The National Wealth Fund has taken over the U.K. Infrastructure Bank, set up by the previous government. The new government is adding Ā£5.8 bn in current plans to the Ā£22 bn of inherited investment potential in the Infrastructure Bank and widening its remit and powers a bit. The Infrastructure Ā Bank lost Ā£22 m in its last reported year, 2022-23.
The idea is to finance projects and ideas the private sector is nervous about, and to crowd in private finance to projects by putting up some of the capital or offering guarantees. Taxpayers should expect returns from these investments at a minimum to cover the taxpayer costs of borrowing all the money to put up the capital. Let us call that 4.5%. It would also be good to provide for capital repayment at say 3% a year. A private investor would clearly Ā expect Ā a risk or equity addition to the return, say at least 5%. That takes the total to 12.5%.
It seems unlikely the National Wealth Fund will aim for this. They may well be satisfied with a low single figure return, and may at least in early years run with more losses. They need to guard against being seen as the Ā last resort for high risk projects the private sector thinks will go under or as a first resort for a potential private sector consortium that sees the Fund as capable of absorbing risk through guarantees or high risk debt tranches which gives the private investors a less risky ride.
The state borrowing at 4.5% to invest in projects should ensure that the overall portfolio can avoid losses and pay for the borrowings.
November 2, 2024
ā Will the National Wealth Fund make a profit?ā
No. If the private sector is ānervousā about the projects the fund finances they are probably risky.
The sort of people the fund will employ will not be capable of dealing with such risk (the usual assortment of overpaid cronies). Itās not their money anyway.
So it will inevitably be susceptible to hare-brained schemes from chancers who make money pulling the wool over peopleās eyes – harnessing energy from the power of tides etc, etc.
November 2, 2024
Agreed. I think I heard Reeves say, in her budget speech, that she expected it to earn 4.5%return. It has no hope of doing so.
November 2, 2024
Spot on Peter. If the private sector is nervous it will finance a project but on more expensive terms. The NWF should be pricing investment based on the same criteria. It won’t.
We can see how good the private sector is at assessing risk by looking at UK gilt yields. One budget in and risk is judged to have increased markedly.
November 2, 2024
Also of interest:Indiatoday.in,30/10/24:”RBI(Reserve Bank of India) brings home 102 tonnes of gold from the Bank of England on Dhanteres*.”
“The RBI recently relocated 102 tonnes of gold from the BoE’s vaults to secure facilities within India.It now holds 855 tonnes in reserves….a total of 214 tonnes have been relocated since September 2022…one of the largest gold relocations since the 1990s…this shift aligns with rising geopolitical risk and the government’s goal of enhancing security by managing assets domestically…..”
Smart move;no-one,certainly not a BRICS or BRICS-aligned country, should allow the utterly compromised BoE to hold their assets.
(*a date in the Hindu calendar,I believe)
November 2, 2024
Please see my post below, should our kind host wish to post it. In fairness it is important to look at the people involved and their history.
Again, I make no judgement on those mentioned.
November 2, 2024
Even people with good records in the private sector often fail once in the state sector as it is not their money they are spending or they who get the benefits or are rewarded based on success. The project are usually selected to buy votes in certain areas (the Humber Bridge, HS2ā¦), for mad political/religious reasons like net zero, corruption/crony capitalismā¦
When circa 95% of MPs support the lunacy of Net Zero and perhaps 80% have little or no maths, science past 16, or business experience – you have a problem.
It seems Starmer is now virtually taking orders from the deluded Chris Packham. He has settled his legal case over axing of green policy. The axing of Net Zero (nothing green about a war on CO2) is exactly what is needed.
November 2, 2024
Someone (or a smaller businesses) borrowing for business or property development from a bank is likely to pay something like 9%, 4% over base plus in and out fees of perhaps 2% and legal costs. So they need profits well in excess of this circa 10% level to cover them. If you rent out property you do not even get proper tax relief so you need far more than that.
The logic of having IHT for some but not for others like government or our King of Deluded Climate Hypocrisy is that after a few generation everything will end up in the hands of the ones who pay no IHT people. At 20% or 40% this does not even take that long.
Income tax, NI employer and employee are all taxes on transfer of money from a business to an employee. Spit into three levels to disguise how high the taxes are. On top of this we have enforced workplace pension deductions too. They can easily take about 60% of your income if on higher rate taxes, then they take council tax and commuting to work costs off you and when you spend it another 1/6 is VAT if on petrol 60% is tax. They are only split into three so it looks less bad and to push up tax complexity another tax in itself you have to pay for payroll services on top.
Reeves promised not to increase NI but has done so. For one of my businesses the wage bill increase with the minimum wage increases and maintaining differentials plus the NI changes mean it would have to increase prices by about 8% to balance the books (will customer pay this?) plus my component suppliers and delivery people will be in a similar position. So if they do that my position will be even worse still. This budget will not work it will destroy the tax base and collect less tax over a few years in the end.
November 2, 2024
It will also push up inflation and interest rates, make many leave the country or not bother to work so hard, or to go black market with bartering, cash in hand and living off benefits. The first female Chancellor and perhaps the worst and the most dishonest budget ever – even given the stiff competition. This budget and net zero are an appalling combination – total insanity.
So Leonardo DiCaprio Endorses Kamala Harris and Bashes Trump for Ignoring Climate Change: āHe Continues to Deny the Scienceā asked about his recent flight he say he flew commercial – so that is OK then. First class causes up to three times as much CO2 per head so did he even fly economy? Or like Emma Thompsonās hypocrisy was it first class?
Actress Dame Emma Thompson has been defending her decision to fly from the US to attend a climate change protest in central London. Well dear try economy for a change that saves at least half the fuel per head and you are not that big so would fit in quite easily. Or go first class and shut up perhaps?
November 2, 2024
Lifelogic: ‘First class causes up to three times as much CO2 per head’. Where on earth did you get that idea? I got my Pilots Licence 66 years ago flying biplanes. Last September, for my Bucket List, I flew Round the World Business class, to see what it was like.
Where you sit in a plane, First or Economy, makes no difference at all the the CO2 footprint. If the whole aircraft was filled with First Classers, the slight increase in weight due to needing more in-flight staff and using better kit, such as real china plates and cups and bottles of champers, might just influence the amount of fuel burnt, but that’s all. If the plane is flying scheduled and half-empty, THAT reduces its carbon footprint. But it’s going to fly anyway, or its follow-on flight will be compromised.
November 2, 2024
Second thoughts on my post above: If the aircraft was filled with First Class fliers, they would expect far more space, so there would be a lot fewer of them. This would actually DECREASE the weight carried and hence the Carbon Footprint.
November 2, 2024
But the carbon footprint would be divided between fewer people, therefore the carbon footprint of each would be greater.
We are not discussing the footprint of the plane but of each individual on it.
November 2, 2024
Lynn
Exactly, just like a near empty bus or train, the fewer passengers the more emissions per passenger. Less weight bit only a marginal difference compared to the whole.
November 2, 2024
Well surely this is fairly obvious? They take up more room so if all first class the plane might take 100 rather than 300 for a similar amount of fuel. True it would prob. be a bit lighter but the seating would be heavier, the food wines, more staff, more luggage too perhapsā¦
November 2, 2024
As for private jets these are much worse still.
November 2, 2024
Helicopters (medium size) for say 8 passengers do perhaps 1 or 2 MPG. Though King Charles seems to now claim he generally uses sustainable aviation fuel (not cheese and wine waste like his hungry Aston Martin.
Sustainable fuel is far more expensive, uses load of energy to manufacture and not really sustainable in any real sense but it helps some people feel less hypocritical perhaps.
November 2, 2024
Why are you all going on about “carbon Footprints” when its a scam
I thought more intelligent people commented on this Diary, but is seems I am wrong
November 3, 2024
It is indeed a scam but it exposes the absurd hypocrisy of the ādo as I say not as I doā types like Emma Thompson, King Charles, DiCaprio, Sunak, Starmer, Prince William, Harry, Meganā¦types.
November 2, 2024
LL
There TWO NIC’s. The one ‘I think’ she promised to NOT raise was personal. I do not believe she ever meant employers.
ENIC Is a tax on jobs – first coined here on this website and kindly taken up by our kind host.
November 2, 2024
She said āNational Insuranceā so this was a blatant lie as they are both called National Insurance. And anyway they are essentially the same tax NI (both) and income tax – all have the same effect. Taxing transfers from a company to an employee. One is paid by the company & so if increased they can then pay and invest less. It really makes little difference in the end as wage levels just adjust. Income tax, NI (both types) are all a tax on jobs all the same really. Increasing the minimum wage also kills jobs.
November 2, 2024
Are employers not workers? In my experience they work harder than anyone else in the business. Remember their salary is what is left of the income after everything has been paid, so having to pay higher employers NI reduces their income.
This is too hard for the BOE employees and ex-employees to understand as their salary, as functionaries, takes priority even if it leaves the enterprise in Ā£220 billion debt, like the BOE as JR pointed out.
November 3, 2024
Landlords too work, just as people who rent out hotel rooms or cars do.
November 2, 2024
The differential is the wage that dare not speak it’s name.
Soon it will be better to stack the shelves for Ā£1 an hour less than your manager who has to worry about the job after hours.
November 2, 2024
The combination of tax and loss of benefits means it is rather hard to get people to work overtime. You pay them say Ā£200 for a Saturday shift, but net they keep perhaps just Ā£40 less commuting costs. Far better for them to help a mate for cash, or do some DIY on their house or car, or shop more efficiently.
November 2, 2024
Often that is the case my sister was a head teacher at one point but went back to being just a head of department as the endless hassle was not worth it.
November 2, 2024
I very much doubt it. It will be down to the financial judgement of those running it and givernment pressure, neither of which bode well.
November 2, 2024
Exactly, thus it will lose even more than at present.
Amazing that politicians with absolutely no business, commercial, financial, or management experience, think they can actually judge what may be a good investment, when many cannot even understand the effect of taxation, let alone human nature.
November 2, 2024
I used to go into a British Leyland factory in the West Midlands in the mid 1970’s. As the ‘new’ guy, I was the hapless engineer who got assigned to the account (which caused the other engineers much amusement). The whole place was run by the unions. I couldn’t drive my car (a Ford) into the plant in case it was vandalised, so my equipment had to lugged from the outside car park into the plant, sometimes requiring several trips and much grunting on my part.
As they used ‘special’ BL plugs & sockets on everything, I then had to wait for the Electrician to arrive and change my 13A plugs over, as I was not a union member and doing it myself would have “blacked” the system. In practice he sat and watched his apprentice do it. This happened again all over in reverse when I’d finished my work. Even the smallest job took several hours. Often this work involved faults that were clearly deliberately caused by workers who had an agreed flat rate when the system was “down”. I’d inform BL management but nothing ever happened. I thought (I’d hoped) that we had left all this nonsense behind us but I’m afraid this is where we are heading back to.
The Soviet Union of Great Britain here we come…
November 2, 2024
Ah yes Red Robbo in charge during those days, only when Edwards came in was there an attitude by management to actually try and change things.
November 2, 2024
British Leyland – that rings a bell! Same fairy story as ICL, Coal, Steel etc.
November 2, 2024
I once went into Longbridge with the CEOs of two of the largest japanese manufacturers of engine componentsin the World. The place was satanic, the workforce (exageration) on strike. The japanese were not impressed. The directors of Longbridge thought they were the bees knees, their demise was inevitable. Based on what we saw we did not pursue the relationship. It was the pattern for a large slice of UK industry until ISO 9000 and QS9000 came along. Now we have the great destroyers back in charge. It does not bode well.
November 2, 2024
If the private sector is nervous of such projects then we can be sure they will turn out to be white elephants.
No one in government has ever tun a business so what makes them think they will be successful. Of course itsnot their money they’re risking so they won’t care.
What’s the betting it’s spent on carbon capture or similar vanity projects which will do nothing to help the planet, just virtue signalling from the government.
I see Packham is suingthe government for not bankrupting us quickj enough. A thoroughly unpleasant character no doubt part funded by the Brussels Broadcasting Company.
November 2, 2024
The BBC have been hugely pushing the flooding in spain as being caused by climate change. If anyone really thinks the best way to stop floods (or forest fires) in Spain or anywhere is to reduce CO2 and wait for say 100 years to see if this works then they are clearly complete idiots. We have had such flooding and extreme weather events for billions of years. Adaptation, flood plains, forest management and better warning systems is what is needed.
November 2, 2024
The BBC also blaming CO2 and āclimate changeā for the ālackā of precipitation on Mount Fuji so far this year.
āMount Fuji remains snowless for longer than ever beforeā
November 2, 2024
And we never hear how much the tragedy is made far far worse by modern development. Years ago some of the water could have absorbed into the even dry natural land. Much of the surplus would have been diverted into areas where it might collect. But now with enormous areas concreted, where does it go but down the concrete routes, into town and houses. So the problem is not proven to be worse than before. The ‘climate’ ideologists won’t allow this and of course are never challenged by the media, and questioners are not given airtime.
November 2, 2024
Clerical assistant Rachel Reeves knows wot’s wot! the investments will be directed towards political objectives and the government picking winners.
Thought I’d take a look at Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, now called the Government Pension Fund Global. Funds came from North Sea oil and gas. UK will borrow instead because it has no money and refuses to use its natural resources. The Norwegian fund started in 1996 and by 2019 was worth more than 10,000bn Kroner, and by 2023 it was worth 15,000 bn Kroner. Average return 6.3%. It is invested in 70 countries (none in Norway), 72% in equities, 26.1% fixed income, 1.7% real estate, 0.1% renewable energy, including 37.5% of UK’s Race Bank Wind Farm. It operates under ethical constraints and has no investments in coal or coal based energy (Norway’s power is mostly hydro), nuclear weapons, tobacco, cannabis, organisations that emit unacceptable greenhouse gas emmissions, etc
UK’s fund is very different.It is jjust a financing mechanism for infrasruture projects only in UK and is basically an extension of PFI which enabled government to borrow off the books. It is used only for government (local or central) projects and has a heavy emphasis on renewable energy. Fossil fuel projects, apart from the likes of carbon capture, are excluded. No ethical constraints like those of Norway’s fund.
November 2, 2024
Some long time ago I suggested we ought to have a Sovereign Fund, primed with a sum equal to what we saved by leaving the EU. I think that was Ā£12bn pa. I’ve forgotten when we stopped paying, but it may be by now we would have about Ā£75bn. Sadly Mr Redwood thought spending the money woud be better than saving it, but where has it been spent? What have we got now that we would not have had?
November 2, 2024
Well paid bureaucrats with gold plated pensions working with one-term politicians to “invest” someone else’s money on schemes the private sector won’t touch.
What could possibly go wrong?
A sound use of my taxes and method to increase debt. Let’s start with HS3, a high speed train link from Torquay to Aberystwyth! A 30 mile bridge across the Bristol Channel and a 40 mile tunnel under the Brecon Beacons should do it.! Solar panels on the carriage roofs, etc.
November 2, 2024
Millions of students (many of who got 2Ds at A levels (or worse) getting into Ā£60k of student debt for a worthless degree in say Gender, Media and Grievance studies or similar at the ex-polytechnic of Bogner.
November 2, 2024
whom!
November 2, 2024
This isnāt like Norwayās Sovereign wealth fund which is built on accumulated income from hydrocarbons. It is just money switched from one trouser pocket to another and rebranded. Pointless.
November 2, 2024
Worse than pointless actually wasteful and damaging. Over paid ājobsā for mates.
November 2, 2024
Good morning.
Yet another SCAM !! Why ? Let me explain.
And probably with good reason. Let us take a possible example – carbon capture. Anyone think this is a good idea ? Does anyone expet a return on any ‘investment’ ? No ! And so too with anything that may come under this bottomless pit of stupidity of a National Wealth Fund.
And to round things off, I thought I might pop over to their website and have a look at some of the people who are running this. NB These are snippets I have taken and not the full list, so to get a full picture I suggest others might want to take a further look. All in the interests of fairness.
I will leave readers to consider the above for themselves. I make no judgement on the people mentioned. But I think it important that we are aware of some of the people involved in what is said to be highly risky ‘investment’ which the UK Taxpayer is footing the bill.
Oh and another thing. Whilst I believe that the UK Taxpayer will cover any losses, I do not believe that taxpayers will recieve any profits. Those will be consumed by the State.
November 2, 2024
NB The bit in blocquotes from “The Private Sector is the ideal place . . . ” are my words and not of anyone else. Apologies for any confusion. It should noy have been included.
November 2, 2024
Although I agree with eveything said, I just doubt the govnt is fully assessing opportunity cost nor performing accurate risk assessments either.
For example if we have a required rate of return of 12.5% then any project yielding > 12.5% should be considered / accepted. As suggested, it will cover the principal and interest repayments and the profit.
But how does that compare to doing something entirely different with this outlay instead eg corporation tax cuts? Would the transmission of corporation tax cuts transmit to more private investment, more company profits and, by consequence, more HMT tax receipt >12.5%?
Also would it encourage more companies to relocate to the UK further enlarging the tax receipt for HMT too?
There is no risk incurred with corporation tax cuts either unlike the risk incurred with any big projects. Govnt has made many big project mistakes in the past eg the recent GBP 2bn HS2 cancellation. With hindsight, I bet we wished we had diverted that GBP 2bn to corporation tax cuts.
I think govnt should always perform thorough risk assessments and explore all the alternatives. In my opinion, if the projects pass these tests then they should be accepted.
November 2, 2024
No doubt this quango will be stuffed full of labours friends who will have little idea about what investment means.
Let’s not expect anything good – labour have yet to prove they can get anything right.
November 2, 2024
Off topic, our local paper has run my letter on the plan to appeal to the ECHR over VAT on private school fees:
“In my view it would be wrong in both principle and practice to impose VAT on private school fees, but opponents of that stupid spiteful policy would certainly lose my sympathy if they turned to a foreign court in an attempt to overturn a decision made by our sovereign national Parliament.
Once again I recall something that the arch-Tory Norman Tebbit said at a public meeting some years ago: āIf the British people vote for socialism, they should get socialismā, without any foreign body – the EU, or the ECHR, or the UN, interfering to prevent them getting what they voted for.
For the avoidance of doubt, it is Parliament which is the supreme legal authority for the UK, not the UK government which must obey the law as laid down by Parliament. But no doubt if the government persists with this policy then it will use its massive majority to see it enacted into law.”
Looking up past exchanges on the Act in Restraint of Appeals I find that a year has gone by with no action:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/11/22/new-publication-recommends-the-uk-withdraws-from-the-european-convention-on-human-rights/#comment-1420800
November 2, 2024
I wonder if they would think it such a good idea if their pensions were invested in it.
November 2, 2024
That should be a mandatory principle. Think of the funds it would release for āinvestmentā?
November 2, 2024
There is literally no limit to what ātheyā will take our money off us for – public āservicesā, grand houses like Chequers and Chevening, risky investments, overseas aid, putting illegal entrants to the country in hotels, gold plated pensions- the list goes on and on and on. Itās no wonder there is no money for Winter Fuel for hard up pensioners who have paid so much tax they didnāt have any money left to save for retirement.
November 2, 2024
So in a ‘nutshell’ the Taxpayer will by Law forced to borrow money, then forced to pay the interest on the debt so as to make some ‘numpty’ fell good about themselves.
An investment that cant pay it own way is not an investment, that just throwing money away.
My usual grip, how much of this money will be used to export UK Wealth, the UK Taxpayer funding foreign domains. Taxpayer money like this should trickle down, go around, nurture the economy, then come back in spades – sending it abroad as the likes of red Ed is does with the money he steals from us is just exporting our future.
November 2, 2024
When will what is becoming the unaccountable Political Class start to remember it is NOT their money they are throwing away – it is OURS. There needs to be functioning democratic Political Control everywhere the Taxpayers money goes, full accountability, full responsibility. Then we might just start to see the State get to grips with expenditure, the spending of OUR money
November 2, 2024
We now have an unaccountable chairman of the Office for Value for Money. A brief review of his history shows he has multiple similar positions all funded by the Taxpayer all becoming failures in their own right.
On the face of it unaccountability to the Taxpayer, is ‘Jobs for the Boys’ massive paying jobs without a track record of responsibility or delivery.
November 2, 2024
Yes, compare to the US, where if Trump does get elected, Elon Musk will be given the task of cutting waste like this. He thinks at least 2 trillion dollars can be cut. And Milei in Argentina…
November 2, 2024
Labour are making it so economically unattractive for the private sector to do ANY projects that maybe there will be a few low-risk ones this fund can pick up. I would still expect them to make a loss on those.
OAM I see the OBR have said the recent budget will result in additional growth in 2070. What superb models they must have to be able to predict economic conditions 50 years ahead.
November 2, 2024
Czechia is taking a share in Rolls Royce and pressing ahead with SMRs while also ordering the much simpler and cheaper large reactors from Korean KEPCO. Their nukes were built in 7 years in the UAE and provide a large proportion of their future energy. The UK is still going for the EDF European Pressurised Reactors which are already delayed and masivover budget.. Czech nukes already provide 33% of their electricity already.
They seem to have politicians and civil servants who can work out that intermittent wind and solar are not going to work. They even have an expanding car industry. They use government investment sensibly. Maybe we should ask them to manage the UK for us.
November 2, 2024
Stred :
Agreed.
November 2, 2024
Indeed, bound to be better than any government we have suffered under from Wilson/Heath to Sunak & Starmer which have all been appalling other than the partial exception of Thatcher. But even she fell for Climate Alarmism at one point and she appointed John ERM Major who even failed his math O-level (and most of the others) as Chancellor!
November 2, 2024
As a newbie here, I posted this much earlier this morning, but directly under an early Lifelogic post, as I do on another blogsite. But as it’s still “awaiting moderation”, something must be wrong, so I repeat it here below all other posts and under a different email address (perhaps now in the proper place?). I’ll understand if it’s too long.
Lifelogic: āFirst class causes up to three times as much CO2 per headā. Where on earth did you get that idea? I got my Pilots Licence 66 years ago flying biplanes. Last September, for my Bucket List, I flew Round the World Business class, to see what it was like.
Where you sit in a plane, First or Economy, makes no difference at all the the CO2 footprint. If the whole aircraft was filled with First Classers, the slight increase in weight due to needing more in-flight staff and using better kit, such as real china plates and cups and bottles of champers, might just influence the amount of fuel burnt, but thatās all. If the plane is flying scheduled and half-empty, THAT reduces its carbon footprint. But itās going to fly anyway, or its follow-on flight will be compromised.
On second thoughts: If the aircraft was filled with First Class fliers, they would expect far more space, so there would be a lot fewer of them. This would actually DECREASE the weight carried and hence the Carbon Footprint.
November 2, 2024
āWill the National Wealth Fund make a profit?ā
Of course not, it is not even intended to make a profit. Communist sympathisers name government departments, institutions, ācharitiesā etc. with names that are in contradiction to their real objectives, such as the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.
It will be used to destroy wealth by spending money on unworkable and unsustainable Net Zero schemes like carbon capture and hydrogen.
This oxymoronic naming extends to the names of Communist sympathising political parties and all those countries with āDemocraticā in their name.
November 2, 2024
Badenoch elected the new tory leader …..just another step to the left, the uni party wins
November 2, 2024
I see the countries borrowing cost has gone up since the Chancellors Budget
November 2, 2024
How do you find that out?
November 2, 2024
10 year gilts for example.
November 2, 2024
Will Kemi save the conservatives & lead an effective opposition ?
November 2, 2024
š you should be on the stage!
November 2, 2024
I see the Parliamentary petitions website has finally sputtered into action rather unannounced, with half a dozen listed so far, including the most popular so far asking to rejoin the EU – doubtless organised by a campaign group tipped off about the re-launch.
Reviewing petitions under the last government, the most popular was started by the footballer Rashford calling for an end to child food poverty. The recent actions of the new government against agriculture will surely increase it.
The second most popular petition, started shortly after Boris resigned, was
Call an immediate general election to end the chaos of the current government
I suspect were it to be started for the current government it might break the all time record for signatures.
November 2, 2024
The new National Wealth Fund will never make a profit and simply waste more taxpayers’ money. If they can’t see that cheap, reliable energy is the key to a prosperous modern economy, then they have no chance of picking winners.
Let’s hope that Kemi Badenock grows into the job and has the clarity of vision to show the utter nonsense that Labour offers the UK. Also, the ruthlessness to tackle government spending and shut down most of the quangos drains money from UK taxpayers. How much will it be in 2028/9 I shudder to think. By then, the UK will be bankrupt and in survival mode, so people will accept drastic action.
November 2, 2024
KfL :
Kemi Badenoch supports Net Zero.
November 2, 2024
Badenoch must be employed by Gates and co then. We are shafted both ways then!
November 2, 2024
No doubt the new tory parliamentary party will vote ‘with’ the labour government on all things net-zero
November 2, 2024
The so-called ‘national wealth fund’ is so tiny in relation to the size of the economy that it should rather be called ‘the national pin money fund’. It accordingly could not even if successful actually create meaningful wealth though more realistically its losses won’t be enormous either in relation to the size of the economy.
Starmer and Labour seem already to have given up on the notion they campaigned on before the election that growing the economy is an essential underpinning to spending more on public services. Instead contrary to what they said at the election they have decided to undermine economic growth by taxing and regulating business more and increase the size of the public sector at ordinary people’s expense (via the higher prices that will result) by taxing more.
November 2, 2024
245 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France ā¦.it never stops
November 2, 2024
Letās hope she has the luck apparent in her family. They had no idea that rushing to the UK to give birth would award British citizenship to the baby! So fortunate because she chose the UK to come to when she left Nigeria, sheer luck that it was the country in which she had citizenship rights.
Perhaps a vision and ability will accost her on the way to the Leader of the Oppositions Office, and maybe there will even remain a few members to cheer at the conference (no wide angled shots).
November 3, 2024
Tut tut Lynn. You’re supposed to celebrate the fact that the Not-a-Conservative Party now has a black Nigerian woman as Leader. Or aren’t you convinced that “diversity is a strength” after the last Premiership?
November 2, 2024
The MsM is reporting –
Britain importing record amounts of electricity from Europe. The UK warned its growing dependence on imports leaves it at risk of outages. Government almost religious policy is to send UK Money, its wealth to prop up Foreign Governments by buying in overpriced energy. Which is criminal when remembered we have more than enough capability and resources to support ourselves and at a lower cost.
The Labour Party Budget took it upon its self to vindictively and maliciously to punish UK Farming the people we need to keep food on our tables. The Labour Government keeping up with the Socialist WEF diktats that were followed by the previous administration wants to see the UK and its people, in poverty with the begging bowl out rather than being resilient and capable. Some try to suggest that why support farming while they get taxpayer handouts, conveniently forgetting we only subsidies farming as a result of the EUās policy of weaponizing its exports by the use of CAP. Remove the EU CAP, then the rest of the World can breathe. Producing our own food secures our and our kids future, importing it induces more poverty.
November 2, 2024
It might seem churlish while the Conservative Party now find themselves in a position to pat themselves on the back in having a leader ā but all the candidates, thatās all the candidates were part of the problem. They were all part of the collective responsibility that pulled this Country apart, that impoverished the Country with a policy of Import Only, send as much UK Taxpayer Money abroad as possible, while taxing and borrowing that has only just been bettered in recent weeks. The Conservative Parliamentary Group donāt get it they lost (Labour didnāt win) because of their Liberal Democratic views of policies, a quiet life and continuity.
Parliament is in a mess, the quality of those in the HoC and HoL is embarrassing we have never had such a collection of anti UK, no, UK haters in power as we today.
The UK is a One Party State, so why do we have elections?
November 2, 2024
Why make such a fuss about Badenoch she’s only there until the next time
November 3, 2024
Very interesting post and comments. There seems to be a general consensus : involve the private sector and kiss the money goodbye.
How to best generate returns of the absolute minimum of 12.5%? Perhaps one strategy could be investment directly into developing technical innovations, the acquisition and retention of intellectual property, and the licensing thereof?
I would entrust that task to the military. Their capabilities and infrastructure are already in place…
November 3, 2024
Just like the magnetron, developed by military ingenuity during WW2 for radar. Better methods for radar were found, but microwave ovens proved a commercial success, and still are!…
November 3, 2024
The idea of a UK national wealth fund, is like a beggar setting up a trust. The costs are real, but the assets and returns illusory.
November 4, 2024
Morons commenting here cannot even read with understanding. Taken out of his rear 12.5% is not entirely a ‘gain’ in the first place given is inclusive of the repayment of capital, right?
November 4, 2024
Usual unpleasantness from some. Please try not to lower the tone?…
November 4, 2024
I would disagree, if I may. The question is how you spend the money, what you get for it, how much that could be worth, and how to prevent the selling off to the highest foreign bidder.
And who are you calling a beggar?