The government is right that we need to invest more. There is room for disagreement about what we need to invest in, and how much of it should be paid for by taxpayers.
The governmentâs current plans include the expensive and wasteful ÂŁ20 bn for carbon capture and storage. They need to give greater priority to
New gas turbine electricity generators to keep the lights on and power new data centres
A fleet of smaller cheaper nuclear reactors
Several new reservoirs to ensure plentiful future supplies
New drainage pipes with more capacity
More domestic oil and gas to displace imports which produce more CO 2
More broadband and data processing capacity
More bypasses and dual carriageway strategic local roads
More motorway capacity
Digital signalling throughout the railway network to expand train capacity
Many of these projects can and should be privately financed.
The main problem with the Rachel Reeves idea that we can afford to borrow more in the public sector is it assumes the investments made by the state will produce income and profit and will be able to pay the interest and then repay the debt. Recent experience  says this is unlikely. HS2, a new nationalised railway is more than three times over budget, long delayed and little prospect of any revenue let alone profit anytime soon. The nationalised Post Office was given large sums to invest in new computers, only to send its innocent staff to prison and land taxpayers with a large compensation bill. The high spending nationalised railways as a whole lose large sums before subsidy and burden taxpayers with large debts.
Changing the way the debt control is calculated to allow more investment only works if all the investments make money after paying for the debt. If they turn out to be like the railways or the Post Office borrowing more means more debt, more burdens and higher taxes.
October 25, 2024
Since when did many Government “Investment” make money. Most just piss it down the drain, attempt to buy votes (Gordon Brown Baby Bonds for example), push it into the pockets of crony capitalists or it is siphoned of with corruption. Much of it actively inconveniences the productive sector too. It also mean less funds are available for most sensible private sector investments.
Some of the many mad “investments” HS2, carbon capture, net zero, Baire and other wars, soft loans for worthless degrees in often worthless subjects too (about 70% of them are), all the things listed in the the Blunders of our Governments book (which needs updating), the dire NHS, the road blocking, most train projects, absurd roundabouts and road “improvements” like the roundabout with 36 traffic lights for ÂŁ31.9m, nearly all government IT projects…
October 25, 2024
Some historic examples from the book.
There are a handful of cock-ups that we remember all too well, from the poll tax to the Millennium Dome. However, the list is longer than most of us realize â and itâs growing. With unrivalled political savvy and a keen sense of irony, distinguished political scientists Anthony King and Ivor Crewe open our eyes to the worst government horror stories and explain why the British political system is quite so prone to appalling mistakes. You will discover why:
âą The government wasted up to ÂŁ20 billion pounds in a failed scheme to update Londonâs Underground system.
âą Tens of thousands of single mothers were left in poverty without financial support from absent fathers.
âą Tony Blair committed the NHS to the biggest civilian IT project the world has ever seen, despite knowing next to nothing about computing.
âą The Assets Recovery Agency cost far more to run than it ever clawed back from the proceeds of organised crime.
October 25, 2024
I am a fan of the O2, it is an awe inspiring design, great tourist attraction and fantastic venue. An example of private business improving on public sector misstep
October 25, 2024
Well once you spend a fortune say building some like HS2 or 02 say ÂŁ200 billion for something worth perhaps ÂŁ5 billion someone will find some use what was absurdly expensively built.
October 25, 2024
But what else could have been done with the ÂŁbillions wasted. 200 billiombillion could build about 1 million three bed houses.
October 25, 2024
â If they turn out to be like the railways or the Post Office borrowing more means more debt, more burdens and higher taxes.â
On the other hand, the privatised water companies have left consumers with huge bills and an infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
A common link between the two is mismanagement. Privatisation is not the magic wand that made things better.
Management has mostly been useless throughout.
There has been no proper oversight to ensure things are working as they should in either sector. Regulators are just fig leaves to give the appearance of control and provide well paid sinecures for cronies.
Reply If a water company goes bust it hits the shareholders not the customers. Whether nationalised or privatised water customers do have to pay more to renew and expand the pipes. It was the Regulator that stopped that happening by keeping prices down, and government which made it essential by inviting in so many extra people.
October 25, 2024
The sick joke of the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy costing nearly 8 ÂŁ billion and they do not even work and not even any sensible aircraft for them. One seems to be for spare parts for the other and even then they cannot keep one functional. Decence procurement in the UK in general is appallingly run.
October 25, 2024
King & Creweâs book (âThe Blunders of our Governmentsâ, 2014) starts to be old. âFailed Stateâ by Sam Freedman (2024) is a very welcome update.
October 25, 2024
Indeed. Thanks I will take a look.
So King Charlie says he wants to correct âenduring inequalitiesâ what did he inherit IHT free from his mum over half a billion it seems?. No 40% tax over ÂŁ325k for him.
Without IHT these inequalities do tend to endure rather well. We should expend his personal tax rules to all as we should with Starmers personal pension law?
October 25, 2024
“correct enduring inequalities.” Straight out of UN Agenda 2030 …. and the WEF playbook.
Why any Brit supports this political-Globalist Monarch is beyond me. His desire is to make their lives poorer, colder and harder. But not his, natch.
October 25, 2024
99p on Kindle it seems. I think I can run to that despite the wrecking of the economy and vast tax hikes by everyone from the disaster John ERM Major through to the dire Two Tier Kier.
October 25, 2024
You also conveniently ignore the fact that the money was spent creating a lot of employment, assisting in securing the future of a number of U.K. shipbuilding yards so importantly retaining the shipbuilding skills.
October 25, 2024
Recent governments via policies don’t seem to care about buying British, employing our people, retaining skills and avoiding imports. Industries that provide essentials all become foreign owned, employ non-British, pay dividends outside GB but masquerade as British.
October 26, 2024
Thats because we’re good little europeans
October 25, 2024
NationalInterest.org.22/10/24.”How to Waste $13,000,000,000:Build More Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers.”Brandon J. Weichert,defence analyst.
As the US considers replacements for its ageing Nimitz class carriers.
October 25, 2024
The west is in a supply death spiral. Soon the whole Defence budget will not buy a gun.
Then what?
October 25, 2024
Diversity officers before guns ….current defence policy
October 25, 2024
What I find so distressing is the thought of everything people in the past have been through for us to land up in this nightmare world.
It used to seem that we had arrived in a âmodernâ world where logic and wisdom were the order of the day.
Not so.
We had a brief interlude of civilisation and sanity. ( Probably only because the powers that be were catching their breath after two devastating yet nicely redistributive wars).
But it is all over now.
October 25, 2024
Why must the government invest in new gas turbine generation or oil and gas exploration
Typically these are the responsibilities of the power and oil companies
The only reason government feels it needs to pitch in is because net zero legislation has destroyed the private investment model.
No CEO is going to authorise new gas and oil drilling with no capital expenditure tax relief and 78% tax on eventual profits. Same with the power companies when you are told your generators are public enemy No.1.
No John, Harbour energy, the biggest company in the North Sea has just pulled all investment out to concentrate elsewhere and the idiots in Downing St are rubbing their hands.
You couldn’t make it up.
Reply Of course the investment should be private sector which is what I said. However the government needs to approve new oil,gas and gas turbine investment which it currently bans.
October 25, 2024
Reply to Reply. But why would you or anyone else invest your hard earned money to be demonised by the government
October 25, 2024
The usual dump with accuracy of hindsight and zero suggestions of viable achievable alternatives. So valueless in achieving change, moving forward.
October 25, 2024
LL,
Drains again. I notice you have started to add an âeâ to the Blair surname. One person on here used to do it all the time. Now the spelling seems to be spreading.
The same happens with various hobbyhorse ideas that get repeated ad infinitem.
October 25, 2024
Well said LL , you got the description of the Labour unintelligent precisely. I can never understand why people vote to get a kick in the teeth.
October 25, 2024
They think it will only kick the other richer people in the teeth! But in reality it gets everyone.
October 25, 2024
Almost every single thing pushed by the Tories was 14 years wasted vast sums. The Starmer agenda is even worse still they have everything thing particularly Net Zero wrong.
So had the foolish Sunak (the appalling Chancellor (who borrowed ÂŁ billions for the net harm lockdowns and net harm Covid Vaccines, caused the Truss economic fiasco) not pathetically thrown in the towel six months early we might have been having an election in about 4 weeks time. All he had to do was some deal on seat with Reform, stop the boats, ditch the net zero insanity and start to say thing more like the reform agenda (as Jenrick is now doing). But the daft as a brush PPE graduate thought he know best. Has he corrected his Covid vaccine safely lie to Parliament yet?
October 25, 2024
Almost all of your posts have been wasted because you have not achieved an iota of change or improvement.
October 25, 2024
Not even stop the boats, just to have made some half serious attempt would have sufficed. But no like Cameron he lied about Covid Vaccine safety and then abandoned ship.
October 25, 2024
And what difference would that have made?
October 25, 2024
Well for a start the impressive number of repetitive entries on here from him might decrease by at least two-thirds.
October 25, 2024
I have no expectation of the current government, or for that matter a re-empowered opposition government ever seriously encouraging investment in the private sector. The only place such investment is likely to make a profit. To do so it would be necessary to offset the investment against tax. Anathema to most in Parliament, who cannot see that such investment would be aimed at increasing productivity and world market share. Ultimately increasing tax take for government. Would be investors will increasingly realise that there are more investment friendly places to put down roots. Nobody owes us a living, we have to earn it. Those of talent and enterprise in the UK are world mobile, though current government are suffering an antenae failure.
I think we should ask ourselves whether railways are the best ways to move people and goods around the UK. Currently they are in malignant union control with matching weak management. When said unions also control current government’s political finances it does not bode well. In fact somewhat redolent of Red Robbo and Longbridge management for those old enough to remember.
If the Chancellor is allowed a damacene visonary moment via her first budget, all’s well and good for productive profitable investment. However the antithesis is more likely. Not long to wait and analyse the reality.
October 25, 2024
Even if she does have a volte face moment, it will do no good. The party won’t let her change direction.
My question is, how long will it take for poor tax returns and high borrowing to push up gilt yields to the point where confidence in the pound is destroyed?
Reply The 10 year yield is about the same as under Truss.
October 25, 2024
At least Truss had a plan for growth but it wad against WEF/UN policy so she had to be destroyed. The tories have form on Regicide.
October 25, 2024
If her own MPs had backed her, we wouldn’t be in this mess with a labour government
October 26, 2024
They couldnât after she confirmed that she refused to fund the tax cuts with spending cuts.
Her position was indefensible.
October 25, 2024
Will the bond vigilantes take action ? Will be interesting to see how it develops .
I would like to see some Engineering
Vigilantes destroying bad ideas !
October 25, 2024
Eventually Red Robbo was fired by the then BL board. The AEU leadership was advised that if their members went on strike over his dismissal then they would be in breach of their contracts of employment and no longer employed too. See Michael Edwardes’ book on his time at BL for the background to and evolution of the battle to wrestle control of the shop floor from the shop stewards (some of whom were a law unto themselves and beyond the control of even the union leaders). His dismissal was an important turning point.
October 25, 2024
â I think we should ask ourselves whether railways are the best ways to move people and goods around the UK.â indeed they are not. They need about 50% subsidy when cars are 50% plus taxes. Car still far cheaper full cars can be 10% of the train.
Further more self driving cars coming in say 10 years (and taxis) will make trains even less competitive. Plus trains are not even efficient in energy or CO2 terms if you account for the two end connection, stations, ticketing, low occupancy outside peak hours⊠should CO2 (quite wrongly) bother you.
October 25, 2024
So King Charles’s long flight to Samoa was not entirely wasted:- He wisely tells us that “none of us can change the past” what a brilliant philosopher he truly is – if only we had all realised this sooner!
Still some good news – betting odds suggest Trump has about twice the change of winning as Kamala. I assume due to his sensible climate realism and his general endearing modesty. So the dire Lammy (and hopefully the mad zealot Ed Miliband will be gone very soon
October 25, 2024
Well, actually, that is nonsense. History is rewritten continuously and, as someone famous once pointed out, history is written by the victors.
October 25, 2024
Donât count your chickens. The Democrats are ominously quiet. I think they are filling in ballotsâŠ.
October 25, 2024
Listening to Lionel Shriver yesterday. She made an interesting observation (about choosing between the two candidates) in that if something “happened” to either Trump or Harris, the replacement would be Vance or Walz. Given a choice between these two fall-backs, she felt that at least Vance could string words together coherently, unlike the other three. What a pity for the US (and indeed the rest of the World) that neither party fielded their best candidates.
October 25, 2024
On the other hand Trump did alright the first time round. Surely that’s worth giving him another go.
October 25, 2024
In the circumstances, he did brilliantly.
Jimmy Goldsmith also entered politics in his dying days in frustration that we had not the wit to resolve a simple problem.
Then he came to grips with the real problem, which was that the problem was NOT ALLOWED TO BE RESOLVED.
Trump will know this time that the neocons and the swamp are an enormous enemy, he has learned much since 2016, not least the lessons of 2020.
This may be the last US election if it is successfully gerrymandered with unidentified illegal immigrants concentrated in the 6 swing states. You need ID for everything in the US with the exception of voting where you are not allowed to identify yourself by law! This exception can only be to make fraud impossible to prove. The Biden Administration is therefore culpable of imposing fraud on the electoral process.
October 25, 2024
In a way the blunt remark needed saying. Generations banging on about it when it is known African tribal leaders bargained to allow men to be made captive and transported. I doubt that they had any idea of the shocking deaths on board ship nor the lives they would be made to endure, but there were many who shared the blame.
October 25, 2024
Life is cheap in Africa, always has been. There has been no change.
October 25, 2024
If this government is prepared to renege on manifesto commitments and fiddle the debt limit promises at the BEGINNING of their term to find more money, just imagine what they’ll do by the end of 5 years.
Just wait to see ‘slavery reparations’ being classified as ‘investments.’
No wonder higher tax payers are on their way out the door; we’re on a slippery slope to ‘failed economy’.
October 25, 2024
Even wondered the bond market isn’t flashing red on these higher debt announcements by Reeves? Yields this week on 10 year bonds are around 4.25%. When Truss announced her cut in income tax rates yields spiked to 4.22% and so called ‘crashed the economy’ (that’s even with Bailey’s fiscal engineering the bond and LDI meltdown). (Words left out Ed) this trash narrative is a farce. The Europhile establishment in Britain loathe lower tax rates because that contravenes the EU’s tax rates equivalence message across EU member states. So Bailey and his gang tried to nobble Truss’s tax cutting budgets.
Etc Ed
October 25, 2024
Yes. I had wondered.
Most of the bizarre policies can be traced to strange, set in stone beliefs/ideologies/instructions from on high.
They usually have their own language and mantras.
Like âLower for Longerâetc.
And is the bottom line a kind of universal redistribution.
From us to them?
October 25, 2024
It seems that pensioners are in the firing line due to some perception of a âglobal pension crisisâ.
So that is just accepted and acted uponâŠnever mind that (I believe) ) the U.K. is pretty low down on the worldwide list of generous pension provision.
And never mind that whatever govts claim it was DRUMMED into us that âkeeping up with our stampsâ was vital and also that several betrayals ( married womenâs stamps, WASPS etc.) have already taken place.
No wonder they want us to look upon the Old Age Pension as a benefit rather than a right.
Benefits can be altered, tweaked and withdrawn!
October 25, 2024
reply to reply….shame about the missing – ‘etc’!
October 25, 2024
Yes Don. We know it was a Globalist coup. The IMF/WEF were not going to permit Conservative policies to be implemented in Brexit Britain since it would have demonstrated very clearly that the EU is “under-performing” …. as Macron and Draghi have recently admitted.
October 25, 2024
My son was recently dithering over accepting a 3.85% renewal offer on his 5 year fixed mortgage. He saw it as expensive, whilst it still seems relatively cheap to me. We have very different ‘time’ perspectives of course đ
I told him to grab the deal whilst it was still available. With 5 year Gilts bouncing around 4% (and 10 year at 4.17%!) at the moment, the omens don’t look good – and this before the Red Chancellor makes her move!
October 25, 2024
Good morning
Ahhh ! That dreaded word of all Chancellors since Gordon Brown – INVESTMENT. What she really means of course is spending. She intends to spend her way to growth. You know, just like all the other idiot Chancellor’s before her. What they do not tell us is that, all this spending will be to further enlarge the State and their client base.
Nothing about reducing the deficit and the National Debt. But hey, that is, as always, someone else’s problem.
October 25, 2024
She possibly believes it is investment given her lack of expertise. I see Guido has unearthed evidence that she never was an economist, as she claims, but in fact had various unimportant admin roles at the BoE and other financial institutions. Another politician being “economical with the truth”.
In the private sector, she’d be fired from her job for that innacuracy in her cv.
October 25, 2024
Yep – the truth is the only thing with which she will be economical.
October 25, 2024
I heard that there were some doubts concerning her employment past. And to be honest, given the state the country is in, I really hoped they would not be true. For all our sakes.
As I alluded to in previous posts. I am convinced the Tory’s called an early GE because they knew Labour were a joke and totally unprepared, and so decided to pull the rug from under them.
October 25, 2024
Indeed. “Government investment” is arguably an oxymoron in every instance of its usage.
I invest; you subsidise; he squanders.
October 25, 2024
If ‘investment’ now comes to mean reducing tax in ways to encourage private ventures, then she’ll get support.
Don’t hold your breath.
October 25, 2024
I saw the clip of Reeve’s trying to “justify” raising 50 billion more debt. It sounded like a stream of non sequiturs such as x or y says the UK needed more “infrastructure investment” but without them specifying what investment or how the cash should be raised – such as cutting out other costs or growing the economy. The implied assumption was that 50 billion could safely be raised simply by a stroke of the pen by rewriting the “rules” regardless of the squander bug character of her proposed investments. This is a mistaken belief. UK government debt is far too high. The UK tax and regulatory burden is far too high. UK growth in GDP per capital is in decline. Next week’s budget will add to tax and regulatory costs, make financing business even more difficult and will add to the government debt and interest burden. It is a disaster in waiting.
October 25, 2024
We’ve already seen what this government means by investment. They’ve raised salaries for the public sector with no productivity agreement.
October 25, 2024
It strikes me , a committee from Sir Johns diary would make a better job of our countries budget.
come on guys ! get weavingđđ»
October 25, 2024
A lot to agree with there. My only disagreement would be that central government doesn’t decide on where to build new dual carriageway roads in the places they’re needed. Local authorities do, and they get their funding from developers. So their planning decisions are restricted to what they can get developers to pay for. Just to take Wokingham Borough as an example – its local plan has a dual carriageway bridge over the M4, but then no upgrade to dual carriageway of the main road that bridge will serve. As long as an LA can only deal with the infrastructure need created by previous housebuilding, by agreeing to lots of further house-building, the planning system will remain a mess.
Reply Government can influence and finance local strategic roads
October 25, 2024
In principle yes. In reality? When did your former constituency last get any government money? What happened with the new general hospital? We know, too much money has been spent on HS2 (not to mention Ukraine) for there to be enough left over to pay for what people here need.
I’m talking about a local road which becomes ‘strategic’ every time they close the M4, which is quite often these days. It gets utterly swamped with traffic as things are, never mind what will happen with even more development. , It seems to me the role of central government is just to enforce yet more housing, but not pay for the infrastructure required.
Reply My former constituency got large sums all the time,both direct and through grants to the Council
October 25, 2024
reply to reply…Yes correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Wokingham got the money to take needed space for cars on roads, and pedestrian use on pavement to provide cycle lanes which are rarely used?
October 26, 2024
That sounds about right to me. It was called ‘Regeneration’.
October 25, 2024
This has all been brought to us by the people who said that education, manners and morals did not matter.
And that absolute truth was of no importance.
Many stood by and allowed it all to happen in the mistaken belief that it made them look good and âtolerantâ.
Well âŠwe are reaping as we sowed.
October 25, 2024
It is striking that a private company like Amazon is even able to consider buying small modular nuclear reactors in USA for its own use. That would never ever be allowed in UK, imagine the blizzard of planning impositions and lawfare challenges and regulations and challenges based on national security. That position would be at least tolerable if the government themselves were going to invest in such reactors but they aren’t – the Treasury don’t like nuclear and have ensured it has been kicked into the long grass. When the lights go out it will be too late to change course.
October 25, 2024
The lesson here is that government does best when it does least.
Very few items on your list Sir John will actually create revenue. Extra reservoirs for instance will not produce more billables it will just make the water system better. The water companies should be investing in this as part of customer service. Same for reactors, the amount of electricity sold will not increase and indeed the price per unit will probably decrease. Again it is customer service and security of supply.
Tax breaks on investment and regulation to ensure that these virtual monopolies have to provide the infrastructure to service their customers is the best approach not more government spending on infrastructure.
I would agree with more and better roads provided by our VED.
October 25, 2024
The general tone on here seems to be that government shouldnât do anything. To take but one example – Iâm glad the government spent money and built motorways. I like living in a country with roads, schools, electricity, gas, clean water etc.
But they were all built or commissioned in âthe old daysâ. Government has become progressively more costly and sclerotic. HS2 is now the classic example of the failure of government in this country.
October 25, 2024
A good source of Investment is via Pension and Insurance Funds, i.e. those saving for a future. However, this Government taking its lead from the previous one sees all investment as spare money that could and should have been taken as tax. If individuals and enterprises budget for a future that is money Governments knows how to spend so needs to be removed.
Tax borrowing and spending is good when central controlled by ideologues, bad when it releases others to become less dependent on central handouts.
WEF Socialism of the âGreat Resetâ fully embraced by the Uniparty
October 25, 2024
“A fleet of smaller cheaper nuclear reactors” Red Ed and along his mentor and sponsor Dale Vince have continued the Gordon Brown and Labour mantra and already openly declared there is no future for Nuclear in the UK. The future is renewables.
October 25, 2024
Indeed. Reliant on foreign Countries for our energy will go down well when they renegotiate the EU treaties and in particular fishing next year. Is it deliberate legacy Party policy to be held over a barrel by the hostile EU states? It must be a plan to get us back into the evil empire! Blowing up coal powered power stations and not renewing building gas or nuclear power is the highest act of folly against our national security. Reform can’t come soon enough. Then there’s carbon capture………………..you couldn’t make up the stupidity. China/Russia/India are laughing at us.
My wife and I have just started our digging holes and filling them up again business. The Government could send us the ÂŁ20 billion instead, we also have a bridge for sale.
October 25, 2024
I will give you an ounce of hope. Putin said that Germany needs only to flick a switch and the Russian energy will flow.
We all need to elect a switch flicker.
October 25, 2024
@ Lynn Atkinson – but then surely Mr. Putin’s reverse flick of the switch at any moment is possible?
Also, what would Germany have to do to achieve the flick (and do in future to stall a reverse)? Nothing it now wants to do, I suspect.
October 26, 2024
Germany does as it is told-it is occupied territory.
October 25, 2024
Why do the rules have to be changed to âallowâ ÂŁ50 billion to be borrowed? We are currently borrowing ÂŁ5,000 every second. The calculator on my phone cannot display 50 and nine zeroes – but, if my arithmetic is correct, borrowing ÂŁ5,000 a second means we will borrow ÂŁ50,000,000,000 over the next 396 days. Does Reeves mean an additional ÂŁ50 billion on top of the ÂŁ50 billion we are already lined up for over the next 13 months?
October 25, 2024
Yes.
October 25, 2024
Afraid I do not agree with the Governments terminology.
An investment is usually made to gain a return, in expectation of a profit, will this governments spending plans produce a profit of any sort, or better efficiency, No !
All that ever seems to happen is that we gain more and more public workers, who seem to produce less and less.
Year by year the State seems to grow ever larger and less efficient, at the expense of Private Industry, commerce and the taxpayer.
Government spending is out of control, State employment is out of control, it does not need more money, it needs sensible and strict management by experienced people, the vast majority of politicians are the last people who should be given that task.
Secure Borders, Immigration, NHS, Social care, Probation service, Prisons, Justice system, Universities, Armed forces equipment procurement, road and infrastructure maintenance, all current/past policy failures.
Failures yet to come, Carbon capture, Net Zero, Energy production, GB energy, Water quality and rationing.
October 25, 2024
âMany of these projects can and should be privately financed.â The last thing we need is even to think these require Government, therefore 100% taxpayer funding. Government may need to facilitate the approval, but that should be the end of the Story.
Compare the wish list to similar aspirations on the other side of the pond, in the last week individuals and enterprises alone have started rolling out over 10 new Nuclear Power facilities. That is more than 10 privately financed and run Power Plants for everyoneâs future. Yet as Gordon Brown (Labour) said when he sold Westinghouse,(To pay for his âBlack Holeâ) Nuclear power has no place in the UK
October 25, 2024
All those applauding the RR with French backing SMRs, should not the companies intention is to buy in the tech for these from the former UK Company Westinghouse. We have government that force the taxpayer to pay for things once then pay again, and again to get back and use what they have already paid for.
October 25, 2024
Whenever did labour invest our taxes wisely or create something that became successful?
Apart from their success at ruining the economy at various time, the only positive thing they ever started up was Open University. Something Harold Wilson was proud of because it was the only lasting achievement from his wasted years in #10.
We shouldn’t expect the present labour government to push any investment that will bring us more wealth, far from it. Everything they throw our money at will certainly require more and will never give us a good return.
The list of suggested investments from our host make perfect sense, but not with labour in power for they have no conservative instincts, besides which labour are determined to drain our resources and impoverish us because that is what netzero demands – and who are they to question the globalists.
October 25, 2024
The UK needs to attract more investment that is certain.
What it does not require is the state taking money out of peoples pockets under the taxation laws enabling such theft of our personal wealth. We know from generations and generations of government habits the money they invest goes into the pockets of their own civil servants and Public Sector activities in the form of higher wages and earlier and bigger pensions.
We need government to get out of the way of wealth creation and stop rewarding failures via bailouts paid from our hard earned taxes.
We want the government to stop bailing out wasteful councils up and down the country by giving said councils legal freedoms to charge ever higher council taxes, plus national tax payer provided open borrowing facilities.
We need the government to stop increasing the cost of energy and return the nation to a condition of self sufficiency in energy provision at a much lower cost than the current fleet of ruinable energy ideas being progressed.
October 25, 2024
They won’t be investing. They’ll be doing what Labour always does: borrow, squander and waste ÂŁbillions.
The sectors they intend squandering and wasting ÂŁbillions on will never deliver a profit for the British people or improve their lives.
But since we don’t have a functioning HM Loyal Opposition, and those pretending to be one basically support the same policies, it’s an inevitability that Labour’s economic destruction will be waved through Parliament …. with the likes of CONSocialist Theresa May cheering as her “vision” of economic destruction called Net Zero is imposed by a Government elected with 20% of the available votes.
October 25, 2024
Debt is the ultimate killer.
It is the major reason why financial crashes occur, large and small, basically running out of (other people ‘s) money – where have we heard that before?
Labour’s legacy mess awaits us. Contingent liabilities never mentioned.
Devious and deceitful manipulation of the four letter word D E B T tells us you cannot cope and want to pretend it doesn’t matter. You may dress it up with a new fancy name but it is akin to the proverbial wolf in sheep’s and come back with a vengeance.
Getting IMF approval is a sham and financial markets know it. Groupthink is in full swing.
Ordinary people are taken for fools. Any initiative coming from Labour & Gordon Brown has been doomed : Selling Gold, Favour diesel cars, EV cars, PFI (60years with expensive interest) , Heat pumps new boilers etc and the latest big new idea the real killer DEBT!
Why do they get away with this nonsense BS!
October 25, 2024
We now have a Uniparty PM who is (friendly to . Ed)Communist as evidenced by his becoming secretary of the Haldane Society, which at the time was notorious for being sympathetic to the British Communist Party, and his support for Jeremy Corbyn.
So history will tell us that weâre heading for copying countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Soviet Union/Russia and China etc. and this will be achieved through de-industrialisation causing ruination as well as legislation restricting our freedoms, particularly the freedom of speech.
The UN/WEFâs false CAGW narrative will be employed to force through the economy sabotaging Net Zero Strategy despite âClimate Actionâ being only #13 on the UNâs list of sustainable goals.
Weâve had the âstay at home to save the NHSâ, weâre now going to see the rationing of food, heating, electricity/energy and travel used to âsave the planetâ with plans in place for âcustomer engagementâ and âbehaviour changeâ.
So we can forget the implementation of any of the listed items whilst the Uniparty is in power.
October 25, 2024
The government, if they can be called that, have no idea how markets work. Without those markets, the economy can never grow and debt will rise not fall. To persist with the already failed socialist dogma of the now defunct USSR will end with the same result.
I shall not be surprised to see them produce a dĂ©jĂ vu, much like the old Labour government of the 1970s when we became “The sick man of Europe”.
However, in 2024, the outcome will be worse as I believe Starmer with his huge ill-gotten majority, will force us back into the EU where we will become a lowly vassal state to the Brussels imperialists.
October 25, 2024
The EU is on borrowed time. Itâs the least of our worries, so long as international agreements are seen to be defunct if one of the parties no longer exists. Sadly this is not always the case as a treaty concluded with Yugoslavia was deemed to remain live even after Yugoslavia no longer existed. I canât remember the details, will have to refresh my memory if more details are required.
October 25, 2024
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
â Ronald Reagan
The corollary is that government sponsored investment always has a negative return. We are in a death spiral towards economic collapse.
October 25, 2024
509 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France âŠwith zero returns …..we don’t really deport education/work visa overstayers either
October 25, 2024
@ ÂŁ250k each, how much did Starmer spend yesterday and what size is the âimmigrational black holeâ?
October 26, 2024
That makes a 15 day total – 11/10 to 25/10 inclusive : 2966 people in 53 boats
Little to be heard from our leaders. The pushers though want their sand eels back. Just bring on that dispute settlement mechanism.
October 25, 2024
Examples of state malinvestment:
Building Schools for the Future designs resulted in lower GCSE results by 1-2 grades compared with the old schools they replaced.
Smart motorways are less safe and serve to slow traffic instead of encouraging smooth flow
LTNs add to congestion and pollution in surrounding areas and kill businesses that depend on customers visiting.
Net Zero insulation programmes almost exclusively fail to save enough energy to pay for themselves. Grenfell Towers was a classic example with a theoretical payback period of 200-250 years, way beyond the building life .even absent the fire.
Carbon capture is literally pouring money into a hole in the ground.
October 25, 2024
and smart-meters don’t reduce energy bills
October 25, 2024
Mark :
They know this.
Ottmar edenhofer IPCC co-chair Working Group 3 2008-2015:
âOne has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy, Instead climate change policy is about how we redistribute defacto the worldâs wealth.
Neue Zurcher Zeitung 14/11/2010
October 25, 2024
Modern Monetary theorists say the level of government debt does not really matter so perhaps the fairly modest increases Chancellor Reeves apparently seeks will not be catastrophic although indeed we should hope that whatever is bought will add to the country’s stock of wealth and help boost GDP.
October 25, 2024
đI have tried that argument on my husband, I.e that the hats and shoes I have invested in add to a debt that is of no relevance. Funnily enough he resist the argument and has no appreciation of the value of the investment I have made in hats. Iâm perplexed, he insists that the debt and interest will have to be paid. I have offered to change the way I calculate the debt, I anticipate I can get a further hat or two out of the recalculation.
I think I must have married the wrong man.
October 26, 2024
Brilliant
October 25, 2024
Dear Sir John,
The great fallacy is that public sector investment will be paid for by growth. Most of it merely adds to the already huge tax burden that future generations must pay for embedded government interest payments, occupational pensions, decommissioning, payments to the EU and much else. The cynical hope is that this debt will be eroded by inflation.
Capital spending is not necessarily investment, which can only be justified if it will earn a financial return equal to the long-term rate of interest plus a risk premium (which is much lower for government investment). It may be a good thing to build more prisons, aircraft carriers, schools and hospitals. Bu they are not investment unless they bring cost reductions equivalent in size to the costs of capital.
This kind of capital spending is really lumpy consumption, like a family buying a new car, washing machine or entertainment system. The distinction matters because the UK’s biggest economic issue is that we perennially spend more than we earn, consume more than we produce, and therefore do not save anything like enough to raise living standards much. Government “investment” that does not pay for itself in direct financial terms makes things worse and reduces potential living standards.
October 29, 2024
When you make lists it ends up with the government picking winners, which is always bad. Instead lets free up the markets, ensure good returns for long term investments in a stable environment and encourage collaboration in pre-competitive research and development, competition in innovation to bring new products to the market and free markets to make their own choices. There is also a valid case to protect some innovations in UK to nurture new technologies until they are commercially viable in products. Likewise don’t protect companies/industries that are not strategically important to UK and are not internationally competitive.
Above all invest in training Brits in the skills industry needs instead of importing cheaper labour from abroad.
it’s all text book bog standard stuff. But it ain’t socialism so Starmer’s socialists and many Tories won’t do it.
October 29, 2024
PS And remove regulatory barriers – both UK domestic and REUL. the bonfire of EU regs was just a stunt. It failed to prioritise the actual barriers experienced by industry.