in Government have nothing to do with the leadership of the Government.
But itās funny how the Government vote for wine policies and speech censorship in the form of hate laws. Hate laws that have suppressed the abuse of children at the gender altering Tavistock Hospital where the Cass Report discovered that 97.5% of children had autism. A report that begs the question if 97% of children had autism what other mental health conditions did they have. If you couple that with another 15 year study that found almost all of these children who had talking therapy went on to live normal lives and not even think about transitioning.
But gender changing hate laws are only the peak of this Governmentās enabling of activists issue. Letās look at the NetZero law which was waved through the House of Commons and had now led to a position where green activists can sue the Government for global warming that nobody can point to any definitive studies supporting the position.
Or the Government who waved through the UN migration laws that brought in mass immigration of people, that a landmark Danish study, has shown people from ( named places ed)on average never contribute any taxes to the country at any time in their lives and commit crime at 3.5x the average rate. Diluting Government services and lowering our standard of living.
Or the Government who panicked and shut the country down for two years for a bad flu year, which caused hundreds of billions of pounds to be printed and inflation to eat away at the GDP.
Nothing to do with this Government. All the fault of those pesky civil servants.
Reply Why deliberately misrepresent what I wrote? I accept Ministers are responsible,but we need to expose what goes wrong when they rely on these independent bodies
April 12, 2024
And the Welsh government are considering a 4 day week for all civil Serpents at no loss of salary surely to be followed by the rest of the UK when Starmergeddon gets in.
You’ve progressively destroyed this country now towing to every fashionable minority and you pursue the ruinous net zero with fanatical vigour.
Until the legacy parties are wiped out there is no salvation.
April 12, 2024
And they wonder why their productivity is hopeless. Five people now do the work of four previously, with wages topped up with universal credit, so the benefits bill rockets. Fridays are virtually closed, which effectively also shuts down the private sector. Thatcher’s entrepreneurs have about 5-10 years left in them if they don’t throw the towel in sooner whilst their children, the millennials seem to be reporting all the time now they are bitter and twisted about their successes, without wanting to get on and be entrepreneurial themselves.
April 12, 2024
There was a BBC article on how its going: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/65647308
1. The government’s top priority was halving inflation
The CPI for the last three months of 2023 was 4.2%, comfortably below half the rate it was the year before – so the government has met this pledge.
2. The prime minister’s pledge to “grow the economy”
The government has never publicly said what measure should be used to assess if it had met…Overall the economy grew by only 0.1% in the whole of 2023. Jeremy Hunt was asked if the government had failed in its pledge to create growth. He said that the promise had been to halve inflation but that the prime minister: “then said we would grow the economy. I don’t think any of us were expecting the economy to actually grow last year.” … The pledge to grow the economy was made more difficult by the government’s promise to halve inflation.”
3. Reducing debt, (it almost always mean as a proportion of GDP.)
“The latest figures for February showed that government debt stood at 97.1% of the size of the economy. That was 2.3 percentage points higher than February 2023 and, as the Office for National Statistics pointed out, “remains at levels last seen in the early 1960s”….But the government pledge was not about how much debt is now – it was that debt would be forecast to come down in five years (2028-29).
4. Mr Sunak said: “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly.” His pledge only refers to waiting lists in England, because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland manage their own health systems.
When will we know?: Monthly waiting list figures are published about six weeks after the end of each month. The overall number of waits for non-emergency treatment in England was 7.5 million in February. This was the sixth monthly fall in a row and about 200,000 down from August, but about 600,000 higher than it was when Mr Sunak came to office.
5. The final priority was to “stop the boats” which bring people across the English Channel,
In the whole of 2023, 29,437 people were detected crossing the English Channel, according to the Home Office, which is down more than a third from the previous year. In the first three months of 2024, 5,435 people crossed the English Channel – a new record for arrivals between January and March.
April 13, 2024
Well he hit one, but then he as Chancellor and Andrew Bailey actually caused the 11% inflation with lockdowns, vast government waste, net zero rip off energy lunacy and QE currency debasement. Sunak claims the credit for halving inflation it but strangely not for creating the 11% inflation. As to the other four massive failure on all of them not even trying on immigration levels, growth, debts, NHS waiting lists. The man still thinks (or is lying) that he has cut taxes and the Covid Vaccines were safe!
April 15, 2024
I’m not sure I agree that Sunak was solely responsible for causing the inflation; it was in line with inflation around the EU and America. Net zero energy lunacy, maybe yes, but all UK political parties are signed up for that and more if you listen to Milliband.
You are going to be ok, out of the UK, when labour comes to power and increases our taxes from Council taxes increasing bands and blowing up the rates, from not capping Employees NI at the Higher level, extra income taxes for the middle classes, from extra charges on businesses in taxation. Everyone wonders why people aren’t investing! Hunts put corporation taxes up from 19% to 25% whats the point of working harder and making more, it’s dispiriting; might as well do a public sector special and just take more time off, take off the pressure, take away the employment burdens, stop striving so hard, people hate you for it.
April 12, 2024
All the current political parties are infected with the woke mind virus of NetZero, DEI, mass migration of net tax takers and cancel culture.
The cure all for the woke mind virus is bankruptcy.
Unfortunately the corporate bankruptcy of EV car companies, DEI aircraft companies or Hollywoke is just the start. Energy bankruptcy, political party bankruptcy and finally fiscal bankruptcy will follow.
April 12, 2024
All companies are infected. It is as if strict adherence to ESG and DEI demands is a precondition of staying in business. I have even seen the statement in one company’s Annual Report that will only accept as suppliers companies that toe the ESG and DEI lines. No wonder the trickle of quoted companies quitting the LSE looks as if it could turn into a flood.
April 12, 2024
David Andrews:
If we do need 6ft 4in tall, 70-year old Calvinist wheelchair users, born in Peru or Bolton, delivering fried chicken direct to homes all over Cornwall at night; or women who speak fluent German, English and Farsi to translate whether No 18 on a Chinese restaurant menu in Dundee contains nuts in French, then Diversity, Equity and Inclusion seems a sensible plan.
April 12, 2024
Exactly but then ask why? It’s the non Equality Laws and the Tory Party drive on all things woke. Legislating to bring sex education to our very young children. In a nutshell, legislated propaganda to tell us all how to think! English white people are second class citizens in their own Country. A Uni Party traitor policy of the last 25 years with mass immigration to change our culture, heritage and value system.
April 13, 2024
+1
April 12, 2024
And still they canāt see, much less understand what they have done.
As you say, they have spent their time on crazy peripherals ( distractions maybe?)
Well, in a bankrupt, overcrowded, openly communist state most of us will see the unicorns disappearing over the horizon.
Poverty and reality.
Blackboards, chalk and discipline.
Hot water, homemade remedies and cleanliness.
Shanks ponyā¦assuming no local restrictions!
April 12, 2024
Yes, you canāt duck the Market.
April 13, 2024
+1
April 12, 2024
“I have urged Ministers to insist on an annual budget meeting…” – very proper: and how many such meetings have there been or are Ministers failing in that measure, obvious and necessary, too?
April 12, 2024
Sunak claims credit for getting inflation down from 11% (the only one from five) promises that has been hit. Yes the BoE get the blame for causing the 11% inflation when Sunak was Chancellor. Obviously Sunak was happy with the mad and totally counterproductive, extended lockdown agenda, the QE currency debasement, the eat out to help out, the coercing of dangerous vaccines into peopleā¦as he said nothing to the contrary at the time. Not logical for him to claim credit but not accept the blame for causing it.
HS2 was always an insane agenda surely only driven by vested interests and corruption hard to see any other explanation for such insanity. Supported by all the main parties. Net zero even more insane and vastly more expensive.
The idiotic structure and unworkable funding system of the NHS is decided by ministers.
April 12, 2024
A good programme on GBNews with Rees-Mogg with just him set against three net zero fanatics all except Mogg taking complete and utter drivel. How can anyone think that a good way to reduce floods in say Carlisle is for the UK to try to reduce very slightly the 1% of worldwide manmade CO2 very slightly? This by using methods like EV cars, wind, solar, bikes, walking, public transport, heat pumps, burning wood at Draz when these methods do not even reduce CO2 or not very much at all. EV vehicles and wood at Drax actually increase it.
It seem OFCOM, who appallingly censored the Vaccine and Lockdown realists (like the BBC, Hancock and Government) do not require balance on the NetZero religion either. They seem to want push totally untrue and one sided propaganda. Hard not to conclude OFCOM are an evil, deluded and destructive censorship organisation.
April 12, 2024
LL
OFCOM is exactly that, and making full use of government policy, The Online Harms Bill, to shut down free speech.
April 12, 2024
LL
I donāt think they are even as concerned about CO2 as my cat is!
It is all about Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£s and political power.
The SCAMSā¦the filling of the pockets.
The manipulation of the gullible to change laws to suit the agenda.
First they laughed at vegetarians.
Then they tolerated them.
Then they tried TVP and mushroom-type proteins.
Then they wore plastic shoes.
Then they realised that the main idea was always to do away with domestic animals.
So we would meekly the eat bug-stew they manufacture
And not dare to venture out because of the reintroduced bears and wolves etc.
April 12, 2024
@ Everhopeful
A lot of the nonsense has come from higher than nation governments… UN, they seem to have policies for most of the nutty ideas. WEF, IMF central banks, etc all have too much power and influence on nation states. Look at the potentials from this week’s over-ruling of a Swiss referendum on net zero, by the ECHR. That’s been pretty much nullified! That’s very obvious, but I suggest this sort of action, on a smaller scale, has been going on weekly, for years. Our law has been tweaked behind the scenes.
Big tech companies are only too happy to ‘fact check’ dissenting opinions, shadow ban …etc
Unfortunately, our politicians of all colours are weakened because of the years of EU membership, whereby Ministers were pretty much told what they could or could not say or do! Numerous activist groups(Stonewall for one!) have been allowed to train public sector staff. They wield considerable power, and shriek and vilify ministers who ask questions.
All parliamentarians need to wake up and realise how our democracy and nation is slipping away!
April 12, 2024
+++
April 12, 2024
There’s a beautiful wildflower meadow a few miles from here. No chemicals ever applied to it but it is grazed by animals every autumn, reputedly since Victorian times. Remove animals from agriculture and places like this, and much bio-diversity, will be lost.
I have recently been advised by my GP to eat a high protein low carb diet, or as she put it “…meat, fish and eggs a-plenty. If something is labelled as “low fat” don’t touch it as the saturated fats are replaced by sugars.”
April 12, 2024
I was thinking the other day how all meadows used to be full of wild flowers.
This was such a beautiful country.
The low fat food scam. Corn syrup shoved into everything because itās cheap and possibly addictive. Probably the cause of the obesity āepidemicā.
I am certain that your GP is correct!
April 13, 2024
And stay away from seed oils (sunflower, veg oil etc). They have been highly processed to make them edible but are not good for you.
Use butter, lard and olive oil.
April 12, 2024
Yes – eventually itās not even about money. Just power.
April 12, 2024
+++
April 12, 2024
I’ve been saying for years that OFCOM is being used by zealots to financially attack the likes of GBNews and suppress free speech. This needs to be stopped.
April 12, 2024
When GBNews started they were a breath of fresh air but they failed to stand by Mark Steyn when he was reporting on the grooming gangs and the vaccine damage and expected him to pay any Ofcom fines from his own pocket and since then they have become just another branch of the MSM with no controversial opinions and in many instances just plain wrong
April 12, 2024
A lot of flooding is man-made, but by altering river courses and not as a surfeit of CO2.
April 12, 2024
Usually the weather that is responsible for Carlisle getting flooded came across from N.America.
Can the net-zero delusionals target N.America blaming them and saying we need to sue – SOMEHOW.
April 12, 2024
+++
April 12, 2024
Sunak claims crime has dropped by 43% but also that the jails are full. This sounds like his words and reality do not meet up.
Letās face it. We were all Conservative voters once but the Party is now bankrupt.
April 12, 2024
and there would have been about another 1000 if the poor victimised Postmasters were not bullied into the choice – pay contest prosecution and probably lose your business with prison as likely OR plead guilty, pay, go bankrupt be even more vilified but probably be spared prison.
April 12, 2024
So Victoria Atkins has popped her head up on the Today Programme yesterday. To admit they have totally failed on NHS waiting lists and to blame it on the strikes. As I said before my relative has less than zero disposable income after his rent, student loan interest, commuting, council tax, utilitiesā¦ he has less disposable income than a boat arrival gets, this after working about 50 hours plus commuting time.
Then Ms Atkins you (a lawyer with zero medical knowledge and paid 5 times as much) actually called them āDoctors under trainingā in an act of gross incompetence and insensitivity. My relative has actually had (and had to pay for) 6.5 years rather hard medical training so far. He does not even get free parking, cheap lunches or his professional fees paid for him. How is he ever expected to repay the student loan debs or buy or even rent a home rather than a room? No wonder so many leave Ms Atkins they are treated appallingly, paid appallingly and insulted by you too.
April 13, 2024
+ many
April 12, 2024
No, Sunak’s one good point was that he was one of the few MPs wanting to lift covid rules, he pushed “very hard@ in July 2021:
“The same entry recorded: ā[Sunak] pushes very hard for faster opening up and fuller opening up. Getting rid of all restrictions. Repeats his mantra āwe either believe in the Vx [vaccine] or we donātā. I pointed out we would be facing a lockdown now if it was not for the Vx.ā source Guardian
“Diners received a state-backed 50% discount on meals and soft drinks in pubs and restaurants (up to Ā£10 each) on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays around the UK during August 2020… it was a scheme aimed to protect jobs and save the hospitality sector….The scheme was a “significant boost for the sector when it needed it the most”, says Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of industry body UK Hospitality.
If you caught coronavirus at the end of August, for example, it might not appear in the figures for a week or so.
Case numbers from testing in the UK rose from about 6,400 in the first week of August to about 23,000 in the second week of September – roughly a 250% rise.
But as the chart below shows, some of our European neighbours saw faster rises over that period. ” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67658106
British people did travel to Europe that summer and brought the resurging covid virus back with them and I believe this affected the figures in September more.
April 12, 2024
āThe Opposition needs to understand the problems with UK governmentā
They sure do but they do not even understand that VAT on private school fees and abolition of Non Dom status will cost far more than they raise. Or if they do understand this they are lying and or pretending not to. They also, like Sunak, are still pretending the Covid vaccines have not done huge net harm.
The last thing the UK needs is even more of the same current mad, fake āConservativeā policies of tax, borrow and waste, QE, net zero, ever bigger government, ever more immigration legal and illegal expensive energy, over regulation, rigged markets in healthcare, education, transport, banking, housing, no deterrent criminal justiceā¦ but that is the Labour agenda we will get it seems.
April 12, 2024
You do understand exactly WHY our PM is so pro jabberoony?
April 12, 2024
Oh yes. They’re very “effective” for him.
April 12, 2024
Absolutely!
April 12, 2024
Lifelogic:
In the 1950s, some 95% or more of our population didnāt know or care what a Public Sector Borrowing Requirement was. Checking tomorrowās newspaper for stories that interested them seemed fine for relaxing locally.
Anything for objection might involve an occasional laboriously-slow letter to the Editor by postage stamp, rarely with any reply.
Now there is so much instant worldwide coverage breaking, fuelled with hot speculation, Like, of even tiny changes on screens. That same population is on edge about horrors that might lurk and hit at any moment if they look away, like.
April 12, 2024
Not just the Opposition – more the MPs supporting the Government need to understand what it has been guilty of doing for more than 1 term.
April 12, 2024
It is not just The Opposition that needs to understand. Problems have been apparent during the fourteen years Conservatives have been in charge. Nothing has been done.
Regulators have been ineffective and this has been well known. Nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
Quangos and lawyers have interfered in the decisions of parliament. Nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
Heads of government bodies have been highly paid but incompetent. Nobody gets sacked. No government bodies are dispensed with.
None of this has never even been discussed in parliament.
Reply I have raised these issues
April 12, 2024
There are around 900 āindependent bodiesā and 100 Ministers. To properly oversee them, I recon Ministers would have to spend two days a month with each. If you do the maths, they would have to spend all their time on this one activity. There would be no time for them to oversee their own department, improve laws, make decisions, report to Parliament, and represent their constituents. No wonder the system is not working!
April 12, 2024
++++
All planned to obfuscate and confuse no doubt.
When in doubt add another quango!
April 12, 2024
@James Freeman
I think these independent bodies are much of the problem… they’re doing their own thing … not the bidding of ministers!
I hadn’t realised there were quite so many though! That explains a lot!
April 12, 2024
Cut the number of quango independent bodies ….disband all of them
I can’t understand why we have a bigger civil service/quango now than what we had during ww2
April 12, 2024
Sir John, and how has your raising it had any effect? All our Health, Emergency Services, Councils and Quangos are lead by left wing DEI, ESG useless lefty idiots. Your Party hasn’t changed the selection processes to a meritocracy in 14 years. The former imposed by Blair, Meddlesome etc. In fact you’ve made it worse with your non anti English people/ white men non Equality laws, and we all know it. You’ve been found out. Goodbye Tory’s, Reform!!!
April 12, 2024
People weren’t so unhappy in 2017 when they re-elected the Tories even with the dire May in charge.
People weren’t so unhappy after 9 years when Boris was given a thumping majority in 2019. Boris was too weak and wishy-washy to get Brexit done
April 12, 2024
John’s party has had fourteen years to smash (brutal reform) Labour’s client state. This requires political courage which is now sadly non-existent in the party in government.
I’m not sure why the article feels the need to warn Labour about the political nature of the public sector. Labour IS THE PUBLIC SECTOR but then John knows this. So what do the Tories do? Do they impose reform to purge leftist infection across the state? No, they throw more money at it because the government think that plays well with half-witted voters who hardly know their arses from their elbows
( allegation left out ed)Tory gutlessness. Same with the Rotherham horrors.
The Tories don’t want the war so they pass on the cost in lost freedoms, demonisation of some voters and higher taxes
If the voter thinks the Tories are Socialist snakes then they ain’t seen nothing yet. When Labour crawl into power they’ll make the woke Tory grifters look like amateurs
April 12, 2024
+++
April 12, 2024
Nail and hammer in perfect alignment. Well done.
April 12, 2024
The āConservativesā ARE left wing.
Carefully remodelled under our noses by what should have been regarded as a very unlikely coalition.
But it suited very well.
How can a few politicians do much against an underhand, top-down coup?
April 12, 2024
And so much now is being put out of the reach of democratic control.
International agreements, quangos ( Labour plans more) the legal āloopholesā constantly used to thwart (apparent) govt. decisionsā¦does govt. always hope for judicial unhooking?
Labour is always saying that the tories have much more money to chuck at an election than they do.
So why is it that Labour is doing all the electioneering?
Anti Tory postcards etc.
( not letters but postcards for all to see!)
Letās at least have some pretence at warning against Labour!
This time the lights really WILL be going out!!
April 12, 2024
Spot on, 14 years and nothing has been done to reduce the left’s control of the establishment. Done nothing to control the open ended migration policy of Labour. Done nothing to stop the cultural destruction of British society with town centres now no go areas and mostly boarded up third world slums, home to rough sleepers beggars and vicious gang activities and attitudes.
That is just the visual failure of 14 years in government.
Sir John, we know Labour will be a disaster, but can you name one thing that the Tory Party has done this past fourteen years which is any less nationally damaging than what the Kneeler has planned for us,….. just name one thing?
April 12, 2024
Sir John knows the democratic systemās power balance. He understands how it worked for us for 800 years, being improved and refined all the time. Few have that knowledge now because, we must remember, the U.K. effectively did not exist as a democratic entity all the while we were subservient to the European Union, nearly 50 years. For almost 3 generations no MP or Government Minister has experienced the full weight of responsibility that comes with the Authority conferred by the electorate, to govern for 5 years.
This has been exacerbated because as a subjugated nation, accept orders from above and with a ready excuse for failure (we were compelled by the EU) some seriously stupid people have āsuccessfullyā spent their working life in Parliament. Mrs May, as PM, said āmy job is to sell the policyā. William Wragg, for example, became an MP straight out of the education system. These āsub-primeā individuals will pay anybody anything to do the actual work, hence the āindependent bodiesā. If the Independent bodies did a great job, why would we need a Government Department with a sackable Minister?
The solution is NOT to ditch our system but to revert to what it was, as defined by JR in recent blogs, when people like Enoch Powell could think of no higher honour than representing the British people in their Parliament.
April 12, 2024
+++
Turning up for work in Parliament to rubber stamp some EU directives has not given us politicians with a passion for their nation and its people.
Is it any wonder so many in the political sphere wish to stay within EU.
They are exposed.
April 12, 2024
Agreed. Too many years under the EU has left our own Mp’s without a clue of what to do when “independent” thought and action is required, and when no one else can be blamed but themselves.
Few have ever run a real commercial business before, same can be said about budget, manpower control.
April 12, 2024
+1
April 12, 2024
MPs and Civil servants, plus Quango staff – – sinecures for friends.
April 12, 2024
In the system you describe so wellā¦stupid people are VERY useful to those pulling the strings.
April 12, 2024
The old chestnut from the late Upton Sinclair:”It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
April 12, 2024
Even that would not be so bad if the people pulling the strings had any brains!
April 12, 2024
I agree, Lynn!!!
April 12, 2024
What I really don’t understand is why the CEO’s of the QUANGO’s get to work with such anonymity. For example, why on earth isnt the CEO of the NHS brought in front of a committee in parliament every month to report on how she is running the NHS and held accountable for her actions, like a CEO reporting to the board? This poor governance structure is surely facilitated by the conservative government so I think you reap what you so. In my opinion, all heads of QUANGOs should have to report to a public government committee say every quarter, outline what they are doing and talk about their financials so light is brought to bear on how take payers money is being spent, and in what alot of instances, being wasted. From this a proper debate can begin on how we can start cutting the costs of the bloated state, as at the moment, not one party, other than reform, are talking about cutting the cost of the state, which is absurd given our dire financial position and level of tax on the working people.
April 12, 2024
Simon, +++++.
Excellent suggestion, so sensible, so obvious, and it would improve the knowledge and understanding for the benefit of the public and the politician.
The ābonfire of the Quangosā, instead of being a political football, would be a surveillance enhanced pruning to requirements, sensible measures related to performance.
April 12, 2024
@Simon
You mean “take back control?”
Sounds eminently sensible to me!
April 12, 2024
Select Committees are empowered to summon witnesses. It is one of the ways in which the opposition could contribute to better government where a minister might be failing, or his civil servants are protecting incompetence.
Speaking of which, when the appointment of Dr Paul Golby was announced to become the chair of the new electricity system operator and generator of future energy scenarios to be used by government, NESO, hived off from National Grid, a pre-appointment hearing by the DESNZ Select Committee was supposed to take place in April. There is no trace of them even having set a date for the hearing on the Committee website. They should be working up some awkward questions for him, but evidently haven’t begun.
April 12, 2024
So the Parliamentary disease has ātrickled downā.
āThe felling of the Torquay Palms was done without consultation with the Council by the councilās own parks and gardens company SWISCo.
Mr Denby said a āfailure of controlā by officers had led to the felling of the trees.ā
Please note – Councillors are not even mentionedšš¤£, even the bureaucrats donāt want to do their jobs but delegate using our money.
April 12, 2024
But for at least 60 years now governments have worked SO HARD to make absolutely certain that the old āplaying fields of Etonā model was abandoned.
And THIS misery is the result.
And THIS presumably was the plan?
April 12, 2024
I wonder how different things would be now if David Cameron had put the match to the bonfire of the quango’s we were promised.
How different would it be if we had reduced immigration to the figures he stated. It was certainly a feasible figure and not one just plucked out of thin air.
How different would it be if Cameron and the Conservatives had followed up on the statement that ‘multi-culture isn’t working’
Those two items sustain many quango’s and expensive talking heads, as much as our basic services do.
I lent Cameron and the Conservatives my vote based on this common sense. That was the last time I felt able to vote, because it didn’t take long to see those things were never intended to happen.
It is as clear as day to anyone with half a brain that more chiefs, and more bankrolling, isn’t working.
Why would any of these quango’s worry about their performance when there is little to no reason to worry for their jobs or their reputations.
Ditto that for all the so called managers and other fancy titles and big salaries thrown out like confetti within our public services.
April 12, 2024
Indeed lies lies lies, on immigration to the tents of thousands, on tax levels, on IHT Ā£1M each, on quangos. on the cast iron referendum promise, on staying on and delivering Brexit and the dire Sunak brings him back from the dead. Plus Libya and Greensill and the climate emency lies.
April 13, 2024
@ Michelle
QUANGO’s get to spend about 25% of government income, not to mention the quangocrats’ non-contributory, index linked final salary pensions – which are the taxpayer’s responsibility
As Sir John points out, their regulation is abysmal – some of them are really obscure and only meet a couple of days a month. Their performance historically has been abysmal – the numerous NHS QUANGO’s management of the pandemic was completely incompetent and resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Many others are inept, mainly because they are staffed by political appointees on the “jobs for the old boys and girls” principle – which also afflicts the civil service
April 12, 2024
Yesterday, the London physical gold bullion price breached Ā£60,000/kg and went on overnight in asia to Ā£61,200/kg – London silver is also at an all time high of Ā£749/kg. Representing huge losses for the British taxpayer after Sunak/BoE sold the last of our gold
Apart from previously short positions being closed (to close a short you must buy the metal) there is persistent buying of physical metal – in size – by central banks. Also, speculators are jumping on the bandwagon buying COMEX “paper” gold futures. Interestingly, it appears that the central banks are selling US Treasuries to fund their purchases of the yellow metal.
The obvious reason is the imminent prospect of serious war in the middle east. Iran, Israel and the USA are upping the rhetorical threats to unprecedented levels. Nobody actually knows if Iran has developed their nuclear bomb, but many in the intelligence community think that they have, after Trump rashly pulled out of the previous, restrictive agreement.
Let’s hope that the Ayatollahs don’t decide to test it over Tel Aviv.
April 12, 2024
I hold ‘Physical’ gold SG (in JP Morgan’s London vault) but I must admit I never value it in “Ā£/Kg” Most gold bugs quote gold in Dollars per Ounce – which is just at $2,400 as I type. The Sterling price per ounce is of course dependent on Dollar/Pound exchange rates. I therefore hold gold as an insurance against both inflation and currency movements. It’s not an “Investment” as such, more an insurance policy against certain risks.
I do not hold gold as any sort of protection against nuclear war, because whether in a vault in London (or Switzerland, the US etc) it would be unlikely to be either accessible or recoverable. Nor would I probably be around to worry too much about it.
So yes, let’s hope the Mad Mullahs are not crazy enough to attack Isreal with atomics, because that would probably be the last thing they would ever do. However, if that happened then all bets would be off and we would be living in a very different world to the (albeit) imperfect but relatively safe one that we have now.
April 12, 2024
The USA had a debt of USD 34 TRILLION. It has alienated the Gulf States and BRICS to the point where they are trading in their own currencies with each other. Biden has lost the petro-dollar. By November the USD will no longer be the worlds reserve currency because a huge percentage of international trade will no longer be in USD, so those countries will no longer need to hold US treasuries.
The whole weight of the US debt will fall on the heads of US taxpayers, for the first time. It will crush them. Xi knows this which is why he told Yellan that āthe USA needs to be āniceā to Chinaā.
April 13, 2024
@Lynn
Fiat currencies backed by nothing other than debt are worthless. Gold is real money because governments cannot print it
April 12, 2024
I note that Tel Aviv is less than 100 miles away from Damascus, the capital of their Syrian ally, which they are helping to defend. I think we can discount a nuclear attack by Iran which would leave a lot of Iranians dead.
The intelligence community that you seem to rely on – are they the people that came up with Iraq’s WMD and ‘Russiagate’? If so, it’s perhaps them and their neocon friends that are quite needlessly ramping up the cost of gold.
April 12, 2024
Perhaps you should blame them for not investing in Bitcoin. The reality is that in order to fund ever larger borrowing we are pledging some assets as collateral, and selling others to stop the exchange rate from collapse and to fund the trade deficit. What assets would you have had them sell instead?
April 13, 2024
How is the increase of an asset value after it was sold a subsequent loss to the previous owner?
Surely the issue is what was done with the sale revenue after it was sold.
Tins of beans would be better insurance against world war than gold.
April 12, 2024
Over 40 years, the Westminster Uni-Party steadily outsourced most of our governance to the EEC/EC/EU.
And then, Blair largely created the “arms-length” system of Governance within the UK: partly to disguise where all the Laws and Regulations were really coming from and partly to ensure that when the Not-a-Conservative-Party was eventually re-elected, they would be unable to change the trajectory he, Blair, had set the country on.
After 3 GE losses, the Not-a-Conservative-Party Grandees decided they would have to govern under Blair’s settlement which is why Cameron (a) announced he was the Heir to Blair and (b) made absolutely no attempt to dismantle the Quango-State, despite claiming he would light a bonfire of the Quangos.
14 years later and we may as well have had Blair still in No.10 all that time ….. as our “permanent PM” (just like Putin) because that’s effectively what we’ve got.
Since Blair will be “advising/controlling” Sunak I don’t think there’s much fear that the incoming Government won’t know how to achieve its aims or do what is necessary to make them permanent. Because we now know the Not-a-Conservative-Party will NEVER do anything to change them, even if it survives.
Your Party had its chance – completely blew it and, betrayed all Conservative/conservative voters who voted for the Blair settlement to be reformed.
April 12, 2024
Agree with all of your comment Donna. Plus ‘432’ upticks.
April 12, 2024
Spot on.
April 12, 2024
Very well put, Donna! Sums it up rather well. What a sad state of affairs.
April 12, 2024
Russia votes for Putin. The U.K. would not vote for Blair (or Sunak).
April 12, 2024
This conservative voter – please note the small ‘c’ – is sick and tired of every problem facing your ministers needing a ‘few extra billions’. May I suggest that a Civil Service hiring-freeze needs to be put in place, until numbers are back down to where they were in 2019? And some of us here would welcome redundancy notices being sent to every last ‘DE&I’ employee across government. Or must we wait for your party to find its own Milei?
April 12, 2024
That politics innit!
I am sure the opposition parties know exactly how it works but why would they blame quangos when they have every intention of continuing to use quangos when in power and when the electorate blame the government giving opposition parties huge poll leads.
Your government has had 14 years and, in the last parliament at least, a reasonable majority with which to do something about it. Instead your party used one of those independent organisation, the OBR, to bring down one of your leaders. It is this way because politicians want it to be this way.
April 12, 2024
It’s this way because the WEF wants it to be this way. They have their puppets who will ensure it will never be changed. When Truss clearly indicated she was going to try they got rid of her.
April 12, 2024
Spot on. Britain is now a technocracy and elected politicians not in tune with our permanent government seem not to understand or if they do, do nothing about it. The next government will be more the technocrats’ liking.
Exhibit one is the head of Border Force who did not believe in borders.
We now have: schools and universities where critical and gender theory is evident throughout; a military that does not want ‘patriots’ or people from military families, a Supreme Court that opposes parliament’s supposed supremacy in law making, a successful war on meritocracy through DEI which is successfully re-racialising society, the mocking and destruction of national heritage, government funded charities which oppose government policy.
April 12, 2024
We have Universities where the Chancellor and staff are well paid on the strength of foreign students’ fees, mostly Chinese or sympathizers. None will rock the boat.
April 12, 2024
Three flaws? I don’t think so. There is just one. The idea that government can properly manage anything at all.
Every policy fails because central control always fails. We have a deeply socialist system that has far more in common with 1960s Eastern Europe than capitalism. The last time we had actual free markets was in the 1800’s and we ruled large parts of the planet. Now we’re just a third rate economy sliding into ethnic civil war and mass poverty. Government is never the answer but always the problem.
April 12, 2024
Mr. Redwood, you complain that OFWAT and the EA have failed to put in reservoir capacity for a rising population. Did YOU tell them in advance how many people you were going to allow in?
How can they plan if you say one thing (āimmigration in the tens of thousandsā) and let in millions?
Iām sure Iām not the only person a bit fed up with this hand-wringing and scapegoating. Take the blame! Accept responsibility for failure. Make way for someone else to have a go.
April 12, 2024
I agree with your sentiment on the Tory’s owning their many failures but as Sir John has often pointed out his advice and pleas are ignored by his leadership, so they have to go and give a proper conservative Party a go , like Reform, to Reform all quangos and foreign agreements and Courts that don’t look after English people who they are supposed to represent as the rest of the UK has its own Parliaments, denied to the English, a second class race in its own Country and white Englishmen have NO special characteristics, legislated by the Uni Party. Oh, the EU, won’t allow another reservoir under its environment rules, which we are bound and The Snake won’t deviate.
April 12, 2024
Reading your Diary Sir John, it strikes me that we have more talent commenting than than thise sitting on the Green Benches.
Perhaps we have the bases of talent to form a new party, lets start a ā Real Conservative partyā!
April 12, 2024
“Opposition parties in Parliament are good at criticising”. You too John, day after day you criticise the Conservative government in one way or another, they don’t even try to follow the economic policies you support and think sensible, yet you still vote for the budget every year and campaign for them to be reelected !
Reply I did not vote for the first Hunt budget. I think a Conservative government is clearly preferable to a Labour/SNP/Lib Dem one.You never get all you want. Conservatives have done a great job in areas like school maths and english, got us out of EU, and make it more worthwhile to work.
April 12, 2024
reply to reply….when did abstaining ‘NOT’ vote for? Do you really think that is anything other than ducking so low nobody notices? You are my MP and I expect you to vote – not let the rest decide.
April 12, 2024
Wes Streeting has been far more forthright on the NHS than you have. One of the overriding impressions of your government is the utter failure to push back against the inefficiencies you highlight. Poor appointments, no one held to account, bonuses paid. Denials issued and whistle blowers however do get sacked.
You allow them, unelected liberal elites to control you and impose their agenda. Sort yourself out, not comment on the opposition.
April 12, 2024
Iām curious to know ā¦. I think itās fair to say the vast majority of contributors to this site are Conservative Party supporters or voters – how many of you are going to vote for your Tory candidate at the next GE?
Reply Most of the contributors here like you are persistently anti Conservative. Some criticise Conservatives every day from a left perspective and some from a Reform/UKIP angle.
April 12, 2024
My ha’penny worth would be to say that most commentators here are anti-Conservative leadership. Ten or 20 years ago they would’ve voted Conservative, but in recent years have become less and less likely to do so. But isn’t that because the leadership has given up on even appearing Conservative, never mind carrying out Conservative policies? As for me, I will certainly not vote for a Tory candidate who accepts government policies unquestioningly. I’ll see when the time comes.
April 12, 2024
Reply to reply:
Clearly criticism cannot be accepted. The Conservative party as it is must be tolerated no matter what it does or not.
Many critics want major change back to its origins but clearly that won’t be considered.
April 12, 2024
Reply to reply
With respect, Sir John I think many here complain that your party is not Conservative enough. Donna’s excellent post above being a good example of how many of us feel.
April 12, 2024
No! Sir John. Most of the comments I have read these last years are exactly what we wanted as Conservatives, and we have been let down to the point of most (?) refusing to endorse what is no longer a Conservative vote.
So, like you many will abstain, and let the rest decide.
April 12, 2024
Reply to reply. Iāll admit I am no fan of the Tory Party – mainly because of its history as the party of privilege etc. But I am not anti Conservative. I used to think you were the lesser of two evils. Someone has to govern and I used to think you were a bit better than Labour. But, you leave people who feel like that nowhere to go. Youāve become a party of high immigration, high taxation and, as you admit yourself, have abdicated responsibility to unelected bodies.
When you say āmost of the contributors here are anti Conservative – could you be more wrong? Most are very Pro Conservative – but your party isnāt. Given this, Iām curious to know what the general feeing is – will they still vote for your party at the next election.
April 13, 2024
I told my MP, Chris Loder, that he would not be getting my vote because he supported the suspension of my Civil and Human Rights over a virus which the Government had already downgraded from a High Consequence Infectious Disease on 19 March, FIVE DAYS BEFORE Johnson imposed the first lockdown.
Why? Because they knew it had low mortality rates.
The evidence is still available on the Government’s website. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
If the downgrade took place on 19 March 2020 (which it did) then the Civil Service/Government advisers would have had the data a few weeks previously as it would have had to be checked; reviewed; and go up through the chain of command for authorisation. Then the “Comms” would have had to be agreed; the text drafted and loaded to the website. I estimate that would have taken a minimum of 2 weeks – maybe 4. So it’s reasonable to assume that by end February 2020 they KNEW Covid was not particularly dangerous for most people.
Loder has done nothing since to change my mind.
April 12, 2024
Sir John
Interesting headline, that could equally be applied to those sitting it out their term in this Conservative Government – āThe UK public sector is letting many people down and upsetting a lot of votersā
Who takes our money then wastes it by maliciously refusing to manage how it is spent, refuse to manage who they give it to. It is not the opposition parties that are managing the UK, they are there as are all MPs are there, to challenge those that have highjacked the UKās Government.
This Conservative Government are the ones charged with hiring and firing all those that take the taxpayer schilling, if the people they appoint are not up to the task is this Conservative Governments neglect ā not the opposition, they donāt do the hiring and firing. The reason so many feel that these are appoints are a stitch-up with jobs-for-the-boys, is the quality of the appointments is matched only by the quality of this Conservative Government
Yes, there is petty and pointless snipping but that is an illustration of how the selection process of candidates as been screwed and stolen by equally malicious self-damaging crews that leaders appoint to install loyalty before service to the electorate.
April 12, 2024
If Tories in government were performing fully efficiently, opposing parties would have nothing to criticise. Creating solutions achieves remedies. Opposing criticism just wastes.
April 12, 2024
Sir John
Every body you and the rest of us have issue with is installed and managed by this Conservative Government. No one else gets to give these entities the money taken from the taxpayer, no one else is charged with hiring and firing. The UK has one management team that would have normally been empowered by the voter, but although not voter choice is still paid by the voter.
Why do we have the corrupting 5-year terms in office? 4 years was already too long before seeking approval. We want our āhuman rightā to democracy.
April 12, 2024
I see the post office is looking for a vendor to write the software to replace the horizon system. 75 million is their budget. But the post office wants to design, architect, and programme manage the project themselves.
No decent company is going to take responsibility for the risks while the post office has design control.
They would be far better off not reinventing the wheel but finding some other software package that is closest to their needs and starting with that.
Really their entire exec team needs a kick up the bum.
April 12, 2024
The first step is to have people from software houses who have experience in some form similar to transactions in a Post Office. Then they need to engage with PO expertise (is there any?) to form a team or teams on aspects of the desired solution. Real time updating, batch if any overnight is acceptable, the range of access, limits of access to certain data once input, definitions of various data types, location of that data in a file or database structure.
Design of each transaction testing, of single Office transaction testing, audit trail required by Office, and a range of information to support activities by Office. Once all that can be presented as a Project Plan, bids could be invited to propose third party solutions, with no further design changes altering it. By the time these bids are examined changes might be countenanced according to bidders questions on detail requirements.
April 12, 2024
First thing to do is to see what other post office services around the world are using, and try to do a deal to copy the best of what you find, then push for least possible change from that.
April 12, 2024
I – and a small team – have written a number of systems used by large organisations.
First the client produces a specification.
The trick then is to find a software developer who understands business processes, fiscal transactions, the limitless stupidity of people and, of course, software and security. After I received a specification, at the first meeting I would raise numerous questions – all of which would start with āwhat should happen when someone ā¦ ?ā and ā what are the acceptable parameters for this data, and this dataā, and, most importantly, āwhether you ask for it or not, every action will have an audit trail which no-one in your organisation will have the permissions to editā and so on. In my experience a small team, even as small as one system architect, one front end developer and one database developer – as long as they actually understand business, people and software – can build complex software much more quickly than software houses with hundreds of employees.
April 13, 2024
I promise you I have done more of this than you have.
Your assertion is correct sometimes, but often not.
Regardless of that it mostly comes down to the quality of the people, something that remarkably few people are capable of determining.
April 12, 2024
Anyone can be prosecuted by malign forces. They rely on the courts to deliver justice and unravel mischievous plots against them. In respect of the Postmasters, the courts have utterly failed. What faith can people have in the British judicial system when it delivers perverse judgements?
Haul the judges before select committees and put their feet to the fire.
April 12, 2024
Yep but I have sat through a few court cases and it was obvious to me that justice was not being dispensed. Absolutely shocking what goes on in court rooms.
April 12, 2024
In stead of ever rising taxes how about State Budgets being asked to do what those that pay their wages are forced to by Law ā live with in their means and still deliver
April 12, 2024
I do believe that govt. has actually done something goodā¦I hope Iām right.
Visas and income thresholds.
From today and rising again next year.
April 12, 2024
Way to little and too late, the fools.
April 12, 2024
Agree.
April 12, 2024
I see weāre about to sell off Gibraltar to the EU ā¦.a bit like N.I.
April 12, 2024
How much did we get for N.I.?
April 12, 2024
A couple of euro’s
April 12, 2024
Says it all – from the MsM
“Royal Mail accuses Border Force of failing to stop fake stamps from China”
April 12, 2024
Perhaps we now have an explanation for why every stamp has its own QR code. It has allowed the counterfeit to be exposed – one which presumably cost the Post Office considerable loss of revenue. You have to wonder how long it has been going on, and at what level it was detected.
April 12, 2024
Sir John, I must commend you for having open comments on your blog posts. That requires courage after the record your Party and indeed my Party has delivered. Or is that failed to deliver this past fourteen years?
I am sure you and anyone else from the Party HQ that take time to scan the comments know what the public mood is. Giving the Tory Party another five years of failure to act, is regarded as lunacy as defined by Einstein, i.e. doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.
We have had enough of that.
The past Tory failures to advance policies in favour of our national interests following ‘our’ decision to leave the EU, will forever colour what people think about the Tory Party. Theresa May was hopeless and determined to remain tied to the EU no matter what, she almost destroyed Parliament in her ambitions. Boris was given the green light by the electorate plus an 80 seat majority to act. He did nothing, other than endorse Theresa May’s Net Zero national suicide policy. The bonds of the EU remain as tight as they ever were. Truss was in and out before any actual policies were allowed to be progressed, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the establishment. Their need to destroy her anti EU anti Net Zero attitudes was on full display.
Then/now we have Sunak, a person no one wanted or voted for, the architect of run away inflation and borrowing. His other achievements are well hidden, other than he invited back a disgraced former PM who had run away from his referendum duties. Sunak was so impressed he made him Foreign Secretary. Welcome back Lord Dave……?
What a history.
April 12, 2024
Bonfire of the Quangos – Stop the Boats – failed promises time and time again – somethings never change
April 12, 2024
You’ve just quoted the first and last Tory PMs of the past decade …..and you’re right nothing has changed
April 12, 2024
“If extra money would bring the NHS waiting lists down …”
Surely, it would. The issue seems to be more about the rate of return which some expect from increased investment. It is hard for someone who needs treatment to understand that he or she won’t get it in the near future because it is not a branch of medicine in which productivity gains can easily be made.
“Any Conservative MP will vote for a few extra billions of spending if it could deliver the end of waiting lists …”
No-one should expect “the end of waiting lists” imminently, but more progress towards that objective would be useful.
April 12, 2024
Capitalists, the wealth creators use their time to create employment and prosperity for everyone by building financially secure businesses. The communists have no inclination or wish to create wealth but rather to destroy it are therefore attracted to jobs in the public sector where they can spend money rather than create it and if they so wish can do much damage to the economy. This is why the communists abound in education, the civil service, the judiciary and all the hundreds of quangos, institutions, ācharitiesā, āthinkā tanks, āorganisationsā, NGOs, regulators, āOffsā etc. Anywhere where taxpayers money can be recklessly spent without any personal consequences. These jobs also give them the time and contacts to involve themselves in local and national governance and activist pressure groups also working to destroy the nationās wealth and security.
Unfortunately the current administration has also been captured by the far left and have thus not acted to stop the communists in the public sector destroying the countryās wealth and social cohesion with policies of mass immigration and Net Zero.
April 12, 2024
watching the post office inquiry, I am reinforced in my view that the quality of people doing senior exec roles in these kinds of organisations is simply not good enough. completely “nice but dim” types, would be completely outclassed by the typical middle grade leaders in their organisations. having worked in the US I would say the equivalents over there are far far better.
April 12, 2024
Iām not familiar with the term āOppositionā, all I see are various factions of the Globalist Lāuni-party pushing the same controlling agenda.
Did we have any āoppositionā to Net Zero or the Covid tyranny? How about the open border policy or financing other countriesā wars, any opposition there?
April 12, 2024
If only these wayward quangos could be brought to heel by a gentle slap on the wrist.
They should be investigated fully – not for just NOT doing their job, but to find out where and when they went off the rails….. as well as who is influencing them, and where their funds have been spent,
The problem there is that any such investigation launched by HMG or parliament becomes a whitewash – employing ex-quango members to find the dirt will never work
April 12, 2024
The Opposition and its problems are one thing but the same is true of the Conservatives . There is an opportunity to put matters to right but it begins at the top ; will this occur ?.
April 12, 2024
Putting Arts graduates in charge of public bodies by default does not work. They do not have the innate skills for running organisations such as problem solving because their degree courses do not require that activity. That is why the Post Office’s handling of the Horizon system anomalies has been a total disaster. It is why the NHS gets worse not better by the day with Arts graduates failing to organise it properly at every level much to the frustration of the much cleverer doctors who have to operate under their system.
April 12, 2024
From the MsM – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard the Telegraph
“The ECHR has become the enforcer for neo-Maoist green guards Lawfare guerrillas behind the avalanche of climate litigation have found a killer weapon”
‘You cannot let judges ā let alone foreign judges in supranational courts at the boundaries of legitimacy ā have the last say on critical matters of national security, energy supply and economic self-defence in a dangerous world.’
Rishi Sunak and his version of a Conservative Government has signed up for this punishment regardless to cost to lives in the UK and the destruction of the UK economy. All because he and his cult don’t believe the UK Legislators are fit and proper people to work for those that empower and pay them. Terrorist are using illegitimate Laws to fight the UK and this Conservative Government is aiding them.
The opposition? equally corrupt I suspect. Our Parliament has handed away its purpose.
people criticise this Conservative Government because their actions are indefensible, incomprehensibly and are just simply anti the UK and its people. Its the trickle down effect everyone mirrors how they are treated by those that suggest they can lead.
April 13, 2024
+1
April 12, 2024
The opposition is promising us the same problems.
It is time for the Conservatives to plan for the government after next. It can only do this by removing the whip from the socialists who have called themselves Conservatives.
Many ministers including the pm and chancellor are in this category, It’s only by removing them – and those like them – that the Conservative Party will be ready to govern again.
April 12, 2024
It’s clear from your article, SJ, that the heads of those publically owned companies are much like the “cowboy” builders we often read of. Sadly, unlike those wretched amateur builders, these equally incompetent heads never roll.
Why are they allowed to continue doing a terrible job and then doubling down on profligacy without penalty. It is bewildering that they can repeatedly make mistakes and overspend their budgets yet continue in the post as if that is the norm.
More and more, I feel this Country desperately needs the expertise and experience of the Private Sector bosses to be in overall charge of these ‘projects’. So when can I expect that to come about? The public sector chiefs have failed us again and again, and that serious problem needs immediate attention. But what can we expect from this Government (and the next) who see no evil, hear no evil or will speak no evil. Wake up ! And Help!
April 12, 2024
Generally, you are a voice of common sense, but sometimes you absolutely astound me! Today, you are saying Ministers don’t have annual meetings to discuss budgets and performance with the arms-length bodies they are responsible for. I almost can’t believe it! What, then, are Ministers doing all day if they neglect what in the business world is a basic discipline? On that basis, they deserve to fail. The first lesson to learn is that people do what you inspect, not what you expect!
How did we end up with such a pathetic bunch in Government? I know Labour will be worse, but it is unbelievable that the PM lacks the nous to tell his Ministers to get a grip. But a PM who tolerates Hunt as Chancellor and Cameron as Foreign Secretary has lost it anyway!
April 12, 2024
All very well, but nothing will change early or enough, or at all, when simply talking about the organisation’s failings when the chief and other leaders remain in post.
Those in charge must be criticised, disciplined over their failings, and their sacking called for, but that will not happen in tbe present culture. Those part of that culture are part of the problem, they live in the same social and economic strata – they must be nice to each other.
April 12, 2024
āSignificant shortcomingsā in Bank of Englandās forecasting, finds review
While his review noted this was not unique to the Bank of England, Mr Bernanke said this risked damaging its credibility.
Sunak/Hunt the ultimate Bosses at the BoE turn a blind eye and let everyone of the hook once more. All the while Sunak/Hunt contrive more sleight of hand methods to tax the innocent to pay for the BoE and ultimately hide their mistakes.
Repeating what has already been exposed, the demands made on the UK Taxpayer – that no one is responsible for.
The Bank of England loses courtesy of the Conservative Government Ā£102 Billion
NHS Budget ā Ā£164.9 Billion
UK spending on Defence of the Nation Ā£54.2 Billion
If no one is responsible why does the Chancellor take the money from the taxpayer – is it for personal amusement because he can.
April 12, 2024
The Bank of England got its forecasts so wrong about the economy and threat of inflation partly because its IT systems were out of date. Are they for real, why is it always someone or something else that is to blame – the point of being in control of anything is you anticipate.
You get the feeling if one of these numpties ran over a child on the way to work it would be 100% the child’s fault
April 12, 2024
My petrol station has put up the price today by 3p to Ā£1.52 ā¦.please send my congratulations to the chancellor on his VAT revenue plan
April 12, 2024
The pound is down and oil is up – all basically on uncertainty in the Middle East with the Iranian threat.
April 12, 2024
Still a nice VAT earner
The pound vs dollar is up on a 6 month average and oil has increased only $5 over the same period
April 13, 2024
Not according to the FT and the Economist, Mark. They have related the recent rise in oil prices to Russia’s decision last month to stop oil exports, following Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. The Russophobes should be careful what they wish for.
April 13, 2024
That was last month. The market has worked out how to adjust to the changed Russian picture which is not quite a dramatic as sometimes portrayed in the West. The current trend is about the Middle East.
April 12, 2024
OFF TOPIC.
The Bank of England’s economic forecasting system has “serious deficiencies” that need to be modernised, according to a review. The independent report by Dr Ben Bernanke, former head of the US central bank, found staff used outdated systems that should be overhauled or replaced. He found there had been serious under-investment in the Bank’s software.
But Governor Andrew Bailey said updating the Bank’s systems was a “high priority”.
The former head of the Federal Reserve, said that a “material degree” of under-investment had led to staff using a “complicated and unwieldy system”. This holds staff back from producing useful analysis on what might happen to the economy, he said. Updating and modernising how its system handles economic data should be completed “with high priority” and “as rapidly as feasible”, Dr Bernanke said in the critical review.
He was asked to carry out the review last July after the UK’s central bank came under fire from MPs for failing to anticipate the scale or duration of inflation – which measures how prices rise over time – over the past two years.
Responding for the Bank of England, Governor Andrew Bailey said: “Substantial investment is being made to develop our infrastructure and to update our system. It’s a high priority.”
Governor Bailey was criticised by members of Parliament and independent economists for allowing a surge in inflation worse than both the US and eurozone.
April 12, 2024
I thought that the BoE only employed the best of the best, on big bucks …..so how did they miss that
April 12, 2024
Some time ago when inflation had dipped slightly, it was mentioned that fitted kitchens had reduced in price – just the sort of thing you buy every few months!
April 13, 2024
and for many they are bought for the LOOK not the USE.
April 12, 2024
āOpposition parties in Parliament are good at criticisingā
What opposition In Parliament? Do they exist?
Parliament wants us to live with expensive and chaotically intermittent energy. We are expected to transition to meagre and intermittent home heating and active travel whilst living in 15 minute cities. The only difference between the various Parliamentary groupings is the speed with which our cheap, abundant, reliable energy will be cut off.
One, main group in Parliament wants open borders, whilst anther group pretends to not agree with this but instead issues 1.2m visas in a single year and collects unidentified young men of fighting age off the coast of France and houses them in 4 star hotels. Not only is everything paid for but they are allowed to work in the black market undercutting the legally resident population.
All Parliamentary groups wanted us to close down the country for a virus where the average age of death was no different, if not higher, than the existing average life expectancy. Just some groups wanted an earlier, tougher and longer lockdowns.
All groups want high taxes, high spending and an ever increasing number of state employees.
Yes, correct Opposition parties in Parliament are good at criticising but only when it comes really important issues such as personal tax affairs, sexual proclivities, online “harm” and eating cake.
April 13, 2024
Opposition? I thought Sir John was the opposition. The only opposition worth listening to, certainly.
April 12, 2024
The opposition doesn’t need to understand anything.
The Tories need to understand that they face annihilation. For reasons which are obvious.
April 12, 2024
Thanks, Sir John. One finds oneself repeating the same things over and over again..a sort of mantra to reach the impossible star of general efficiency re NHS ++ organisations + ‘civil services’. What are they? ‘Sackability’ is one. There are too many people in lots of positions who just don’t shape up and ‘deliver’. Presently – and seemingly forever – they belong to some sort of special tribe of untouchables; people who are bad, good or indifferent in their roles and – Guess what? – it just doesn’t matter: There are no ‘consequences’ for them. No one breathing down their necks and threatening ‘Off-ski, mate’..you’re rubbish’. This is the lack of ‘skin-in-the-game’ I tend to chuck in to the discussion to solve most efficiency problems! The other notion is – of course – that of having ‘efficient’ people, good business people/good managers involved in organisations; people who’ve proved they’ve ‘delivered the goods’ elsewhere. This akshally makes sense. ‘KISS’. It’s not rocket science why our NHS an’ fings are so ‘woe-begone’ and lack-lustre big time. Which government of incompetents is going to change the present status quo of costly/poor service? There are no brave warriors or Boadicceas (spelling?!) in good positions to go for it.
April 12, 2024
I can imagine a set question in an Economics ‘A’ level exam in a few years time.
‘ Given the Conservatives were roundly beaten by a very large margin in 2024, what lead to a change as monumental to prevent them regaining office twice following?
Discuss with examples of decisions and effects in the immediate prior years.’
April 12, 2024
build-back-better ….sound just had to say it
April 13, 2024
What led to the Tories’ defeat in 2024 may not be an economics question. It may be the old question of “Who governs?”. Is it the Cabinet or is it the ECHR, the Bank of England, the WEF (or all of these), not the people whose party we voted for? If the latter, why vote? Your party in government has not used the mandate to govern that it was given 5 years ago. It has preferred to follow Labour policies of high state intervention and spending (therefore high taxes), high immigration, and blind obedience to the UN on climate and how to respond to a cold virus. So what do you expect? If those are the right policies to follow, voters will give a chance to govern to the party that has long wanted those policies.
April 12, 2024
I see that Graham Stuart has resigned as Energy Minister. Do we assume he went before the next energy disaster becomes apparent? His excuse does not wash.
We need an energy realist to replace him.
April 15, 2024
The opposition and their media arms are so busy running down the UK they’re going to find it hard to grapple it back without a lot of borrowing, printing and spending on their sector. Even when visitors praise our country they’ve got to say; NO, its not good, how dare you tell people to come and enjoy time here in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/14/why-do-us-celebrities-sarah-jessica-parker-love-the-uk-because-they-dont-live-here
Emma reminds everyone, even though we are doing more river testing than ever and have more clean rivers than we had that:
ecologically dead rivers run with sewage, three in 10 children live in poverty and 1 million experience destitution?
Come on John, tell us how many of the 3 in 10 living in poverty had parents that came to the UK with not 1p to their name in the last two decades when the borders were opened up freely to some of the poorest people in Europe, all the Africans that want to come here and elsewhere in the Middle East. Whenever we make any gains we are dragged back by importing thousands without any means.