The government thinks it has to choose between following the EU more or the USA. As its main aim is faster growth to afford better public services, it needs to recognise this century the US has been growing more than twice as fast as the EU. Making the U.K. more like the EU would mean dragging our low growth rate and GDP per head further down Ā to get to the EU average. Why do that?
US faster growth hinges on four big differences
1. Going for so much more output of domestic gas and oil, whilst the U.K. is seeking to accelerate our exit from oil and gas production. This sector is a big source of tax revenue for public services, and of well paid jobs.
2. Going for abundant cheap energy. US electricity and gas prices for industry are around one third or less of sky high U.K. industrial prices .The U.K. is busily closing down steel, ceramics , cement, paper, glass, aluminium and much else as energy is so dear. The U.K. makes energy dear with high taxes, carbon pricing and emissions trading.
3. Allowing and encouraging digital revolution companies to expand. The US has led the world with on line shopping.software, search, data Ā centres, A I and the rest. The U.K. and EU have sought to regulate the industry and to find ways to fine and limit the US success stories,
4. Spending a lot on defence with plenty of spin off from home based defence production to civilian applications. The EU and U.K. have spent less, imported more and innovated less.
December 3, 2024
Yes to all that, but this lot are rabid socalists so expect growth in the public sector. Anticipate even lower productivity as they pursue their holy grail of nett zero.
December 3, 2024
Worse still, they appear to have no comprehension of what makes business tick – the foundation for the growth they claim to want. To date all they have done is destroying growth and the jobs that go with it. It is clueless ineptitude.
December 3, 2024
But they do want us to have digital IDs, opening the way to a Chinese social credit system of control. Child protection on the internet could be a ruse to enable that. We only seem to have Musk standing out against it.
December 3, 2024
@rose; You have had a digital ID for years, you just don’t realize it, and many fall for them Bells and Whistles. Do use either a Credit or Debit card, so called in-store loyalty cards, do you use internet shopping, have a fixed or mobile phone contract, never mind machine readable Passport, NI and UTR numbers, all lead directly back to ones front door if any (Deep) State wishes.
Not sure what you meant by bringing the owner of a social networking platform into your argument, given how much personal information such platforms gather via their own or third party cookies etc. Musk likes free speech, not so sure he likes digital anonymity.
Having a formal digital ID (even psychical card) will make little or no difference, that genie has been out of the bottle for years.
December 3, 2024
@ jerry “Having a formal digital ID (even psychical card) will make little or no difference, that genie has been out of the bottle for years” – not quite. Any formal digital ID is just the front end (participant facing) part of a system that in the Government’s case would be used to link all records it possesses about an individual.
Recall government holds a vast amount of data about individuals, records about schooling, health, probate, tax, property, vehicles, welfare claims etc.. At present, for example, I have no difficulty in disclosing to HMRC my sources of income since it has a need to know but why should the records thereby created be available to some vast digital warehouse linked to every other government record about me? That prospect raises legitimate worries of a type to which rose alludes.
December 3, 2024
@formula57; But that cross-referencing can already happen, if the courts (or other body with the legal entitlement) decide it is necessary, nor would a ‘Chinese’ style Deep State worry about legality anyway, not having a front-end digital ID doesn’t really change anything.
December 3, 2024
Musk as owner of X standing out against the control of the internet, hee hee hee.
With oneās HMRC, NHS, Council tax, bank, various utilities (water, gas, electricity, internet, ā¦), passport, ā¦ numbers, obviously the State doesnāt know anything about us, does it? guffaw, guffaw ā¦
December 3, 2024
x is not Twitter Hefner- big difference.
But like the Russian Federation is not the USSR – big difference.
December 3, 2024
None of that will be implemented by the communists in government. It is interesting to look at the EU which Two Tier free beer and no idea Kier is so keen to emulate. France is having a fiscal crisis German government has collapsed and Sien Fein has been sidelined in Ireland
The voters are at last wakening up to the absolute mess the politicians have got them into.
They see net zero and open borders are destroying their way of life.
Along comes Donald cheered on by our very own Nigel ready to expose and dismantle the whole shooting match.
The globalists are terrified that their cosy world of ripping us off us coming to an end together with the woke warriors who have done so much to destabilise countries.
Interesting times and a good time to get the popcorn in
I do hope retribution follows.
December 4, 2024
+1
It was interesting that Keir-Ching! made a very obvious point of crossing the floor and having a civil conversation with Nigel a few days ago. Someone has obviously told him to take Nigel and the threat from Reform seriously š
December 3, 2024
@agricola +1 – Rachael in Accounts has Her magic money tree, those enslaved by this Government to do its bidding to pay for their ideology and personal wellbeing.
December 3, 2024
There’s nothing socialist about them.large salary, clothing allowance of Ā£7,500,v pensioners poor OAP and cut fuel payments.
December 3, 2024
Thatās Socialism. The leaders have it all.
December 3, 2024
Good morning.
I think we are missing the point. ie Choosing between the two. The choice was made back in the 60’s and 70’s – The EEC. Yes we had a refendum in 2016 in which the people expressed their will to LEAVE the now EU but, that wish has been watered down to nothing and we are still joined at the hip to the regulatory arm of the EU.
The USA is a large singular nation under a government recognised and accepted by the people. It is based on various principles under its Constitution and has power divided up between the various parts of the government. It encourages freedom and places individualism and success very high. The people largely can be said to be United.
The EU is the opposite of all that. It is a rugulatory system by which only the EU Parliament, which has little power, is elected by the people. Its member countries have relinquished their sovereignty to a ‘Higher Authority’ ie The EU Commission and President which cannot be removed or held to account by the people.
I have often said that, the diffence between the State Secor and the Private Sector is, the former unlike the latter does not suffer when their is a failure. And as such, there is no feedback mechanism and no consquences for those who have failed. So too can be said of the EU.
The UK has shackeled itself to a dead horse despite having a larger trading partner with the USA. One can only assume that this is an entirely political decision and one not based on economics. And until that changes we will follow the EU all the way over the cliff.
December 3, 2024
Correct. The Globalists thought it would be the way to avoid future European wars. Check out Ukraine …. Brexit was not LEAVE. We may have left the EU’s political union, but the Brexit “deal” means we are effectively back in the EEC.
The intention is that the EU will become a Two-Tier organisation; the Eurozone and the non-Euro Associate Members. Cameron proposed that to Merkel; she refused. A while ago Macron revived it. I believe, when the Ukraine war ends, they will move ahead quickly with the Two-Tier structure, which will suit our Two-Tier PM just fine.
December 3, 2024
Will the EU survive the victory of Russia? France collapsing as we speak. Germany in existential decline. Britain is NOT in the EU ( even if we are not as out as we would like).
Looks like it all depends on Greek bonds now š¤£
December 3, 2024
+1
December 3, 2024
@Mark B +1
December 3, 2024
The main difference between the State and Private sectors is that the State consume wealth and the private sector create it.
December 3, 2024
@LA; Anyone who remembers the mega bailout the Banking sector needed in 2007/8 might disagree, and wealth is a subjective issue, wealth for whom, the State can create wealth, but only for its self, although under valued privatizations can create wealth for early investors…
December 3, 2024
Many early investors were pension funds helping long term to boost your retirement income Jerry
December 3, 2024
The State canāt create wealth – all they can do is TAKE wealth.
December 3, 2024
@Mark B; Actually the UK chose between the USA or what became the EEC back in the early 1950s, the choice we made in the 1970s was between our Commonwealth friends and the EEC.
December 3, 2024
The British people voted to more closely resemble the USA model. That was the result of the EU Referendum: we voted to LEAVE the EU.
The entire Establishment, not just this Government, decided to ignore that instruction and stitched up a “deal” which means we have no choice but to resemble the EU model because “we’re not allowed to compete with our friends across the channel.”
Large swathes of our economy and policy areas are still controlled by the EU including energy, environment, competition etc … and other policy areas are controlled by its twin organisation, the ECHR (HR and asylum the most obvious). Keir-Ching! is making the binds tighter.
Until we LEAVE the EU, nothing much will change.
December 3, 2024
@Donna; “The British people voted to more closely resemble the USA model”
Did we, I seem to recall the question was about leaving the EU, not about our relationship with the USA. I also recall much Brexit talk about our possible future (restored) relationship with the Commonwealth, talk of closer ties with the USA were downplayed to avoid people debating USDA approved beef and chicken, Medicaid etc.
December 3, 2024
Moreover, why would anybody want to be like the USA which is clearly going through the final phase of LatinAmericanization?
December 3, 2024
I didn’t say we voted for closer links to the USA. I said we voted to more closely resemble them: independent, Sovereign, Capitalist, democratic – with our own Parliament governing the country, not foreign institutions/courts.
December 3, 2024
@Donna; The UK 2016 referendum didn’t ask anything about what political system the electorate wants, that is way beyond the scope of a two option referendum and why we have general elections.
You also appear to miss understand the political structure of USA. You are aware the model used by those planing what has become the EU was the US model. If the UK wants to “more closely resemble the USA model” (without applying to be their 51st State) we should have remained in the EU, fought for full Federalization, common Federal wide laws, Federal level courts, and a common currency! The USA is a nation made up of 50 otherwise independent States that chose to cede elements of control to a Federal system of government centered upon a common ‘Parliament’ (Capitol Hill), what is more it is quite possible to rescind full control back to the State, hence why some States over the years have talked about leaving the Union.
Reply You miss the whole point of this debate. Clearly the federal political model is not the key to growth as the EU is proving.
December 3, 2024
Donna, we left the European Union nearly five years ago. You’ve got EXACTLY what you voted for. It’s rubbish, but you were warned it would be.
December 3, 2024
No we didn’t get EXACTLY what I and millions of others voted for. We voted to LEAVE; not to be semi-detached.
December 3, 2024
@Donna; No one has a first clue how millions who voted wanted the UK to Leave the EU, we were never asked!
December 4, 2024
Correct. The REMAINERS negotiated a ‘deal’ that suited the EU. No way would I have paid the EU money we did not owe. It was a stich up !
December 3, 2024
Sir Keir claims to be āfixing the foundationsā. By that he seems to mean the NHS and tax rises.
The real foundations are cheap abundant energy, sound currency, competitive taxation and equality before the law. Compared with those, the NHS is hardly more than an ornament on the mantelpiece.
December 3, 2024
+1
December 3, 2024
The EU project looks like it is about to be tested as never before. The biggest economies, Germany and France are in difficulties, the second tier economies economies all have Debt to GDP over 100%, and debt costs rising.
The ECB has purchased massive amounts of member bonds; how much longer will they be able to continue to manage bond yields.
December 3, 2024
From The Daily Sceptic: “British energy bill payers have spent an āabsurdā Ā£1 billion to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year because the grid struggles to cope with their power on windy days”
Basically, thanks to the Eco Zealots and the Uni-Party idiots in Parliament we’re paying a fortune for NO ENERGY. The economics of the madhouse.
December 3, 2024
Yes, insanity. But when you see the Sec. For Nut Zero and Security on a role, you can see why.
Here’s an idea, give all pensioners who want them, FREE night storage heaters and FREE night time electricity (I’m sure that’s now possible with Snoop Meters) so that they can warm up there homes on all this wasted electricity.
December 3, 2024
@Peter Woods; As I’m sure you already know, it would have been possible to give free overnight electricity to pensioners back in the mid 1970s had there been the political will, and cheaper overnight electricity was and still is available to others who asked for (modern day equivalent to) Economy7 with its duel-tariff meter. Back in the 1970s then State owned electricity supply industry could have been told to subtract the overnight use of electricity by pentioners from their bills, but then there was only one finger in the pie, profit wasn’t the main consideration, so long as costs were covered.
December 3, 2024
Far too sensible. It will never fly.
December 3, 2024
UK’s GDP per head is lower than that of the poorest USA state which is Mississippi. In California it is more than double the UK figure.
I think another factor that improves USA GDP is the lack of EU-type employment legislation – as an example I worked for a USA company at one time and they used to simply fire the worst-performing 10% of their sales force every year – imagine applying that in the Civil Service !
December 3, 2024
We donāt need faster growth to afford better public services. We need better public services from the vast sums spent on them. We need to stop wasting money. The list of wasteful spending is endless. As I said yesterday, there is always money for sending 470 delegates to COP, for silly ceremonies, for refurbishing palaces etc.
December 3, 2024
Best is you do not have dopes like Alison McGovern as ministers. Even now she has defended the strict restrictions imposed on the public during the pandemic:- Lockdown measures were ānecessaryā despite the harm they caused to young people, the employment minister has said.
A philosophy graduate it seems. Not just young people either. They did huge net harm to people, to health and to the economy Alison benefit at all.
December 3, 2024
No benefits at all – nor any from the net harm vaccines as will become all to clear with Trump’s new team.
December 3, 2024
So essentially we’re governed by fools. Who knew?
December 3, 2024
You refer to the cost of energy, however in my company the cost of tax (employer’s NI, business rates and corporation tax) is six times the cost of energy.
The barrier to growth in this country is tax rather than energy. It’s also the overhead of employment legislation, which is going to be even more stifling in the days ahead. If you want easy hire, you need easy fire to go with it.
Reply I have often highlighted the damage high taxes do. In the case of energy it is ultra high taxes that cause the totally uncompetitive energy prices for industry.
December 3, 2024
We shouldn’t have to be following any other country – we should be doing things our way – the logical way, as defined by Thatcher.
It’s time we escaped the worst of the economic constraints imposed by the EU, but that’s not to say we should abandon the EU position totally where it helps us.
The USA with Trump in charge will see a far bigger boom than anything the democrats could create, and by all means let’s use some of those good policies to boost our productivity and income.
But if anyone imagines our labour government will follow a path of real growth and prosperity then they haven’t understood what is in ‘Absolute Zero’ or what the IMF has been telling Western nations about climate change.
December 3, 2024
“The government thinks it has to choose between following the EU more or the USA” – that’s the problem, why the need to choose. The UK should be its people, achieving what is necessary to advance their lives.
The enemy of the Country and its People is the 5 year terms in office without confirmation. 5 years is an age, a wrecking age, where individuals are able to push a Nation beyond a point of return based on their own personal ego, self esteem and personal ideology.
There is no requirement to release people to achieve their full potential in the UK, the systems in place are geared to control and manipulation. Think, the UK.plc its Board are free to push personal agendas without seeking confirmation of their actions – the share-holders have no say their views are not just rejected, they cannot be allowed to be heard.
It took less than 5 months for the Government to wreck and reject all the promises it made. What’s today’s plan, when does the electorate get a say? Of course never the UK is a Dictatorship
December 3, 2024
From the Media on last nights PM’s speech – “He added on Europe: āAnd we will rebuild our ties with Europe too. Because Iām sorry to say the shocking legacy this Government inherited in so many areas ā from the nationās finances to the state of the NHS”
Putting the EU, the unelected, unaccountable in the EU in charge of our Rules, Regulations and Laws is the last way that the UK can add or build its ‘finances’. The Traitors in Parliament refused Brexit, refuse WTA terms so the UK’s people have to pay twice for everything.
Any bets on as an inducement to the EU how much more of the UK’s resources, fish, taxpayer funding for EU energy this PM will come up with in the coming months?
December 3, 2024
@Ian B – Never forget this is the man that gave away the Chagos Island’s to a Country that had never owned the Islands, without consultation with the Chagos People denying their right to self-determination. Self-determination a UN creed.
So what else is he to give away, he has already taken our freedoms our right to fulfil potential and dreams. The UK People are his pawns, his puppets, his minions and slaves.
One thing he should take from the USA is the people there every 2 years get to confirm their approval of their actions and direction – its called democracy, sovereign democracy.
December 3, 2024
Ian B :
I think it is the first and second amendments of the USA’s Constitution which keeps the country a sovereign democracy.
December 3, 2024
@Original Richard – and here in the UK while others still look to it as a way forward and as a means of identifying real protection for the people, the UK abandoned as much of the Magna Carta as it could at the first chance. It was left to the enlightened, the USA to pick it up and run with it.
The UK Parliament has refused the UK any chance of becoming a Sovereign Democracy.
December 3, 2024
So not the Codified Constitution then. We donāt need āamendmentsā our Constitution is alive!
December 3, 2024
@Ian B; “One thing [we] should take from the USA is the people there every 2 years get to confirm their approval of their [politicians] actions and direction ā its called democracy, sovereign democracy.”
Careful what you wish for, buyers remorse takes no prisoners!
I bet the left-wing during in the 1980s and ’90s, here in the UK, would have loved mid-term House of Commons elections, each could have stalled both the Thatcher & Major governments mid election cycle, even if Labour were not to be have been trusted to actually form the Govt. Mid-term elections in the US can create very lame-duck Presidents, were only bipartisan motions can be got through the House, it would be no different here.
December 3, 2024
The Labour Government is only carrying on where the Conservatives Governments were. In 14 years, what did the various conservative PMs and Governments achieve? We now know you worked hard to advise them, but they ignored you.
Cheap, reliable energy is the basis for a prosperous modern economy, whichever kind of Government we have.
This is the area where Labour are slightly worse than the Conservatives, for both worship at the altar of Net zero.
Until that stops, the UK will be on a permanent downward slope.
December 3, 2024
The political landscape will be completely different by 2029.
Whether or not, Reform gets $100m from Elon Musk, the Conservatives and Labour will be utterly shocked at their losses in local elections to Nigel Farage’s growing army. The Conservatives will finally come to realise that they will face oblivion at the GE and will be forced to do a deal with Reform.
Those former supporters of the Conservative Party in safe Tory seats will be able to trust that the backbone provided by Nigel Farage and Reform will ensure that they are voting for a proper right-of-centre government, unlike the previous two that had much more in common with the Lib-Dims than Margaret Thatcher.
Make no mistake, this is the only way we will be able to oust Labour in 2029.
December 3, 2024
@Keith from Leeds = we have now had 25 years of destruction, pulling down all sensibilities and our futures on the need of a few protected individuals to gain self-satisfaction of their own and no one else’s self-esteem. I believe it was in Norman times they stopped calling slaves, slaves choosing instead ‘surfs’ to be their minions. The only thing that has changed is that it has got worse and we all pay.
December 3, 2024
Almost 35 years of destruction in fact.
December 3, 2024
āWhy do that?ā
Because the signing of Net Zero by 2050 into law means the unstated but real goal is for de-growth through de-industrialisation and reduced consumption requiring the rationing of food, energy and travel as defined in the UK FIRES Absolute Zero report.
We are told this is necessary to save the planet from extinction just as the unfortunate populations of Russia, China, Cambodia et al were told they needed to be forced into 20th century command economy and collectivisation strategies to achieve the paradise their Communist rulers seeked. Millions died as a result.
December 3, 2024
PS : Why are we told that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 since the Little Ice Age have caused unprecedented global temperatures (an āera of global boilingā says the UN Sec Gen) when ancient tree stumps under the BreiĆ°amerkurjƶkull glacier in Southeast Iceland have been dated to be roughly 3,000 years old?
December 3, 2024
Starmer ( in Student politics mode once again) declaring he will not side with Trump against the EU! What a lightweight joker they must see him trying to look good as he struts the world, desperately trying to convince us of his faked importance. These are drip drip diversions to avoid scrutiny of net zero and all his other socialist plans for us rolling out.
He just a new kid on the block, acting like all General, above his Corporal station. He wants directions from the failing EU. How stupid is that?
December 3, 2024
Corporal! šspot on!
December 3, 2024
If the UK is to be more like the USA, there is an important element missing from this analysis – more devolution.
If you’ve ever travelled to or been in the USA, you’ll probably be aware that states, counties and cities have their own individual tax raising powers (e.g. each state sets their own income tax rates and sales tax rates). One of the first times I travelled there on business many years ago now, the hotel bill had not just a room rate, but a state tax, county tax, city tax and public transportation levy, all set locally. In the UK, it’s the Federal government sales tax only (VAT) charged at a centrally determined rate.
State legislatures in the USA also have more ability to set local laws than is possible in the UK, which is one of the most centralised western economies.
If Conservatives really want the UK to be more like the USA, rather than calling for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, they should be arguing to give both of those bodies more powers and to devolve more power down to local areas in England too.
Reply More government at state level is not the US magic ingredient for growth!
December 3, 2024
Do you think that the US would be more successful or less successful if more decisions were taken in Washington DC and applied across the US as a whole, and fewer were taken at the state or local level?
December 3, 2024
Starmer ( in Student politics mode once again) declaring he will not side with Trump against the EU! What a lightweight joker they must see him trying to look good as he struts the world, desperately trying to convince us of his faked importance. These are drip drip diversions to avoid scrutiny of net zero and all his other socialist plans for us rolling out.
He just a new kid on the block, acting like all General, above his Corporal station. He wants directions from the failing EU. Why is that?I
Similarly, Rachel Reeves asked the dubious World Bank to endorse her maxing out Britain ‘s borrowing commitments as her own lightweight CV would not cut it under scrutiny of more experienced proven high financial chiefs.
December 3, 2024
Apologies for the duplication as I thought my original post disappeared…
December 3, 2024
What else can you expect of Starmer, a man who never saw a bossy precautionary principle and a regulatory rulebook he didn’t want to gold-plate. Hence his passĆ© 1960s obsession with postwar continental stitch-up politics. His lot are only in power (and determined to wield it ruthlessly and spitefully) because the Tories under Cameron refused to do any more than be the same as Blairite Labour (even Blair didn’t pander to the NHS as Cameron did), allowing the civil service to run riot, copy-catting all the climate-change fanatics, and under Johnson and Sunak rendering themselves lastingly unelectable. Which is quite an achievement, given the visible ruin of the present government with its 20% electoral support and low vote,
December 3, 2024
‘In 2023, about 78% (37.87 trillion cubic feet) of total U.S.A dry natural gas production was from shale formations’
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=907&t=8
Cheap energy = Growth = Invention & Prosperity
December 3, 2024
We are destined to continual decline unless we change direction. Remember the scorn pointed at those who suggested that post-Brexit we should emulate Singapore rather than Brussels ?
It’s blindingly obvious who was right !
The only way we are going to recover our manufacturing base and preserve many thousands of current jobs is cheap energy. Instead, Theeves, TTK, and that idiot Minibrain are doing the complete opposite.
I wonder by 2029 whether there will be any UK manufacturing businesses left ? There won’t be any car makers, that’s for sure, without abandoning the expensive and unnecessary switch to EVs and Hybrids.
December 3, 2024
Singapore emulated us! So did Hong Kong! So did the USA got that matter – even in the modern era – Thatcherism came before āReagonomicsā
We are the ORIGINAL.
December 3, 2024
‘low vote’ should be ‘low turnout’.
December 3, 2024
Unfortunately, because Parliament is 99% composed of Uniparty MPs there is no opposition to the Net Zero by 2050 law which stifles the 4 differences listed which drive growth in the USA. Not that the UK/EU want growth anyway other than growth in population size, private sector unemployment, state employment and national debt. Even AI will be stifled by the lack of affordable and secure energy as the IT companies have turned to nuclear realising quite rightly that expensive and unreliable renewables are useless.
December 3, 2024
Your short and welcome list shows what could be done to alleviate or overcome immediate hurdles. I make the obvious and easy point that a great deal more would have to change to replicate the USA’s growth record, not least the culture here that does not laud business success.
A longstanding criticism levelled by US commentators is that European governments typically spend far too much on human services, overlooking the parallels with the US defence budget. Given how much is spent on the NHS, should we not expect to enjoy “plenty of spin off” from that, further to your point 4.?
December 3, 2024
We have to sort out what English is first.We need some sensible government officers who actually understand the complexities of ethics which are or should be the basis of all law.Ethics a branch of philosophy requires flexible thinking with consideration of hindsight and foresight.The foresight deriving from an undery of causality.Until we can get staff bright enough to take an all round view and not focus on a few objectives which are never achieved nothing will change.
December 3, 2024
Understanding of causality .