U.K. trade booms

I keep reading nonsense that says our trade has fallen owing to Brexit.

The latest official figures tell a different story. U.K. exports grew by 50% between 2016 and 2023. That is well ahead of inflation. It was led by a 70% increase in services, the largest part of our export total. Exports of goods rose 31% in cash terms.

The U.K. has been reducing the share of its trade with the EU over many years, both from within and from outside the EU. The U.K. has embarked on a major net zero transition which leads to making far less where manufacture needs fossil fuel as energy and feedstock.This affects goods exports to anywhere in the world.

Since Brexit the U.K. has leapfrogged to second largest exporter of services after the US. We have also benefited from a surge in inward investment into greenfield projects. We were the third largest recipient of greenfield FDI over the last twenty years, and have risen to second in 2021 and 2022. In 2022 the U.K. attracted 3 times as much as Germany and 4.5 times as much as France.

In the Brand Finance index of soft power the U.K. has risen to second place since leaving the EU. That is not surprising as the U.K. has regained its place and vote at the WTO, joined the TPP, helped set up AUKUS and been an important leader of NATO after the US.

113 Comments

  1. Jumeirah
    July 3, 2024

    I know yes I know ‘there comes a time…..’ But we will miss you Sir John Redwood representing our Constituency in the way that you have o’er the years. You have been “all about US” and it’s sad to see you no longer ‘Up Front’ for us. However you deserve and have earned the respect of the Nation and us so -Thank you Sir!

    1. Lifelogic
      July 3, 2024

      Indeed what is also sad is that the dire Con-socialist party too so little notice of his sensible suggestions over the many years especially on the mad ERM/EURO and the EU disasters the lunacy of Net Zero and many other matters. Would have saved the country ÂŁTrillions.

      An excellent issue of The Sceptic Podcast – Starmerism versus Democracy albeit rather depressing – 5, 10, 15+ years?

    2. Ian wragg
      July 3, 2024

      We may be exporting more services because let’s face it we have very few goods left to export
      Most of the so called green investment is on the back of subsidy. Offshore wind has had to have a guarantee price of ÂŁ105 per mwh to get any takers. That blows a hole in the mantra that wind power is cheapest.
      We are probably soin to lose the remaining North Sea jobs when Milipede gets incharge, Stellantis will most likely shut its Ellesmere port manufacturing down and Toyota has warned the government it will pull out if the 100% zero emissions comes into force.
      We are in for a very difficult period when the rest of Europe and the USA will be frantically rowing back on the net zero scam.

  2. Lynn Atkinson
    July 3, 2024

    Looking at the state of Biden, we need to assert some authority and insert some integrity into NATO because he can’t.
    MacGregor states his European sources have told him that Ukraine is now over 600k dead with 1M+ total casualties, while Russia has 50-63k dead.
    STOP THE WAR! Bilt reports today that Ukraine need 33,000 new people per month to replace losses. All untrained. All unwilling. All for nothing.

    1. Peter Wood
      July 3, 2024

      There are two ways to stop a war:
      1. Lose or,
      2. Win.
      Which is more costly?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        There is no option to win. The west has spent USD 300 billion. Ukraine is decimated.
        Even the MSM in the west is beginning to hint at the ‘novel’ war of attrition. Russia always uses attrition. Even I know that!
        In addition Europe is being impoverished, we can’t manufacture anything – we have decimated outer selves financially.
        It MUST stop.

      2. Lifelogic
        July 3, 2024

        Or you can fight for many years and then lose or fight for many years and then win.

        Invariably both will, in effect, lose.

        So many depressing things going on currently. Starmer’s huge and totally undeserved Labour Majority the most imminent disaster.

        1. Mitchel
          July 3, 2024

          “War”,as Trotsky famously wrote,”is the locomotive of history”.

          We had originally been expecting the new Eurasian world order to be in place by 2030;since the start of this and the other -connected -wars,we now believe it will be substantially in place by the end of 2025.

      3. Hope
        July 3, 2024

        Compromise putting egos to one side. Life is more important than both options you give.

      4. Hat man
        July 3, 2024

        And you can lose a match from an own goal, like sanctions on Russia. Look at what the World Bank now says (quoted from Business Insider): ‘Russia’s economy, boosted by military activity, is now classified as high-income.’ Its GDP ‘grew 3.6% in 2023, with trade and financial sectors rebounding’. Continuing to lose, as ‘The West’ is doing, is certainly costly, Peter, and clinging to the sunk cost fallacy will just make things worse. Let’s hope when Biden goes, there’ll be a better understanding of geopolitical reality among our decision-makers.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 3, 2024

          Hard to replace Biden, all the money collected for his candidate must be returned. The new candidate starts from nothing. The west is in a mess! We need to turn this around starting tomorrow.
          Sir John no longer represents Wokingham, but he still speaks for England – for all of us. He should have been speaking for all of us long since from the highest office. Another reason I will do everything to sack the usurpers of the Conservative Party tomorrow. And I will sit up all night watching them get their marching orders.
          Let’s be hopeful. We, united, start fighting back 5th July 2024!

      5. Donna
        July 4, 2024

        Three: negotiate. That should have happened a very long time ago.

    2. Nigl
      July 3, 2024

      What’s this got to do with todays subject and in any event politically naive seemingly forgetting Biden’s Irish heritage.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        Leadership of NATO. Did you not read the blog?

    3. Mike Wilson
      July 3, 2024

      Like our PM, the American President is just a figurehead. How can a country with no real armed forces or capability exert ‘authority’? We’re a third world, debt-laden, effluent-in-our-rivers, can’t make our own steel, import half our food, highly taxed, wealth unevenly distributed, ineffectively governed sort of country.

      1. Mickey Taking
        July 3, 2024

        But the UK keeps appointing intentionally damaging ‘figureheads’ whereas the USA appoints unintentionally damaging figureheads.

        1. glen cullen
          July 3, 2024

          Subtle very subtle

    4. Old Albion
      July 3, 2024

      I have no idea if those casualty figures are factual Lynn. But if they are even close to accurate, surely even Putin can see the monumental folly of his actions.
      Perhaps a UN guided peace operation should begin?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        Sorry, my reply to you went under the comment below.

    5. Dave Andrews
      July 3, 2024

      It’s not for nothing. If Ukraine falls, the Russian army will sweep through with rape and pillage. If Ukraine surrenders, they will regret it the day after.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        It’s existential for Russia. The USA and Europe want nuclear ballistic missiles 3 minutes from Moscow. They state in conference after conference that Russia must be divided into 12 statelets – they have allocated names and flags!
        All of this is in the public domain.
        We did not like it when the EU refused to name ENGLAND on our map, becuse they wanted to break it up to weaken us. Have some empathy, try to understand that Putin did not wake up one morning and feel the need to kill 600,000 Slavs – his own genetic nation.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        You should like a child Dave. When asked directly Putin asked if we had lost our minds.

      3. Mickey Taking
        July 3, 2024

        the ‘rape and pillage’ has been going on from the start of hostilities.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 3, 2024

          Sources (not Zelensky surely)?
          The USA has told Zelensky Ukraine is ‘too corrupt to join NATO’.

          1. Mickey Taking
            July 3, 2024

            Did you never look at the video news coverage, the widespread internet reporting, the carpet bombing, the desecrated bodies? Close you eyes, cover your ears and hum loadly – it all might go away.

      4. Hope
        July 3, 2024

        Please do be dramatic. War is vile.

        Think of the loss of life and life changing injuries to our soldiers from Afghanistan! What was the purpose? What did it achieve? What was the cost in addition to life and limb? Did you believe the politicians over 20 years to justify the war, it was utter rubbish. The Taliban were back in control within a month and Truss gave them £100 million of our taxes! Biden left billions worth of military equipment! Then let’s talk about Iraq and al, those false weapons of mass destruction, or perhaps Libya! We now are suffering mass immigration from these failed states! The cost continues to burden us the taxpayer! What did it cost Blaire, Cameron? SFA! Both should be held to account. Particularly Blaire and his sham inquiries.

        Did they leave

        1. Lifelogic
          July 3, 2024

          +1

    6. Wanderer
      July 3, 2024

      Lynn A +1. Our being an “important leader” of NATO has been a disaster. According to the Israeli diplomat involved, Ukraine was about to sign a peace deal but Boris Johnson was dispatched to Kiev and the deal was then torn up.

      The Ukraine war is an utter waste of our money and others’ lives, and a danger to the planet.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        The Ukrainian negotiator who initialled the deal says the same. Johnson is the anthesis of ‘his hero’ Churchill – a monumental disaster.
        For the Tories to wheel him out today is a sign of the panic of our enemies – the globalists – who visit poverty, death and destruction wherever they go.
        Sack the Tories. We can build a proper party and sack Labour next time.

        1. Lifelogic
          July 3, 2024

          Next time when in 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20 years and after they have rigged the voting and the boundaries? Will I make it?

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            July 4, 2024

            You propose they rig the voting with PR. The boundaries have just been reset, the boundary commission does that.
            They dare not go overboard and when our mind is made up, they (the globalists) can’t beat us – see Brexit.
            When a party gets a supermajority mostly it’s because it’s popular, that’s why they win again and again. Labour is NOT popular and we will sack them as joyously as soon as we can – I.e when we have a replacement we WANT.
            You need to hunker down financially, we have all been doing that. No moving house, no selling assets libel for CGT. No tax-pay that can legally be avoided. I’m sure you are on top of that.

      2. Mitchel
        July 3, 2024

        Turkish and Ukrainian sources also confirm that.

        If you want to know why the UK,in particular,was/ is so desperate to block a settlement look up “intermarium”,”Three Seas Initiative”,and “Johnson’s new European Commonwealth”.

        Mallarduk.com’s “Johnson’s Intermarium:A new Geopolitical Bloc?” and iwp.edu’s “Intermarium in the 21st Century” are quite good at explaining what is going on.

        None of this is being discussed in the msm it would appear.

    7. Mitchel
      July 3, 2024

      It is worthwhile looking up two prophetic pieces of work by the late,great,John Pilger:

      1) Guardian,13/5/14:”In Ukraine,the US is dragging us towards war with Russia.”-Washington’s role in Ukraine,and its backing for the regime’s extremists, has huge implications for the rest of the world.”

      2)Documentary film,”The Coming War On China” ( available to view on Youtube and elsewhere),reviewed in The Guardian 1/12/16:”John Pilger lays bare the historical horrors of the US military in the Pacific,exposing the paranoia and pre-emptive aggression of its semi-secret bases.”

  3. Lifelogic
    July 3, 2024

    Indeed if only they had delivered a full & clean Brexit, abandoned their rip off energy/net zero policies, cut taxes, reduced waste and had, had a bonfire of all the damaging red tape then exports would be far higher still.

    So Boris is back to say that a sledgehammer Labour majority will undo all the good the Conservatives have done in their 14 years. (Apart from the botched Brexit which is I admit better than nothing) what good did they do Boris?

    He also praises the early Covid Vaccine roll out. Does he, like “unequivocally safe” Sunak not yet realise they did huge net harms. Have they not looked at the very abundant statistics that clearly show this? Or are they just both cynically lying?

    Sunak says “every vote counts” showing that, despite his alleged mathematical abilities, he has not got a clue how FPTP actually works often over 50% of the votes do not count at all in FPTP. The way to vote is for the stop Labour or Libdem candidate if you want your vote to count. In England tomorrow this will usually be for Reform.

  4. agricola
    July 3, 2024

    Three cheers for all that. A limited number of people and organisations including government are the beneficiaries. Why in terms of individual GDP have we slipped to 21st or worse in the World league. We are amateurs winning European and World events while being allowed only an EPNS cup in recognition. Figuratively FIFA, the LTA and AAAs arw keeping alk the booty.

    1. agricola
      July 3, 2024

      It is short, factually correct, does not refer to islam or WW2, and posted around 06.30, so why is it stuck in moderation.

  5. Sakara Gold
    July 3, 2024

    Ah, that explains why we have the biggest national debt since the war at ÂŁ2.7 TRILLION – and the highest taxation take at 37.8% since 1947

    I have often wondered why you can never see any British made goods in the shops here. Not even British chocolate. Or even raw steel. Let alone railway engines or rolling stock. Or British lathes and machine tools, fork lift trucks, even nuts and bolts. Or chemicals, sewage treatment plant and cement. Now I know

    1. IanT
      July 3, 2024

      What little heavy industry we have left SG is being hammered by high energy taxes in the name of the false god ‘Net Zero’ – one that you worship at the feet of…

    2. Lifelogic
      July 3, 2024

      Plus some of the highest energy prices due to the deluded Net Zero religion. Hard to compete against countries with energy costs 1/3 of ours, cheaper properties, lower wages, lower living costs, less red tape


      Two David Starkey videos are spot on:- we are about to elect a government nobody wants and Labour’s plans to end democracy. All rather depressing so thanks very much Cameron, May, Boris Sunak and the Con-Socialists con merchants.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        The People will get their way, through the ballot box or by other means.
        That is the only important thing atm.
        Sack the fake Tories, Lib Dems and Greens.
        We can rebuild Conservatism for the next election – which may not be too far away.
        Then we can sack Labour.

    3. Berkshire Alan
      July 3, 2024

      Too expensive to make it here I am afraid SG, unless it is taxpayer subsidised of course.
      I well remember those days when I started as an indentured apprentice within the motor manufacturing industry in 1964.
      Tens of thousands of people employed at manufacturing sites all over the country, but not many producing a top quality or reliable product.
      Then we also had the design and building of aircraft, ships, railway engines, and light and heavy engineering of all types, as well as producing steel, aluminium, ceramics, glass etc etc.
      Now we simply import most of the above, as well as some needed power from the inter connectors !

      1. Lifelogic
        July 3, 2024

        So what do we export to pay for all this a few houses in Chelsea sold off perhaps, some defence equipment, some services like insurance… how can we defend ourselves with net zero lunacy and no engineering. Not too hard for Russia or someone to cut off all the interconnectors and offshore wind?

      2. Mickey Taking
        July 3, 2024

        Sadly those nasty foreigners looked at British designs and manufacture and soon realised they could do so much better and rapidly killed us off. Reliability? no the customer will have to buy another. Comfort? no who needs a sprung sofa. Elegance and quality build? what? They take what we give them.

    4. Richard1
      July 3, 2024

      What a curious and confused post. There are plenty of British made goods in shops – food clothing and pharmaceuticals spring immediately to mind. If you wanted to build a manufacturing plant and you got told that wholesale electricity prices in the US were 1/4 of those in the U.K. where would you put it?

    5. Peter
      July 3, 2024

      SG,
      You can still buy biscuits made in Harlesden. I think biscuits disappeared from Reading some time ago. Reading was famous for three Bs – beer, biscuits and bulbs. I don’t think any remain.

    6. agricola
      July 3, 2024

      SG

      It very much depends on where here is, I cannot comment on your experience.
      In my part of Spain the UK contributed to an extensive range of the fresh fish and shellfish available on a daily basis. Iceland sold a vast selection of UK food as did the ExPat store.
      Possibly the most popular SUV was the Qashqai from Nissan Sunderland. My lawyer ran a Jaguar saloon, and you could not drive very far before seeing a JCB. Just over the Pyrennese, Airbus would not fly without the addition of wings from the UK.
      It was not like Singapore and India where you can still enjoy bridges built by our largely scottish forefathers.
      My gripe is that Joe Bloggs on the 39 bus is not benefitting in terms of life control or quality of life from the undoubted upturn in trade our host majors on. I would like to see our large debt due to Covid and other factors treated as war debt was. Should be no problem we have done it before. Government has infinite dexterity in creating money it can’t get via taxation, so why not the same slight of hand in repaying it. The ultimate target should be to increase personal GDP, and reduce the dependant society we have drifted into.

    7. Butties
      July 3, 2024

      Obviously all being exported SG

    8. Donna
      July 4, 2024

      They sell English hand-made chocolate here in the west country. It’s expensive, but available. All those products you listed require ENERGY to manufacture and, thanks to the Net Zero lunacy, we have the most expensive energy in the G20.

      That’s what happens when you chase the Net Zero unicorn …. a fruitless endeavour ….. and make essential ENERGY so expensive it makes you uncompetitive.

  6. Rod Evans
    July 3, 2024

    With all this good news Sir John, it makes me wonder why are our public services so dire, our roads so bad, and our health service so difficult to access, with an eight million waiting list for treatment? Why are our high street shops closing at a rate only surpassed by the rate our public houses are closing?
    I could have mentioned/asked, why is housing so unaffordable for first time buyers, why is everything in everyday life so expensive relative to where it was five years ago and why is immigration so high with over 2 million new arrivals all authorised (not illegal) in the past two years?
    Why is society so unhappy with the state of UK affairs in general and why is energy seen as the enemy rather than the saviour of mankind, which it actually is?
    Here’s the deal. I will happily give thanks for the current administration’s achievements (thanks to the efforts of others), if it also takes responsibility for those areas it actually does controls as listed above.

  7. Hat man
    July 3, 2024

    NATO has no ‘leaders after the US’, Sir John. It has vassal states. They have no independent foreign policy: at one time countries like Britain and France managed to keep out of America’s wars, not any more. But perhaps you meant ‘cheerleaders’ – if so, I’m sure K. Starmer can be relied upon to do America’s bidding. He was until a couple of years ago member of the Trilateral Commission, a ‘global membership organisation’, as it describes itself on its web site, funded by a US billionaire and serving ‘to discuss and propose solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems’. Starmer belonged to a group that includes former heads of the CIA, and the line followed in its publications is how to maintain the US-dominated ‘rules-based order’ without regard for individual nations’ democratic institutions. The Trilateral Commission’s anti-democratic ethos was called out by Nikkei Asia as the belief that ‘experts with experience and expertise can steer society toward a better place’. That’s Starmer off to a T, and that’s why by his own admission he prefers somewhere like Davos to Westminster. You know people by the company they keep.

  8. Roy Grainger
    July 3, 2024

    The LibDem campaign strategy has been to have Sir Ed Davey act the fool at daily photo opportunities so no one will ask him about his role in the Post Office scandal. Yet some people still seem to think voting for them gives them the moral high ground.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 3, 2024

      Or why almost all his policies are the complete reverse of what is needed rather like Labour and the Con-Socialists. All tax borrow and waste merchants with net zero lunacy added for good measure.

    2. Mickey Taking
      July 3, 2024

      ‘act the fool’, or is the fool?

  9. Nigl
    July 3, 2024

    Obviously your Remainer party finds this embarrassing because where it should be a major point of differentiation, I struggle to find even a mention from your so called leader let alone the sort of consistent attack to raise people’s awareness.

    Farage is correct, the Tory parliamentary party is collectively cowardly, sitting on their hands refusing to publicly berate their leadership and advisers in the name of party unison.

    ‘Err Captain Sunak we are heading for an iceberg so I am pretending that standing down at this time was always going to happen’

    Rubbish jumping ship instead of forcing a change of course.

  10. Donna
    July 3, 2024

    And that’s with the Not-a-Conservative-Party dragging its heels over Brexit as long as it possibly could; then only making us semi-independent and refusing to repeal thousands of EU Regulations which would have boosted our competitiveness.

    But then, as Sunak told us “we don’t compete with friends.”

    Quite who the friends are we don’t compete with is beyond me. They certainly aren’t found in the EU.

  11. Mike Wilson
    July 3, 2024

    If everything, export wise, is so good, why do I keep hearing business owners on the radio complaining about how hard it is to export to the EU.

    Is it now more difficult to export to the EU than to , for example, the USA (that we have no trade deal with)?

    1. graham1946
      July 3, 2024

      That is down to the vindictiveness of Sunak’s ‘friends’ in the EU. We impose no such restrictions on their exports to us, soft touch that the Tories are with the EU. We could bring France for example to heel quite quickly if we cancel their fishing licences and insist they stay cancelled until they uphold a proper free trade deal as we deserve. Same goes for Belgium and Spain – their fishermen would soon be rioting in the streets and Macron is already a dead man walking.

    2. Frank
      July 3, 2024

      5.4 Million businesses in the UK, 5.2 million do no trade with the EU, but when we were in had to abide by all loony EU rules and regulations.

      1. Lifelogic
        July 3, 2024

        Indeed and many of the rest do very little under say 10%. It is usually quite easy to move this 10% to other customers if they have too much red tape & admin.

    3. Mickey Taking
      July 3, 2024

      The level of trade TO the EU has been falling for years due to their internallising of business with various barriers to importers.
      Not surprisingly trade from the EU has also fallen as a reaction.

    4. Lynn Atkinson
      July 3, 2024

      It always was, even when we were in the EU. But the business owners were not interviewed then.

  12. Mike Wilson
    July 3, 2024

    As a matter of interest, what services do we export?

    1. formula57
      July 3, 2024

      Service type Exports (ÂŁm) 2023
      Other Business Services 184,807
      Financial Services 77,149
      Travel Services 59,474
      Telecoms, Computer and Information Services 40,021
      Transport Services 30,739
      Insurance and Pension Services 30,070
      Intellectual Property Services 25,510
      Manufacturing and Maintenance Services 8,349
      Personal, Cultural and Recreational Services 6,538
      Construction Services 4,558
      Government Services 2,560

      From the detailed download at section 3.4 of https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-trade-in-numbers/uk-trade-in-numbers-web-version

      1. Mickey Taking
        July 3, 2024

        if only we could export unwanted illegal migrants!

      2. Mike Wilson
        July 3, 2024

        Thank you.

    2. graham1946
      July 3, 2024

      Financial services, Insurance etc.

  13. Philip P.
    July 3, 2024

    Just a couple of points on FDI in GB. Yes, it has grown in the last two years, which is no surprise as the global economy recovered from lockdowns. But it is still below 2017 levels and heavily concentrated in the Greater London area, according to investment analysts. Also, although Britain’s share of FDI in Europe as a whole has gone up, that surely reflects a marked decline in EU countries prospects thanks to their suicidal energy policies making them uncompetitive.

  14. Iain Moore
    July 3, 2024

    It is disgraceful how the Remainers have been allowed to peddle their propaganda of Brexit being a disaster without getting ‘fact checked’ . I suppose it is the result of the No Nation Wet Remainers calling the shots in the Conservative party, and they won’t say anything good about Brexit, neither will Labour or any of the other parties in Westminster, and the likes of the BBC certainly won’t challenge them on it, so we have ended up with a barrage of hostility being directed at Brexit, and that gets reflected in the polls on it.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      July 3, 2024

      Had Brexit been executed professionally and in a timely manner, its benefits would have started to shine through pre COVID. As it is, it’s become conflated. Another reason for Tories to disappear.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        +1

  15. glen cullen
    July 3, 2024

    A trade boom is meaningless, while we maintain high taxation, high immigration, high cost of living, high fuel & energy bills, under policies of net-zero and a woke government

    1. Timaction
      July 3, 2024

      Agreed. Our quality of life is getting worse and will continue to do so until ALL Uni Party members are gone from our Parliament and we replace them with patriots.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 3, 2024

        The irony is that this is a revolution. It’s Conservative voters carrying out the revolution. We remain independent of mind and have the courage of our convictions.
        I believe we will pull back from the edge of the abyss yet again.

        1. Donna
          July 4, 2024

          The Secret People – GK Chesterton

          “we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
          Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.”

          They forgot.

    2. Peter
      July 3, 2024

      GC,

      A trade boom certainly doesn’t create a pre-election feel good factor in the light of the other issues you mention.

      In London, there used to be factory estates where things were produced. They have mostly gone now. Like S. Gold mentions above, we don’t seem to manufacture anything. Even the big London breweries have disappeared.

    3. Mickey Taking
      July 3, 2024

      A trade boom is good for the shareholding owners or executives in the companies making profits!

      1. glen cullen
        July 3, 2024

        Like Mr Tesla, Mr Tesco, Mr Tata and Mr Vauxhall

    4. Ed M
      July 3, 2024

      Also, fancy politics and economic policy is a waste of time if so many people in the country are dysfunctional (families unable to live together, crazy tattooed people, drunks, addictions, psychological problems all over the place – from the poor to the rich, and so on).

      We’ve got to get back to basis before all this fancy politics / economic policy
      1) Men are men, women are women
      2) National service (at least voluntary and for a few months)
      3) Men are meant to work / have careers. Women are meant to create a warm nest for the husband to return to, great food, great s-x, children, fun holidays and Christmas parties and the rest, including supporting their husbands.
      4) Enjoy the simple pleasures of life instead of having to go to Bali and spend x amount of money to have a good time
      5) The merits of saving and so forth.
      6) Work ethic
      7) Duty towards others in general / good manners
      8) Patriotism
      9) Love of arts, sport and healthy competition
      10) A friggin sense of humour. So many are so humourless.

      In other words, we need to get back to basic Conservative Cultural Values – otherwise our politics / economic policy means nothing. And we need leading Tories to lead this movement by engaging more with Church leaders, those in arts, education and media etc

  16. Sir Joe Soap
    July 3, 2024

    The problem is this boom hasn’t translated into lower taxes and higher wages. It’s as simple as that. I’m guessing lower productivity has decreased margins. Id rather have low exports/high margins/high productivity. A much better base.

    1. glen cullen
      July 3, 2024

      There’s also been a boom in tourist numbers to 38 million in 2023 ….however half never go home !

      1. Mickey Taking
        July 3, 2024

        Visit London and be sure of that claim!

  17. Narrow Shoulders
    July 3, 2024

    Do we really need to be part of a global economy?

    If we need to import workers to output our exports and we are importing more goods than we export would we not all be better of if we just had a closed, circular economy?

    Is the requirement for globalism to provide for all the lifetime non-contributors? I include captains of industry in the lifetime non-contributor column as much of their workforce is taxpayer subsidised.

    1. Dave S
      July 3, 2024

      A closed economy seems to have been more what the UK had from 1944 to 1971 when the ‘Bretton Woods’ currency system was in force. It seems to have been quite a good time for ordinary people. It also quite resembled the proposals of the anti-Common Market side in the 1975 EEC referendum. Most of them wanted import controls and an independent UK industrial policy.

      But Bretton Woods was absolutely terrible for bankers and other City traders. They couldn’t engage in international currency speculation, or shuffle money rapidly from country A to B to C because countries had rigid exchange controls. It was so sad [sarc.]

  18. formula57
    July 3, 2024

    Let is take a moment to marvel at the following, taken from the Institute of Economic Affairs’ November 2023 comments on its trade report: –

    “The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) asserted that Brexit barriers would result in a 15 per cent drop in trade volumes, contributing to a 4 per cent lower GDP in the long run. This was based on modelling before Britain left the bloc. But now, according to the IEA report, real-world trade data is painting an entirely different picture.”

  19. Richard1
    July 3, 2024

    It will be interesting to see what Starmer does on trade. I assume there will be no attempts to build on CPTPP or Aukus etc, or to do new free trade deals. they say they want to do ‘sector’ deals with the eu. The EU will be very likely to do the same as it’s always done and say “sure, here’s the rule book, write these into your laws and agree that they will be changed as we from time to time alter or extend them, without any kind of input, debate, scrutiny or democratic approval process on your side”. And if it’s for a significant sector or for several sectors they will probably add “btw please re-introduce eu free movement in the U.K.”.

    If this is the way Labour plan to go it would be better to have done with it and just rejoin the single market.

  20. George
    July 3, 2024

    Hi sir John
    We have missed great opportunities with Brexit, there have been people who have tried to overturn democracy. There has
    been treachery against the country
    Thank you for you keeping us informed hope you keep us informed how labour are treating us maybe you could put yourself forward to become the new leader of the conservative party
    Thank you

  21. Ian B
    July 3, 2024

    ‘The latest Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report, published in June, shows builders’ merchants’ value sales were up +3.9% in April compared to the same month a year ago. Volume sales increased +4.7% and prices eased -0.8%.’

    Some people can just get on with life

  22. The Prangwizard
    July 3, 2024

    And what’s so glorious about Foreign Direct Investment? It can be beneficial in some respects when carefully allowed, but what it means now for the UK is we don’t have businesses of our own big enough or in the business to do these things. The failed Tories want us to stop our making anything they might be criticised for by eco-warriors, which many of course are themselves, and are selling off everything else, in desperate need of the money, as we are bankrupt. The Tory leadership, and our host, has bought into Net Zero to make sure the areas and country where the top Tories live is nice and pretty for them, and then to sell visitors some insurance.

  23. Linda Brown
    July 3, 2024

    It is a real pity that all the Brexiteers were gradually removed from the important positions. No one has been singing these praises and Remainers have been given full audience to preach their bile. A lone voice in the wilderness and it looks like we have lost the battle of Europe without going to war to keep our freedom. How disappointing this is as no one is left to shout the benefits we are gradually enjoying. All gone next week when negotiations start up to get us back in the fold taking orders from a foreign power.

  24. Ian B
    July 3, 2024

    How can you lose an 80-seat majority. Could be refuse to enact the previous 3 manifestos, no! – do the opposite of all your last 3 manifestos and the opposite of all promises made.

    Then seek salvation in blaming others for your refusal to manage, refusal ensure there is an economy to fund a future for the Country and its People. An endless list of not doing what you say you will, instead seeking to do the opposite of what you say and what is needed.

    As regards today’s subject, ‘Brexit’ the Country has struggled on in the spirit of becoming a sovereign, self-governing Country. While this Conservative Government does the opposite and fights the people, retains EU Laws and restrictions. The Country wants to be a competing national on the World Stage, not an isolated colony of the EU – this Conservative Government reneged on that.

    1. Ian B
      July 3, 2024

      Today we have Rishi and Boris hitting the media pleading not to be put out of office, not to let the other crowd have a big advantage/majority, for them not to have the advantage they blew and trashed.

      It would never have been this way if the pair of them hadn’t forced their dire Socialist ideology on us and just did a small percentage of what they promised – if the became Conservative that would have been a good starting point

      1. Peter
        July 3, 2024

        Ian B,

        Both your posts above are correct.

    2. glen cullen
      July 3, 2024

      Its easy to lose an 80 seat majority, just change policy, direction and lie to your voters

  25. Bert+Young
    July 3, 2024

    But will Labour ruin it ?. The business drivers will lose incentives and move to Switzerland and other similar places ; if I were younger I would definitely buzz off .

  26. Ian B
    July 3, 2024

    Tim Harford’s guide to fixing the economy is elegant, simple – and suggests Liz Truss was right
    I have never heard of the guy, but BBC 4 has someone called Tim Harford, he presents a program ‘More or Less’ on Radio 4, in which he examines the statistics behind matters of political debate. He wrote a book called The Undercover Economist, which is also the name of his column in the Financial Times.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/skint-truth-about-britains-broken-economy-channel-4-review/

    His views at odds with the Socialist ideology and orthodoxy of the Conservative Government and their controlling bosses in the Blob, BoE, the OBR and so on – the people dedicated to punishing and pulling the Country down.

    The 1990’s US election campaign of ‘The economy stupid’ is still the only thing valid to day. With all the dreams and aspirations, we all have, they all need paying for. A growing economy pays for things, a Socialist, this Conservative Government, soon to be Labour, high tax and borrowing just digs a big hole that is neigh on impossible to climb out of.

    We have a Political Class that refuses reality, and we all pay for it. To late now but a vote for any of them is a wasted vote

  27. Hope
    July 3, 2024

    Lynne,

    Sunak might not be but he had power to betray the nation and national vote with his EU windsor sell out.

  28. glen cullen
    July 3, 2024

    It raining again at Wimbledon …..that can only mean climate change

    1. Mickey Taking
      July 3, 2024

      YES a summer day when it rains – whooda thought it?
      At least we are not in Germany or Latin America.

    2. Peter
      July 3, 2024

      I was in Wimbledon today. There is a huge screen outside Morrisons supermarket with folk sat in deckchairs.
      I understand screens in The City where people can catch bits and pieces between work, but these looked to be locals who could have easily watched tennis at home. Usually the place is full of Guildford types waiting to catch special buses up to see the real thing.
      There was also a Labour Party shop front with the message ‘this not 2019’. They think they can win the seat, though there have been complaints of smear campaigns by another party.

  29. Richard II
    July 3, 2024

    You might expect a Conservative-supporting paper like the Telegraph to take a balanced view of Brexit. But I look that’s an article in yesterday’s issue which tells us that the construction worker shortage is the fault of Brexit: ‘Brexit severely curtailed that supply’. Yet this is printed under a graph showing that the number of construction workers did not fall between 1st Q 2016 and 1st Q 2020. (After that, it was affected by the government’s shutdown of the economy to protect us all from the cold virus.) In another article, back in June, the paper also claims the Conservatives in power were obstructed by NIMBYs. Yet this is under a graph which shows the number of housing units with planning approval rose steadily between 2013 and 2020 (when council planning officers ‘stayed safe’ and started ‘working-from-home’ for a year or two). In other words, the Telegraph is reproducing Labour talking points, with graphs that show the opposite of what’s claimed. I’m wondering what qualifications are required to write for that newspaper.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 4, 2024

      Labour membership card or lobotomy?

    2. a-tracy
      July 4, 2024

      This is just warming us up for Labour to bring in a load of prefabricated homes and apartment buildings. They won’t build old-fashioned homes; we’ll have modular systems like those in Scandinavia that don’t require brickies.

      Modular modern flats and apartments. Stack together like legos.

  30. glen cullen
    July 3, 2024

    An electoral boom would be to hold the election on a Saturday to maximise turnout

    1. Mickey Taking
      July 3, 2024

      Plenty of time to vote on a midweek day. Voters have many other more attractive things to do on a Saturday!

  31. a-tracy
    July 3, 2024

    Can you explain the Rotterdam effect on uk-eu trade figures?

  32. Mike Wilson
    July 3, 2024

    Mr. Redwood, now we are out of the EU, why hasn’t the public sector been told to buy British made vans, cars, stationery 
 everything and anything we still make?

    1. Mike Wilson
      July 3, 2024

      And, are builders told to only use UK made materials on public sector works.

      1. Berkshire Alan
        July 3, 2024

        Mike
        Unlikely as we purchase some of our Royal Navy ships from abroad, as well as some trains etc .

    2. glen cullen
      July 3, 2024

      Could be the ‘level playing field’ clause of the TCA ie government funded tenders still have to be open across europe

    3. a-tracy
      July 4, 2024

      Are motability cars told they have to buy British, it would also make a big difference and encourage car manufacturers like Kia to be here.

  33. Bloke
    July 3, 2024

    Many voters pick up wrong information and are swayed in their opinion and vote by it: Brexit especially.
    One caller to LBC this evening said that he had turned away from Reform with a statement something like: ‘I can’t now vote for Reform because Farage shot himself in the foot by saying he supports Putin’.
    That opinion is a much-twisted distortion of what Farage explained when he demonstrated how early he had predicted what expansion Eastwards of both the EU and NATO could cause as a reaction.
    Farage also said he admired Adolf Hitler’s public speaking skills but abhorred him, owing to the dreadful things that skill enabled him to do as a horrific leader.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 4, 2024

      Farage talks too much, like all Narcissists tries to grab attention, so says a lot of unwise things. He should stick to the acting job like Zelensky. When he learns his words written by others he is a much more attractive prospect.

  34. Ian B
    July 3, 2024

    @Mike Wilson – the greater majority of building material companies, even sporting UK style names are French owned. Portland Cement, Wickes and so on are all French. Glass is all French or Japanese, the list is endless. With a UK company that used to pay me, a longstanding UK, English even, well respected company, I had to invoice Poland to get paid, once bought the UK end became just a front, a name. All the senior management removed.

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