How do we get faster growth in the UK?

I will be giving a lecture on How to get faster UK growth on Friday 24 th January at All Souls Ā College Oxford at 11 a.m. This is free to those interested. The All Souls College website is www.all-soulscollege@ox.uk Ā and will contain mire details nearer the event.

 

38 Comments

  1. Ian wragg
    January 15, 2025

    But will anyone in government be listening. I very much doubt it.

    1. Denis Cooper
      January 15, 2025

      Ian, on January 11 you wrote “Read the private members bill which is wending itā€™s way through Parliament.
      That intends to count emissions on all imports and exports with transport costs calculated from the port of origin”, and I would like to do that but I have been unable to find it. Please could you post a link to it?

      1. Mike Wilson
        January 15, 2025

        Wonder why it is a Private Memberā€™s Bill. Surely it should be government policy.

      2. hefner
        January 15, 2025

        Climate and Nature Bill: itā€™s a Private Memberā€™s bill, will be discussed on 24/01 as a Second Reading and has, as most Private Memberā€™s bill, very little chance of progressing to any later stage.
        A storm in a tea cup really, but the slowcoaches usually get their knickers in a twist on these things. Are you one of them?

        1. Denis Cooper
          January 15, 2025

          Thanks for the information.

        2. Martin in Bristol
          January 16, 2025

          Are you opposed to us achieving Net Zero hefner?
          Why so flippant on such a vitally important project.
          Do you not want this vital piece of legislation to become law?

          1. hefner
            January 16, 2025

            Do you really want net zero, MiB?
            Is NZ by 2030 or 2050 ā€˜such a vitally important projectā€™ given the UK less than 1% of present emissions? You should really read and better understand LLā€™s comments: CO2 is good for the planet, have you not got that yet? The Earth flourished millions of years ago under CO2 concentrations multiple times what they presently are.
            I am surprised you cannot see how green the Sahara is becoming now that the dearth of CO2 is now finally slowly weakening.

            (You know MiB, I can be as silly as you are.)

          2. Martin in Bristol
            January 16, 2025

            You’ve avoided answering my straightforward question hefner with you very predictable response.
            Avoid
            Run away

    2. Lifelogic
      January 15, 2025

      Well Stamer, Lammy and Reeves all set on killing the economy – but then we had 14 years of the Con-Socialists doing all the wrong things very nearly as bad.

      For growth ditch net zero, drill, frack, mine, halve the size of the state and taxes, have a bonfire of red tape, high skilled immigration only and get the government out of the damn way please.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 15, 2025

        The last government that tried to cut the state back was Thatchers but even she failed hugely. She even fell for climate alarmism, close loads of grammar schools, appointed daft as a brush Major as Chancellor let him join the ERM against the wise advice of JR and Sir Alan Walters!

        Major through to Starmer the UK leadership has all been appalling. All climate alarmist, socialist, big state, tax to death incompetents, often pointless warmongers, vaccine and lockdown fools and often liars and/or crooks.

  2. Mark B
    January 15, 2025

    Good morning – Again

    Will there be a recording (audio / video) of the event ?

    Reply I am asking the College if they can do that. Last time there was not.

  3. Donna
    January 15, 2025

    Thank you for the heads up.

    Good luck.

  4. William Tarver
    January 15, 2025

    Perhaps Rachel from Customer Services should attend.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 16, 2025

      too busy planning a trip to places like N.Korea or Venezuela to see how things should be done.

  5. Charles Breese
    January 15, 2025

    I think that the URL should be https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk!

  6. Bloke
    January 15, 2025

    The AI overview on gaining faster growth is:
    ā€¢ Nutrition: Eating a balanced diet providing nutrients helps your body reach potential height. Exercise assists.
    ā€¢ Sleep: Getting enough helps too.
    ā€¢ Posture: Practising good posture also assists.
    ā€¢ Hair care: Eating more protein, products with caffeine, and reducing stress promotes faster hair growth.
    ā€¢ Business: Researching target markets, investing in workflow automation, and developing marketing and sales skills help business grow faster.
    ā€¢ Agriculture: Dividing a field into zones based on expected yields helps increase output growth.

    AIā€™s overview doesnā€™t mention what Labour would achieve in spending and wasting even more on the public sector. Labourā€™s increased NI charges and taxes on business and hostility towards farmers signals inept carelessness, likely to achieve growth only into further decline.

  7. Ian B
    January 15, 2025

    Sir John
    For give me if you think I am wrong. In essence we need a UK that is managed by those that wish to serve and provide a future by ensuring the Country is a competitive uncomplicated hub to create wealth. Free of cumbersome clutter that inhibits the individual to be the best they can.
    What it doesnā€™t need is personal religious ideology imposed on it. We need proper management not politics. I would go as far as saying our political structure, the political parties have become self-destructing of the UK. In the World we compete, we compete as UK.plc, not Socialist dogma that we have seen from those that call themselves the main parties. The UK needs to be managed as UK.plc if we are to create wealth, resilience, self-reliance and a future. The background noise, the personal religious fervour created in Parliament inhibits the UK, as it is about self-gratification and ego and not the Country and its People

    1. Ian B
      January 15, 2025

      There is a feeling from the outside looking in that some MPā€™s think they are not there (Parliament) to serve, but there to be political ideologues, disciples of their ideological religion ā€“ sending a message, what terrorist do if you like. When in the real World of competing Nations, they are the electorates board representatives of UK.plc. They serve on the Board of what could be a great company if they just realized the World is bigger than their small backwater clique. They are running a business first and foremost its very survival relates to its earnings from the rest of the World

  8. chris S
    January 15, 2025

    The College really needs to come into the 21st century and make your lectures available on zoom so more of us can attend, albeit remotely.

    A Zoom meeting is much more sustainable and, frankly, nobody wants to come to Oxford any more because of the Council’s traffic management and parking charges. Then there are the issues of cost and the time wasted travelling.
    I have enjoyed coming to two of your previous events, but for me it is a 140 mile round trip and in all it effectively takes up the whole day.

  9. Denis Cooper
    January 15, 2025

    Could it help if we terminated the independent central bank experiment initiated by Gordon Brown in 1998?

    Now that we are out of the EU we will definitely not be replacing the pound sterling with the euro so there is no point in continuing with his scheme of changing our monetary control system to fit in with the EU system.

    https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/our-values/independence/html/index.en.html

    The government could use the Bank of England to promote growth, rather than the Bank working against it.

    1. Ian B
      January 15, 2025

      @Denis Cooper – sort of agree. It was/is never/not really 100% independent otherwise the Taxpayer wouldn’t be on the hook to fund 100% of its loses. But knowing who the Government has now put in charge of the treasury would you really want them to run the BoE.

      Yes it was another Brown(Labour) failure, not thinking through, just creating empires because he thought he could – just as Labour is doing now. Devolution would have worked if thing had just been devolved down to those that do the work and pick up the pieces. Instead as with the dream of more Mayors, Labour has set out to create many mini-me empires.

    2. Denis Cooper
      January 15, 2025

      There is a 2020 paper, “A Fresh Look at Central Bank Independence”, here:

      https://www.lse.ac.uk/iga/assets/documents/research-and-publications/Rockefeller-Project/Paul-Wachtel-Mario-Blejer-A-fresh-look-at-central-bank-independence.pdf

      However it is a “on the one hand, but on the other hand” sketch with rather vague conclusions.

      I said on a previous occasion:

      http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/08/29/competition-is-the-best-regulator/#comment-1337833

      “Thank goodness that weā€™re not part of that EU system and donā€™t need to follow down the same mad path with the same mad domestic response to mainly imported inflation.”

      “Putting the external value of your inanimate currency before the economic well being of your human population is in my view setting the wrong order of priorities.”

  10. Rod Evans
    January 15, 2025

    I imagine you have already got the basic talk detailed as to how to get faster growth Sir John.
    Looking at the current numbers I am sure any of us could present a lecture on how to get faster growth that the present zero performance by Rachel and Co.
    My main suggestion would be reduce taxation, reduce the need to import energy by pumping our own from existing on shore and off shore reserves and of course repair infrastructure so people can actually do business without breaking their suspension and wheels on unkempt roads.
    You could always chat about ESG, DEI, GFANZ, Net Zero, etc, but why complicate a simple matter like wealth creation and growth?

    1. Lifelogic
      January 15, 2025

      On diversity there is much talk of the three lesbians in charge of the California fire response. They may well all be very good at their jobs – I do not know. But what is the chance that if you recruit purely on merit you would get this coincidence for the top three people? One in 500,000 or so perhaps?

      The old Met police chief Ms Cresida Dick now Dame used to say she wanted to recruit ā€œthe best of the best and for this to reflect the London diversityā€ showing her mathematical ignorance. You cannot often do both dear the chance of ā€œthe best of the bestā€ just randomly happening to also reflect Londonā€™s diversity must be less that 1 in a billion, billion or so.

  11. agricola
    January 15, 2025

    Well, we are enjoying the benefits of doing the exact opposite of what is required to create economic growth. What is required is not a debate but the wisdom in government to implement all you and most of your contributors advocate.

    The real debate is how do you distribute the results of successful economic growth across those who contributed to it. For sure it needs to be done in a way that allows those contibutors to run and enjoy their lives without recourse to government involvement. Government are for defense of the realm , law and order,and support of those in genuine need. Government have been taking a gross commission on enterprise and hard work for their failed versions of what a well rewarded less predated upon citizen could better provide for himself. We might better revert to family as the best building block of society. Said because fragmented society is a mess that is not getting any better.

    Enjoy your debate, precied as stating the obvious, but caveat it with what you do with that wealth you wish to create.

  12. Richard1
    January 15, 2025

    Cut spending, cut regulation, cut energy prices, cut taxes. The opposite of what Labour want to do.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 15, 2025

      You missed off stop low skilled open door immigration, deter crime, stop rigging markets energy, housing, educationā€¦ opposite of what Labour and the Con Socialists before him want/wanted.

  13. Mickey Taking
    January 15, 2025

    growth? Certainly growth on taxes.
    The number of higher-rate taxpayers is projected to surge by 2.5m in 2025-26 due to the freeze on tax thresholds.
    The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts that 7m will pay 40pc tax in the coming tax year ā€“ 2.5m or 55pc more compared to if income tax thresholds had never been frozen.
    The watchdog forecasts that 3.5m workers will start paying income tax in the 2025-26 tax year because of the freeze that began in 2021. Meanwhile, 2.5m will be dragged into the higher tax band which applies to earnings over Ā£50,270.

  14. Ian B
    January 15, 2025

    Succinctly work with people and stop fighting them based on personal image and ideology

    Look forward to the 24th and wish you well with it

  15. Dave Andrews
    January 15, 2025

    The British electorate don’t want growth, otherwise they wouldn’t have voted in a lot of dopey socialists.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 16, 2025

      No they didn’t, they refused to vote for the pretend Tories giving them any more time to continue destroying the country. So the other voters carried on voting for the pretend socialists who are really communist/Marxists destroyers.

  16. Original Richard
    January 15, 2025

    Cancel Net Zero.

  17. Fran
    January 15, 2025

    Sorry I can’t help – even if I wanted to – you guys wouldn’t listen.

    Back in the 70’s and 80’s when ports throughout the world were being modernised by bringing in containers and containerisation the british dockers in Tilbury and other ports throughout UK like Liverpool etc hung out with the unions and refused to change – they wanted to continue doing things the hard way to keep numbers up probably for union dues and in the meantime Rotterdam Antwep and Hamburg pushed ahead made the necessary changes and so by the 90’s were streets ahead.. so it’s all in the thinking ‘glass half full’. Remember what was known back then as the ‘english sickness’ – well it hasn’t gone away – you needed the EU for discipline and to give structure ie. somebody for oversight – the very thing you threw away.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 16, 2025

      With these great advantages you mention, why are Germany, France, Netherlands and others going through both economic turmoil and governmental strife?

  18. David Andrews
    January 15, 2025

    Will you publish a recording of the event or publish slides you show or text of what you say after the event? As has been mentioned getting there is very time consuming for some of us.

    Reply will publish the slides

  19. CJD George
    January 16, 2025

    This link takes me to an advertisment for two letter domains and not to the all souls website
    It is possible I am being geriatric and in the “mire” (smile)

  20. MBJ
    January 17, 2025

    Hef. .. everything in moderation…Mars is overcome by CO2

    1. hefner
      January 17, 2025

      Indeed, Mars atmosphere has 95% of CO2 but a surface pressure not even 1% that of the Earth and surface temperature at -60 degC.
      Venus might also be a good example: CO2 at 96.5% but surface pressure 92 times that of Earth and surface temperature at 460 degC.

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