At the age of 21 I won two elections that changed my life. In the autumn I was elected to a fellowship of All Souls Ā College by examination. In the following spring I was elected as an Oxfordshire County Councillor in the newly enlarged Ā County incorporating Oxford City and a part of Berkshire.
At All Souls I met Sir Keith Joseph, a Distinguished fellow of the College and a Cabinet Minister. I predicted the Heath defeat, being an opponent of the Price and Incomes Policy he brought in and appreciating the difficulty of refusing the miners better pay when inflation and energy prices were surging. After the defeat Keith helped Margaret become leader Ā and suddenly became interested in my views, recognising I had been uncomfortable with the Heath u turn from a free enterprise Manifesto to Ā the intense failing detailed Ā interventions he made in the economy.
Keith was put in charge of the policy rethink. He made me adviser to the review on public spending and the economy. Margaret and Keith knew Labour was overspending badly and thought it would prove unsustainable.They did not have to wait long as 1976 Ā saw the need for an IMF bail out and spending cuts. The Ā Shadow Cabinet and Policy review Ā had been running shadow budgets Ā just in case the Ā government collapsed. They told the public they would spend less but kept the detail private.
I advised them not to cut NHS and education but to save billions by changing management and targets of the nationalised industries and selling many of them. To be continued.
November 5, 2024
Good morning.
The late great, Sir Keith Joseph. One of the architects of what would later become known as, Thatcherism.
I remember that it was he who would openly debate with those that opposed his views. A true ‘conviction’ politicians. Sadly, an all but extinct breed.
The problem with being an oppostion party as our kind host alluded to, is that you must try and convince the electorate that, not only are you different, but better than the current government administration. You must try to win people over to your side with a positive and constructive policies. But they cannot be too detailed as you cannot afford to have your opponents eiter copy you or pick them apart. Just enough ankle must be show to keep interest š
Today we have politicians who will say anything and mean to do nothing. Liars, grifters and spivs ! They recognise power, but cannot see the importance of trust.
November 5, 2024
Generally it is difficult for the Opposition to produce detailed policy for three main reasons:
1) the Opposition does not have access to all the detailed information available to the Government through the Civil Service and government agencies; it must argue mainly on principle and foreseeable implications and risks given what is published in bills, reports of studies and white papers.
2) the Government can invoke secrecy or confidentiality on grounds of security or commercial interest (genuinely or otherwise) which denies information to the opposition and to the public.
3) although the opposition can constructively criticise in detail the government in Parliament and the media for what it is doing or proposing to do – dealing with the current issues, an agenda largely set by the government and current events – it is difficult and best not to be very detailed on policies that cannot be introduced for some years, until when the circumstances in which it would operate are unknown.
November 5, 2024
1 Jun 2022 ā There was a top rate of income tax of 83%, and a top rate on earned and ‘unearned’ income together as high as 98%. What could go wrong? But we have over 100% income tax rates in some areas now. CGT without indexation and some landlords for example. Plus pure theft at 40% with IHT.
Keith said his overnight conversion to free-market, small-government policies “had the force of a religious conversion”. In 1975, he said: It was only in April 1974 that I was converted to Conservatism. (I had thought I was a Conservative but I now see that I was not really one at all.)
Alas almost no one in parliament is free market now is Kemi free market small government I am not sure. They currently rig nearly all the markets in absurd ways (both 14 years of the fake Tories and now Labour and it is getting worse by the day. Energy, Net Zero, Schools, Universities, Transport, Cars, Roads, Healthcare, farming, employment…
November 5, 2024
Housing, finance, banking, pensionsā¦
November 5, 2024
April 74 is when Joseph encountered Sherman.
November 5, 2024
See the “Sir Keith Joseph and the Market Economy – Professor Vernon Bogdanor” video. Not that I am a great fan of Bogdanor.
The problem with being an opposition party as our kind host alluded to, is that you must try and convince the electorate that, not only are you different, but better than the current government administration.
Should not be hard given this one. But was have had 14 years of lies and fraud against the voters from the Tories why trust anything they say?
November 5, 2024
Well over 80% of the current Tory MPs are not remotely Conservative. Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak are and were not remotely Conservative.
We need far lower taxes, far less government, far less red tape, no net zero, easy hire and fire, no ECHR, sensible immigration level about 10% of the current ones and free and fair markets. How many Conservative MP ever want this? Jenrick almost said he did, but was his Damascene conversion remotely genuine given his history. Even if it were – the party is not remotely behind these policies. A Reform seat deal is needed before the next election to have any chance of sensible policies.
November 5, 2024
@Lifelogic – we mustn’t forget the last administration didn’t lose the election because of a strong opposition, the opposition was rubbish. The last election was lost on lies and broken promises.
The same ones that lost, had collective responsibility for the loss still don’t get it they lost have opted to ensure continuity of the failure, by selecting more of the same. They believe in the EU, the one in charge of policy wants back in. They believe a foreign laws and courts are superior to the UK’s legislators. They have kept foreign Laws as the UK Parliament in their eyes isn’t a fit place to create our own. Then to rub it in just as with Starmer and his crew the are disciples of Davos, the Socialist WEF.
I would suggest @LL and today being the 5th has reminded us – we need to start over, become a democracy, as we are a long way from it at the moment.
November 5, 2024
Indeed a vote every four years or so for representatives who lie to get elected (this under distorting first past the post) then do almost the complete reverse once elected is nothing like a democracy. We need far more people power with many meaningful referenda that can be demanded regularly.
November 5, 2024
John today wind is supplying 0.96gw or 1.3% of electricity. Gas and nuclear are generating 78% of demand. Can’t any of your contacts point this out to the idiot in government.
Reply I and they do
November 5, 2024
If we can pay windfarms not to produce when they generate too much, can’t we penalise them when they don’t produce and they generate not enough?
November 5, 2024
‘We can’t get the windmills to turn when the wind doesn’t blow’ seems a reasonable defence?
November 5, 2024
@Ian wragg
Grow the economy
From the MsM
āMillions more households could be asked to regularly switch off light and appliances under Ed Milibandās plan for a clean power grid by 2030, an official review has found.ā
āIn practice, this means convincing larger numbers of households and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity consumption during low-wind periods or times when the grid is otherwise constrained ā either through higher prices or by paying them incentives.ā
Will we get to 2030
November 5, 2024
To reach Mr Milibandās target, the amount of flexibility must rise from 2.5 gigawatts today to at least 10.4 gigawatts ā implying that millions more will need to sign up.
November 5, 2024
To Reply – but the policy under Cameron, Net Zero May, Boris & wife and Sunak was essentially just the same Net Zero, pro renewable lunacy. May’s Net Zero bill just waved through, Ed Milibrain’s Climate Change Act had only a tiny handful who did not vote for this insanity including JR.
What is wrong with nearly all our idiotic MPs?
So Kemi makes Neil O’Brien, OBE MP Shadow Minister for Education!
This the man who during Covid was unpleasantly and wrongly attacking endless sound scientists like the Barrington Declaration ones for telling the truth about Covid and was pushing lies about the Covid Vaccines, Masks, Lockdowns and much else (this as Handcocks henchman). Will he be pushing other misinformation in our schools if he get into power?
The man (PPE Oxon yet again) is certainly not a fan for free speech, honest debate or the truth. He has however belatedly come round to realising that our energy policy is mad and mas low skilled immigration lowers living standard hugely.
Both have been very obvious to sensible people for at least 20 years. Does O’Neil now accept that the Barrington Declaration, people were largely quite right, lock-downs did huge net harms as did the dangerous and ineffective Covid vaccines. Pushed by the compromised MHRA and duff government “experts”.
November 5, 2024
Plus the burning of young coal – processed US forests to wood pellets imported on diesel ships amd trucks. An insane policy which make no sense in economic, environmental and not even CO2 terms.
November 5, 2024
My father received a letter from his energy provider telling him to prepare for power cuts. He showed me his new battery lamp and his stock of water and asked for a fleece blanket for my mother for Christmas. He was worried about the food in his freezer. I thought he was being a little overdramatic, but when I looked up online it seems a lot of networks are saying “we do our upmost to prepare you for a power cut”!
November 5, 2024
IW :
Of course “the idiot in government” knows this. The people who need to learn about it are the BBC viewers and Guardian readers.
November 5, 2024
Hammer, nail , hit.
November 5, 2024
To supplement my generator, or, indeed, instead of, initially, I have just installed a fairly sizeable leisure battery in my garage. It is wired to a changeover switch via a 1500 watt inverter. If I run ā¦ central heating (gas boiler), router, TV and a few lights ā¦ consumption is about 250 watts. Works like a charm – power goes out, switch the inverter on, throw the changeover switch, and I have heat, light and internet. Cooking will be in a camping stove (I have an induction hob.) The battery will last about 11 hours. Iām now going to stick a couple of solar panels in the garden to charge the leisure battery. I figure then that, even in winter, with short, cloudy days, Iāll have enough power to charge the battery and keep the basics on.
November 6, 2024
This is basic kit in South Africa. It works there because they have sunshine.
November 5, 2024
So am I right in thinking that if we had double the number of windmills we would have 2.6 of our electric requirement supplied by wind?
77 x the current number of windmills and we are home and dry?
So we need 756525 windmills – unless the wind drops say by half – then we would need 1513050 – etc etc.
November 5, 2024
All depends on where you would put them, the optimum being where it is windy most of the time.
November 5, 2024
Mark B : āBut they [the Opposition] cannot be too detailed as you cannot afford to have your opponents either copy you or pick them apart. Just enough ankle must be show to keep interest.ā
Sorry, but I disagree with this thinking. It is putting party before country.
So you would agree that if, in the admittedly unlikely event, the Official Opposition were opposed to the Governmentās policy to net zero our electricity by 2030 because it will sabotage the economy with expensive and unreliable renewables, it should not oppose this policy until just before the next election?
As IW has already mentioned the 30 GW of installed wind power is supplying this morning just 0.96 GW. An article in Current+- dated December 2020 quotes the National Gridās estimate to decarbonise our electricity at a cost of Ā£3 trillion equivalent to Ā£100,000/household.
November 5, 2024
@Mark B +1 – continuity is a malicious wish for destruction
November 5, 2024
My observation over the last 60 to 70 years is that oppositions do not have to prove themselves a better bet than the existing government – they just have to wait for the incumbent government to screw up.
The Tories won in 1979 after the winter of discontent.
Labour won in 1997 after Black Monday, a recession in the early to mid 90s and endless sleaze.
Tories won in 2010 after ‘global financial crash’
Labour won – on just 20% of the electorate – in 2024 after uselessness of Tories on immigration and inflation.
Oppositions do not win power. Governments lose it.
As we are now in a doom loop – where the state is growing and will consume the private sector that feeds it – I believe that Labour will lose the next election – if Tories/Reform get their act together and agree an electoral pact. If they don’t, Labour may well win another term based on as little as 12% of the electorate’s votes.
Our political system is hopeless.
November 5, 2024
Our political system is perfect, it is simply unmanned.
Our fault, we surrendered the selection of politicians to the political machine.
We know how to fix that. Just too idle to do it.
November 5, 2024
Youāre almost certainly the only person in the country who thinks that.
November 5, 2024
Does not make me wrong.
You propose replacing the car because itās run out of petrol. I say, fill it up, it will run as well as ever it did.
November 5, 2024
And it was because they knew what they wanted to do and why it was appropropriate that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph were successful in government. It also explains the contrast with the many too many less successful governments, including the present mob who not only do not know what they are doing or should be doing but do not know how they came to be in office. If follows that opposition now ought to be akin to shooting time and again at an open goal.
November 5, 2024
OK that was history and very nearly a reset , until the wets got their hands on power,when they ungratefully ousted Margaret. We have been in the hands of a left wing revolution and related decline ever since. They may have stopped short of digging up paving slabs, but they have systematically degraded and destroyed just about every institutution available, even tried to degrade our military. It has been so bad that when conservatives regaind power they were so infected by this drift to the left that they failed to clear the explosive political devices of previous administrations. If that confuses you, think of the Blair supreme court or EU residual legislation , quangorama, and the rise of the CS to political power in the vaccume of parliamentary will.
There is a hint that Kemi has realised this and is intent on reversing the path of decline, which goes way beyond the usual manifesto offerings of a penny off a pint of beer.
You assisted Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. What even more radical advice can you offer Kemi. The time you have spent in the cemetary of democracy would suggest you know precisely where all the bodies are buried. So lets have the map to resurection, and we will debate the detail with you.
November 5, 2024
We have the map and debate the detail every day š
November 6, 2024
Agreed Lynn, but Reform appart how many MPs can navigate.
November 6, 2024
Reform can navigate?
November 5, 2024
It is but a matter of time before the current Labour government fails. This time the opposition is fragmented. Coherent and convincing ideas for reform of policies and institutions need to be developed and advanced once again. The current model of the UK economy has failed and will buckle, sooner or later, under the weight of profligate public spending taking much of what is left of the enterprise economy with it. Perhaps the farmers will speed up the process to undo the stupid, ill-considered measures in the Reeves budget. I have added my name to their petition – Guido Fawkes has the link.
November 5, 2024
A big election today, in the US. Probably more important for us than any we have had here for decades. I expect the result to be heavily disputed if it’s not a landslide.
Fingers crossed that my preferred candidate pulls through and can run their programme in office.
November 5, 2024
I think Trump will win & lots of shy Trump Supporters will come out. Hopefully too big to Rig. Odds suggest 60%, 40% for Trump. Surely no one want to have to listen to that Kamala voice and drivel for 4 years do they?
I think Trumps self effacing modesty should carry him to victory. That and he is also a sensible climate realist. The dire race baiter and Trump abuser Lammy surely must go and hopefully the Miliband too with his blue plastic toy guitar.
The answer is blowing in the wind says the deluded Milibrain I do hope Trump wins anything else will be rather depressing and it is depressing enough already with Two Tier Kier and serial liars Reeves & Starmer.
Starmer says people trafficking is an evil trade, but no one forces these people to get on these boats. Anyway he welcomes them on arrival with hotels, money, lawyers, food, money, border force taxis, a promise they will most probably be allowed to stay & zero deterrents. So he clearly want these people here.
The logic of which is he needs the people traffickers and he is essentially on the same side as them?
November 5, 2024
Trump is opposed by the deep state who are using Harris as their āZelensky puppetā.
If he wins š¤š»it will be a miracle. He has the vast majority of the electorate with him but the machines are against him.
Itās a huge landslide that will overwhelm the machines or doom.
Iām staying up until I know which.
November 6, 2024
Thank God!
In Pennsylvania where the Republicans had won a number of voter fraud cases not reported in the UK, the equivalent of the Returning Officer stopped counting because the machines were corrupted. They reset the machines and started again.
Trump won easily!
Only man in history to have won 3 US Presidential elections.
The MSM and the socialists were totally flummoxed. They cannot comprehend that the electorate saw through all the scams. Thatās what happened.
Trust the electorate! Democracy really works! One man one vote and FPTP.
November 5, 2024
I am reminded of the Who’s song ‘ Won’t get fooled again’ 1971.
November 5, 2024
Yes, better the Devil you know! š
November 5, 2024
@Wanderer – fortunately for our friends across the Pond their democracy has/will not been distorted to much. Those that find their way into the house of Representatives will be seeking confirmation of the route they are taking in 2 years(not our power crazy distortion 5 years). There is also less of them, just 435 with 5 times the population of the UK, a lot less of them to distort democracy.
POTUS also has a big difference to the UK PM, they do not get the power that allows them to wreck and wreak havoc on an entire population out of ideological terrorism. Power in the US is still embedded in the People and Democracy.
November 5, 2024
š¤Æyou last sentence! IF ONLY!
The truth explained by one of the Nazi Gauliters during the war to a worried junior holds good. āThe extermination camps are such a huge crime thatnobody will believe it even if they learn of themā.
We saw that when the unelected EU stole 27 countries.
We saw that in the USA in 2020.
I watching tonight for a repeat performance.
November 5, 2024
‘I will stop the boats, and the working people will not pay more tax’
A very clear rival to the above?
November 5, 2024
How will whoever becomes US president affect you? Do you have investments in the States? Just curious. In a sense I couldn’t care less who wins – as long as it’s not Trump!
November 5, 2024
@MW. One candidate would accelerate the warmongering, corporatist, globalist, WEF type totalitarianism that threatens to engulf us. The other would fight against it. Where the US leads, the UK follows, hence the impact on me.
One candidate may make serious efforts to reduce the size and reach of government. If that happens, and it is a success, politicians here might dare to emulate it. I’d favour this approach. I’m looking at President Milei with interest, but the US would be a far more compelling example.
November 5, 2024
MW : One candidate may call a halt to the vast sums of money given to the fraudulent CAGW/Net Zero alarmist hoax and put an end to this Communist project to destroy the West’s economies.
Shula and Ott have shown that the IPCC’s radiative transfer theory is invalid because at the Eath’s surface any greenhouse gas molecules excited by the absorption of IR radiation emitted from the planet are 50,000 times more likely to lose their extra energy through a collision with non-IR gases such as nitrogen and oxygen than through the spontaneous re-emission of a photon. This is known as thermalisation or quenching.
November 5, 2024
So you are ready for the collapse of the western financial and every other system. Bully for you. Invested in Gasprom?
November 5, 2024
Sadly we seem to have been cursed with ‘liars, grifters and spivs’ (although some were more incompetent than crocked) as PM’s since Mrs Thatcher left office.
Ms Badenoch has a hard job to recover from the loss of confidence in politics and politicians, over the next 4-5 years. Wish her well.
November 5, 2024
A Wild Card but one that I hope succeeds. She is burdened with a slew of MPs that are so damp she will have problems with mildrew in the back room. She also has rats in the cellar to deal with.
Reform has to prove it has enough talent and depth that it can govern well but will certainly hurt the other parties in the short term. They can take seats that the Tories are unlikely to win and prevent the Tories winning back seats from the useless Lib Dems. It is in everyones interest to kick Starmer and his Circus out as soon as possible.
November 5, 2024
šš» I agree with the last sentence , Starmer must be dumped out, we cannot afford to sit and let him have four years! Starmer must go-now!
November 5, 2024
@Peter Wood – continuity of everything that caused their failure cat help the faux Conservatives now – look at the team and you have to ask why
November 5, 2024
Ms Badenoch has a fair chance of winning the next election. Everyone needs to rally around her.
And a mediocre Tory government is better than any Labour government.
Lastly, Farage has to be knocked back down into his box. If he were a Conservative and supporting the Tories I’d support him in a general sense (he has some good ideas / insights for sure). But Reform are taking away votes from the Conservatives. And if we’re not careful Reform could be the reason why the Tories lose the next election – and then another 5 years of socialism and / or incompetence from Labour.
November 5, 2024
Ed M :
There is almost no difference between Labour and Conservatives! Both want mass immigration (legal and illegal), Net Zero and high spending to justify high taxation. The Conservatives did absolutely nothing in 14 years to stop the Communist infection (aka woke) spreading through the Civil Service, the institutions, the quangos, the “charities”, the regulators, the judiciary , the police and even into our armed forces.
The irony is that the Far Left’s importation of a ME culture to boost their voter base will in end destroy them too.
November 5, 2024
Hi. But what’s the alternative?! At least with Tories in power you can rebuild the party up.
And I think there are differences. My niece was telling me how Labour are going to destroy farming in the UK and turn our green, farm land into suburbia (I’m not an anti-suburbia snob but not suburbia at cost of lovely green land providing quality British food for us and jobs for farmers).
November 6, 2024
Ed M : “But whatās the alternative?! At least with Tories in power you can rebuild the party up”
Sorry, but I don’t believe it is possible to “rebuild the party up”. It’s totally infected. The cancer has spread too far and itās terminal. Even the new leader after a big election defeat is not prepared to follow policies to curb mass immigration (legal and illegal), Net Zero and high spending to justify high taxation.
You will just have to find an alternative party or independent candidate for whom to vote unless you are happy with these policies. As Einstein said, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of madness”.
I have spent nearly 60 years voting Conservative. But the end has now come. I’ve not yet gone insane.
November 5, 2024
She will do so without my vote.
November 5, 2024
Then another 5 years of Labour ..
November 6, 2024
No, collapse of the Tory Party so we can replace it with one under member control.
November 5, 2024
the Libdems are not taking votes away from those who want to be called Conservatives?
Reply In the last election former Conservative voters stayed at home or voted Reform. In some seats Lib Dem got Labour voters to switch to get rid of a Conservative.
November 5, 2024
I think it is incredible someone so young and was able to advise so well on economic policy. To advocate privatisation (which hitherto the world had never seen before) is truly admirable.
The fact that privatisation was a huge success (ie these companies financial statements were transformed), that it was copied by other countries too and not a single 1980’s sale was reversed by any subsequent Labour government either is testimony to its success. These companies were either in a struggling or feeble state and they were transformed into world class competitors by privatisation.
It would be great to see the Conservative Party deliver solutions like this again.
November 5, 2024
Indeed alas Thatcher did far too little to reduce the dead hand & vast size of the state and the many rigged markets – especially in healthcare and education. She even fell for the Climate Scam at one point. Thatcher is much to blame for appointing the proven fool John (two? duff O levels) John Major as Chancellor and then letting him join the ERM against wise advice from JR and Sir Alan Walters. The only sensible PM I have lived under but far from perfect. I first voted (for her) in 1979 in Cambridge Robert James I think it was.
Would you appoint a surgeon with very poor eyesight and a bad hand tremor? What did she see in Major that made her think he was remotely competent to be Chancellor?
November 5, 2024
I am not sure how many people would agree that privatisation of water, electricity and the railways has been a success. That said, public utilities – like everything ‘public’ in this country, are run for the benefit of the utility, not the customer. It seems intractable – a choice between the devil and the deep, blue sea.
November 5, 2024
They need people like JR to do so. Nobody in sight as I scan the horizonā¦
November 5, 2024
Try looking out towards France from Dover!
November 5, 2024
A very interesting article John. I think history is about to repeat itself re the IMF bailout. Thieves is daily showing her incompetence which is being picked up by the bond market. Recently Putin had to cancel a bond sale as there were no takers. The bank rate was increased to 21%. This is the trajectory being followed by the current clown show.
Today is an important day for the free world so fingers crossed for a Donald win. It’s the only way we can get out of this self destruct cycle of woken Ness and net zero nonsense.
November 5, 2024
Indeed but will we even get out of it then. At least with Trump we have a better chance and Lammy will have to go, hopefully that vile Dawn Butler race baiter too. How is MP Mike Amesbury and the Manchester Airport lot getting on with our two tier police and justice system?
November 5, 2024
I read that achieving NZ by 2050 in the US is currently costed at $75trillion. This is the equivalent of $286,000 from each and every one of their tax payers. I think Harris must have accidentally forgotten to mention this in her campaign, but, you never know, she may make a last minute announcement on this issue!
November 5, 2024
They plan to use Russiaās commodity wealth (the richest on earth) @ USD 75 Trillion to pay for it as soon as Zelensky wins.
Incidentally Russia + Ukraine @ usd 87 trillion is almost double the USA Commodity wealth (the second highest on earth @ usd 45 Trillion)
November 6, 2024
Worth noting that the largest single component of the US’s estimated $45 trn of resource wealth is coal.
November 5, 2024
Where/how do you pick this up? Is there an easy way of seeing how the bond market is reacting to government actions?
November 5, 2024
You can search google> government bond market news today< or similar
November 5, 2024
In the financial press I’ve seen reports of yields rising, linked to the budget (leaks and the actual budget).
I’m fairly economically illiterate. What interests me is the relationship between bond yields and savers’ interest rates. Can one of you economic literates tell me if they move in the same direction? I rely on my savings for income!
reply Bond yields are interest rates for the government when it borrows.They are different for different lengths of loans. Many bank savings rates are more related to the Bank of England published Base Rate. Higher long term rates set in the bond market can make mortgages dearer and offer people a better return on an annuity.
November 5, 2024
“…but to save billions by changing management and targets of the nationalised industries and selling many of them.”
Thereby throwing down a challenge to the ratchet effect of socialism (hat tip Enoch Powell), whereby incoming right of centre governments frequently fail to do anything about the legislative and financial infrastructure that their left of centre predecessors left behind. Notable that our esteemed host was part of the plan to dismantle and reverse the ratchet.
Now shift to the present day. If there is no enthusiasm on the part of our official Opposition to do exactly that, aspiring instead only to manage a green globalist socialist system better, where is our ratchet reverser to be found?
November 5, 2024
Yesterday it was reported that Berkshire Hathaway, still headed up by Warren Buffet, the Sage of Omaha, has sold another huge tranche of tech and US bank stock amounting to $36 billion. BH has been pulling out of equities all year; it is now sitting on $325 billion cash. The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate also conducted no stock buybacks for the first time since the second quarter of 2018, and did not repurchase stock in the first three weeks of October. This is interesting.
Buffet made his money by patiently waiting for large market movements (aka a crash) and, having done his research, snapping up favoured companies on the cheap.
Undoubtedly, the US stock market is extremely stretched, with valuations at their highest since the 2000 dot-com boom/crash. There are many obvious black swan events that could affect the markets; the Ukraine and Middle East wars, Taiwan, unprecedented global debt levels etc etc.
All the major UK investment platforms are paying good interest on cash. Given the uncertainties, the risk of holding equities appears to outweigh the potential reward.
November 5, 2024
The S&P 500 is dominated by the NASDAQ heavies SG and they have been very volatile over recent years, not to mention also having extremely high P/Es relative to more conventional businesses. Currently valuations seem to be driven by “AI” and its potential to cause much disruption. Perhaps Buffet is looking at these valuations and remembering the 2000’s when start-up Internet companies (that had never made a profit) were worth more on paper than longer established businesses?
US national debt has also continued to climb to unsustainable levels. Indeed there are contraians who think that the US market will climb sharply (a “burn-up”) before stalling & collapsing even more quickly. Who knows? The conventional wisdom is that investors should stay invested and not try to time the market. However, I guess Mr Buffet has decided the that time is right to take some profit from his decades of investing in Apple stock.
November 5, 2024
10 year Gilts are at 4.53% today, perhaps a sign that the Bond Markets are not completely sold on Ms Reeves fiscal policies. They are also currently distracted by the US elections. Rachel had sufficient hind-sight to “Roll the Pitch” at the IMF (and elsewhere) before her budget, with a less hostile BoE, OBR and Treasury than Liz Truss experienced. Ms Reeves also didn’t have the Pension Industry go into LDI meltdown. That was a UXB that had already been detonated. There will be others lying around though, just waiting to be tripped over.
Unfortunately, I can’t see how anything Labour are now doing will lead to anything but higher debt levels and I suspect that 10 year Gilts will continue to climb. No violent explosion this time, just an ongoing slow burn.
November 5, 2024
Iām fairly sure Bufferās method is to buy good companies and hold the shares indefinitely. I think heād be the last person to suggest timing the market.
November 5, 2024
To many once elected to Serve feel the need to Rule, Dictate and manipulate others to be their own reflection desire for minions to serve their high own opinion of themselves. Service evaporates.
What is always missed is the nurturing and releasing others to reach their full potential. What is missed is we are all individuals and can contribute – the UK likes to think it got rid of the ‘slave trade’ until you reflect on the actions of those that rise to power.
November 5, 2024
As stated by the BBC (yes, the BBC) when interviewing a Minister representing the Treasury just after the Budget details were announced, āthose that think Governments create growth, are wrong, Governments can only create framework so others can create Growth.ā
Those of the political persuasion that wish to Rule, should never have found their way into the corridors of power ā they are an insult to democracy
November 5, 2024
The early Thatcher years are etched into my memory. I was running an aluminium/zinc casting business suppling the car and mining industry. The decisions being taken to ‘modernise’ the manufacturing industries forced me to engage in reducing the workforce from 750 down to 215 and closure of a manufacturing site.
The failures of successive governments since the early 70s to recognise the strategic importance of manufacturing, is why we now have no steel making capacity, no aluminium smelting from bauxite facility, no energy extraction industries other than the rump North Sea oil and gas, plus a few family owned/sized nodding donkeys pumping their final few tank loads before the councils force them to close.
Our auto industry is all but gone and entirely managed by foreign companies. Our tractor manufacturing once the envy of the world has gone with the transfer of Massey Ferguson production to France by Agco (American owners) because the French refused to shut any facility while the Brits accepted the closure of MF HQ at Coventry, now all gone.
Ford van production at Southampton closed via British tax payers money gifted to Ford. Money needed to transfer its lines and production to Turkey? Turkey were also paid to take the manufacturing gift from the UK by EU money grants even though they are not in the EU?
The list goes on, far too many to detail here. The abandonment of manufacturing of any significance goes on.
The bicycle based delivery practices now being championed as ‘environmentally beneficial’ along with the closure of roads to traffic is taking us to a period of thinking and history best visualised by pictures of Shanghai China in the 1970.
That is our planned future thanks to deindustrialisation. Oh, and we don’t even make the bikes…..
Reply In the 1980s the U.K. doubled its car output by attracting in new manufacturers and factories. North Sea oil and gas expanded, telecoms took off etc
November 5, 2024
Sir John.
I was supplying the auto industry from the early 1970s through to 2005.
In 1980 auto manufacturing in UK halved in volume from a decade earlier. It remained low at just over 1 million vehicles through the 80s and didn’t recover until the Nissan plant came on line in 1986 followed by Honda and then Toyota in Derby.
Manufacturing generally has been decimated due to EEC then EU pressure. That pressure began in 1972 and has never ceased.
November 5, 2024
With respect, Sir John, the situation is very different now. In the ’70s, the levers of government worked because the Constitution had not been deliberately mangled to entrench an unelected and permanent socialist state. And, although we were in the EEC, we hadn’t been firmly trapped within the EU’s Empire which Sunak ensured we still are with the Windsor Treachery.
As David Starkey explains in his recent series of podcasts on YouTube, unless the Constitutional Vandalism Blair/Brown carried out is corrected, there’s little point the Not-a-Conservative-Party coming up with “eye catching policies.”
Starkey recognises that it will be impossible to reverse devolution. (But of course, that doesn’t mean it has to continue being imposed with the break-up of England into the Kingdoms of Alfred the Great’s time.) He suggests, instead that the Barnett Formula is scrapped and the Scottish Government should be forced to raise the taxes it wishes to spend from its own population without recourse to English taxpayers to fund its socialist agenda . Amen to that!
I suggest the “Keith Joseph” the Not-a-Conservative-Party needs, in these very different times, is Professor Starkey. But I very much doubt that they will (be allowed) to take any notice of him.
November 5, 2024
Donna :
The reason for continuing with the Barnett Formula is to prevent Scotland from voting for independence. For if they were to become independent it would not be long before we had a Communist failed state on our northern border run by either China or Russia.
The Barnett Formula is the cheaper option.
November 5, 2024
Ironically it was Jim Callaghan who said āWe pulled the levers of power and nothing happenedā – in the 70s.
We were securely trapped in what became the EU and may I suggest that Starkey is a good historian but he is no JR.
We have needed JR as PM since 1990. It is a stain on the Margaret Thatcher interlude that she did not secure inheritance, I mean – JR was standing there and she appointed that chump Major as Chancellor.
Tragic really, possible fatal for the UK.
November 5, 2024
Gridwatch shows that for the past week, the marvellous intermittent-energy windmills, which are blighting our coastline and landscapes and costing us a fortune in subsidies, have generated:
14% of the electricity we have needed
Meanwhile, 16.8% has been imported via interconnectors, at vast expense.
Perhaps Sir John could ask his former colleagues in the Not-a-Conservative-Party when the new Leadership intends to stop lying to us about the viability of the Intermittent Energy Policy being imposed on us.
November 5, 2024
The 1970’s were a dreadful time for the UK. I worked at a large IMI complex in Birmingham in 1973, supporting manufacturing concerns in the computer section.
As the various factories started to wind down and produce very little it became a ghost town, effectively. That is the depressing view of labour Britain I have held ever since.
I was fortunate I had skills to take me abroad, for there was little opportunity in the UK to progress. It was an exciting time and a well paid job enriched my life no end. Happily, I escaped the worst of the chaos caused by labour.
The Germans, naturally, mocked Britain for our poor quality cars and continual strikes – all Continental cars were of a better quality with better features, so they had a point one couldn’t argue against.
What a fantastic difference there was in the country when I returned in 1979, which had turned the corner thanks to Thatcherism, and the optimism was palpable. It took a few more years for the UK to bloom, but it did and we outshone the rest of the world for a short while, until we once again fell under the socialist curse.
We can already see what labour have planned for our future, and it will be so much worse than the 70’s, without a doubt!
November 5, 2024
If VAT is to be applied to private(what is really public as opposed to State) schools why is it not also applied to the Private Education at Universities – is that not another 2TK double standard?
November 5, 2024
And childcare with an element of learning by play
November 5, 2024
Why apply VAT ….because they haven’t the bottle to remove charity status
November 5, 2024
They were an amazing combination, and very lucky to have you available to help them – so much for teenage scribblers!
Who is there now? Surely there must have been someone better available to be shadow Chancellor?
November 5, 2024
The point I take from your article is that there was a willingness to listen from Joseph & Thatcher. That is where the last conservative government went wrong. From Cameron to Sunak, they stopped listening to their core supporters and so adopted Labour Lite policies. So Badenoch & her team must listen to the Conservative Party,
which remains well to the right of recent PMs & MPs, with a few honourable exceptions.
The right is the centre, not the extreme right, as the media keeps saying. I note Labour and the media are already trying to brand Kemi Badenoch as far right, which is nonsense.
I was a CPF member for over 12 years but gave up because we were not being listened to. That is the key to a Conservative revival: listening to members and others, but not being deflected from Conservative values and policies!
November 5, 2024
How about a radical solution, a referendum on becoming the 50 something state of the USA, based on the utter failure of the political class to run the UK. We are closer to Washinton than Hawaii. Just compare per capita GDP, income tax levels and energy costs. The milestones of UK political failure.
November 5, 2024
And have Harris as the President! What a good idea.
You are becoming an ever fixed mark, 100% off course.
November 5, 2024
178 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France ā¦its becoming pointless reporting these daily figures, even the media has given up
November 5, 2024
gc :
Please keep reporting these figures. Thanks!
November 5, 2024
I was starting to wonder if you were counting them arriving in Dover?
November 6, 2024
GC: Yes please do report the figures, people need to be aware.
To add : 23 – 29 Oct inclusive : 1514 crossed / 28 boats – 7 days
30 Oct to 05 Nov inclusive : 1668 / 35 boats – 7 days.
Sentenced in N. France on Tuesday by Lille Criminal Court, 15 years for a 27yr old Iraqi Kurd, a major gang leader ( and with others to be tried next year ) & having previous form for people smuggling & with a separate 8yr attempted murder prison sentence to his name. ( Daily T > “Merchant of Death” sentenced to 15 yrs for smuggling thousands of migrants across Channel< Good news but the tip of an iceberg.
November 5, 2024
If only more were like Sir John !! . All the best .
Bert .
November 5, 2024
Keith Joseph was accustomed to picking winners as he ran a big family business, Bovis Homes if I recall correctly. We can thank the Lord that he spotted JR and also Alfred Sherman.
Sherman wrote many (all the good ones anyway) policies and speeches for Joseph, who unfortunately was a weak man. It used to drive me mad when he would make a great speech, announce a great policy, then when challenged apologise the next day!
I used to have lunch with Alfred Sherman in South Kensington quite often. He lived next door to Enoch Powell and boasted that Powell had said he was one of the few people to whom it was worth taking. I was formulating the BDI which invited politicians to self- identify as patriotic, constitution supporting candidates regardless of politics or party. The idea being that to support what became known as Brexit neither candidate or voter needed to abandon their party. It would have been less risky than the Referendum and would have asserted British Sovereignty (independence) without even mentioning the EU, withdrawing impliedly as we had entered the EU by the same means. Sherman gave me time because I was picking his brain and because he knew I was working for our country rather than for a platform for myself. He became a Patron of the BDI.
Sherman had a very poor voice and was not smart or elegant like Mrs T, Joseph or JR, but was content for his words to emanate from those better able to present them. He was a āfounding fatherā of Thatcherism and headed the Centre for Policy studies which has not been equalled since, to our detriment.
Of course JR has never needed anybody to formulate a policy or speech. The top of the pyramid is narrow and the air rarefied. Few survive there. All hail those that do, they make sacrifices to do so as Powell pointed out.
November 5, 2024
So what is so toxic or inaccurate about todays contribution posted at 06.20 but at 15.46 still awaiting moderation, while six pieces from our serial offender get published. Moderation is a shambles.
Reply Nothing from you pending.
November 5, 2024
Very politician.
November 5, 2024
We need a re-run John
November 5, 2024
Dear Sir John,
Unless the new Government becomes an unlikely success for the country, one can only hope – and it is only hope – that Mrs Badenoch and Mr Jenrick will be the new Thatcher and Joseph. Who might be the new Redwood? Maybe there is no need for a new one.
To break the usual post-1951 cycle of one party dominating government for 13 years or more, it will surely be necessary to inspire a generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings and probably teenagers. Policy is vital but so are the politics. Offering austerity to cut taxes seems unlikely to
achieve this; neither does leaving the ECHR as an end in itself.
Offering freedom would be much more attractive. Getting government control and social engineering out of our hair frees resources to improve public services. So does improving efficiency, which I hope you will be expanding on. A Freedom From Official Oppression Bill would allow a lot of entangling Blair-era supposedly human rights, equality and control legislation to be swept away. Doing less and doing it better is a programme we can all get on board with.
Mrs Badenoch has read her Thomas Sowell, just as Mrs Thatcher read Hayek. Her Shadow Cabinet should regularly read Parkinson’s Law: that work expands to fill the time available to do it. That simple essay, published 70 years ago, showed inter alia how and why Admiralty staff continued to expand rapidly in peace time while the navy shrank by two thirds. 70 years later, we learn that the Ministry of Defence civilian staff has numerically overtaken the Armed Forces.
November 7, 2024
I think the Conservative Party went into a spiral decline after Mrs Thatcher, Major, Cameron (+Clegg), May etc. Massive surgery needed before they get my vote again.