There are 3 ways to pay for lots of new infrastructure. You can leave it to the market as we largely did with broadband. That went pretty well with most people now having access to it. You can leave it to regulated monopolies to do it. That worked badly with water where the Regulator often said No and the companies spent a lot on debt and equity. It worked better for gas and electricity. You can leave it to the government to do on borrowed money. That was a disaster with the HS 2 new railway line and the new Horizon computer system for the Post Office.
The government wants to do more joint ventures and partnership funding, It talks of public financial institutional capacity. It thinks the last government had established £97 bn of that and the new one has added £40 bn. The bulk of it was UK export finance. Now there will be National Wealth fund, Great British Energy and housing money to add in.
The use of nationalised business banks, wealth funds that can borrow and public companies that can partner and borrow conjures a world where the taxpayer could be on the hook for losses and write offs. Where are all these good investments the private sector cannot finance? How does the state avoid getting the ones the private sector does not want?
June 20, 2025
Good morning.
If something, and in this case an ‘investment’, is so good, why don’t we ask ALL MP’s to put their wealth into it ? You know, all those second homes and generous pensions could be used as collateral ? If something is so good, isn’t it time that those pushing for all this put their skins in the game and not future generations ?
June 20, 2025
Not just MPs; it should include the Civil Servants who promote the “investments” and continue to push them even when they are patently failing – with HS2 being the latest example.
June 20, 2025
You are onto something Donna. All state employees and those who live off the state should have all their taxed money and pensions etc ‘invested’ by the state and all the funds that non-state pensions etc go into should be termed non-state and be controlled by the private owners of those assets.
State-stake-holders must relinquish all calls on in non-state. We know the State Investments will do very well because MPs know much more about investing, especially ‘ethically’, than we poor fools who create the wealth.
June 20, 2025
@Mark B – and why isn’t their remuneration linked to performance? – it works in the real world. Then if their pay doubled because they double the UK’s income I would be more than happy
June 20, 2025
I’d be happy with just, all those in the civil service & local government returning to their office for 5 days a week
June 20, 2025
In the past when we actually produced stuff there was a thing called Export Guarantee Funds. This allowed small business to export worldwide knowing if a country or business defaulted they were guaranteed payment. This worked well because if a country defaulted the government business department had the clout to pressure for payment.
This was deemed unlawful by the EU as unfare competition. It should be reinstated. Today of course, do to the ruinous policies of the uniparty we make little which is exportable and import the majority of things. To pay for these imports we have to keep selling the family silver. When the silver has gone, the imports will stop and mad Ed will have succeeded in his mission to destroy us.
June 20, 2025
You pose a good question to which there is no good answer. Some in the failed political class (Reeves included?) seem to hint that raiding private pension funds is the answer. If true that would be an outrage.
It is an unfortunate fact that governments in many countries operate policies that favour their own industries and businesses. China is the notable contemporary example with huge subsidies for EVs, and battery manufacturers, such as BYD and CATL. These subsidies confer extraordinary competitive advantage to their exports but cause extreme overproduction and eventually collapsed, as appears to be occurring now. The UK government needs measures, such as quotas, that offer protection against such predatory behaviour.
Returning to the concept of wealth funds, the UK had the chance to create one after the discovery and exploitation of oil in the North Sea in the 1970s created the potential to do so. Instead the exceptional tax proceeds were spent. The only way a UK wealth fund could be created today is by raiding people savings. If that didn’t cause a revolution, I don’t know what would.
June 20, 2025
Raiding peoples savings is a very socialist thing to do. Off course it would only be the plebs who don’t bank offshore. Remember Cyprus was about to steal from bank accounts in 2012. There was such a backlash that politicians needed armed protection. Off course 2TK would dress it up as a counter to the faaaaar rite minority objecting to his mismanagement of the country.
Many a true word…….
June 20, 2025
Not quotas, tarriffs.
June 20, 2025
There is also
– Innovate
– Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme
– Enterprise Investment Scheme
– Invest in Women Taskforce & Fund
– Business Growth Fund
– Aspire Fund (women only)
The above specialise in losing taxpayer money on ideas that the private sector would not touch and they particularly favour women/minorities.
June 20, 2025
SEED, EIS and VCT schemes require investors to risk their capital in return for various tax reliefs. The casualty rate for these start ups and early stage businesses can be quite high. I think the approach of offering tax reliefs in exchange for accepting abnormal risks is a reasonable approach. Innovate invests directly. I am less familiar with it in operation except for a couple of examples. In one it is funding, in return for a shareholding, investment in capital equipment to support product manufacturing at scale using novel materials science (based on bio-disposable material). Another investment supports development of a manufacturing process to enable a novel compound semiconductor (UltraRAM) that could disrupt the flash and DRAM market if it can be made to work. Ideally that should be adopted by a UK business, but how many are there left to take on the risks? If it works, the most likely outcome will be a takeover by a US company (or Chinese if they were allowed).
June 20, 2025
I did attend an Innovate Function. Nearly all of the attendees were university and some public sector groups with a few private companies. There were some lone wolf “consultants” who appeared to chase those who had the most chance of getting funding.
They all seemed to know each other. Seemed a bit like a closed loop circus to me.
You couldn’t just pitch up with an idea: your proposal had to fall within the criterea of projects that were already pre-defined. It looked like a stitch-up to me, but I could be wrong.
June 20, 2025
The only way the state can avoid financing investments the private sector won’t (because there is no profit potential), is to stop investing in activities that are wealth destroying.
Government have a well documented record of ridiculous investment failures You have mentioned some of the recent ones Sir John, there are endless others. NHS computer systems, smart motorways, 20 MPH speed limits and of course the ongoing saga of the Scottish government, or more accurately the SNP deciding it can successfully enter the ship building industry. Construction of ferries that are six years late and four times over budget! They still have not entered service, having been ordered in 2015!
Government needs to respect the fundamentals of commercial business activity. They can not mandate spending of product the public simply do not wish to buy or support. Electric cars are great in places but not universally so. State penalties and fines paced on companies making products the public want to buy is not good policy, it will fail. Gas heating systems for houses is the least cost and most popular (i wonder why?) state policy banning of this staple energy option will not make heat pumps more popular. It will just add cost to the state to fund the difference.
The examples of state folly in economic activities not needed, are everywhere. The public have had enough. That is why the traditional party structures are breaking down. We are about to leave the old chuckle brothers political system behind us. To me, to you, to me, to you…..
It is no longer funny.
June 20, 2025
Back in the day (1992) John Major’s government invented Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts, where private finance built key infrastructure for the government in return for lucrative annual payments from the taxpayer. Under Blair’s first Labour government, hundreds of PFI contracts were awarded across the public sector – including the NHS, local government, schools and highways.
Many PFI schemes were typically between 25 and 30 years in length, locking public sector bodies into paying for them for a very long time. In 2020, the National Audit Office estimated that there were more than 700 PFI contracts in existence, the bulk of which will start to expire from 2025 onwards. Once expired, local authorities and councils have to take on the projects financially. They are not really in a position to actually handle them, given their dire financial situation
PFI contracts were frequently sold off to foreign investors, who relished the income and who did not have to pay any British tax. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, local authorities need to start planning for how new contracts are to be agreed and at what cost.
Reply Yes many were very bad value for taxpayers. I was offered one to modernise a Welsh hospital. I turned it down and insisted on general government borrowing to finance it as that was a lot cheaper.
June 20, 2025
Indeed, this was a terrible policy which enabled Blair-Brown to splurge public money without it showing up in the debt & deficit (unless you adjusted). This and other behaviour like it must have been a major contributor to the great bust of 2007-09.
Labour governments are always a disaster, sometimes it takes years to see just how much of a disaster.
June 20, 2025
The wonderful Welsh Burns unit, a specialist hospital based in Chepstow was demolished as was the Cottage Hospital and a brand new cutting edge hospital was built to replace it using PFI.
On the day it opened they discovered that the doors were not wide enough to wheel beds through. So it closed within hours while the alterations were done.
So PFI attracted the sort of people who are not only relaxed about profit and value for money but attention to any sort of detail whatsoever. They are employees with no skin in the corporate game. They do well short term and leave the trail of destruction to whoever inherits the country – possibly not our children.
June 20, 2025
I wonder if the supplier or architect had to put that doorway right at their own expense, or if they billed extra for it.
The beauty about PFI for governments was that it wasn’t on the balance sheet. Precise figures for how much they loaned aren’t readily available, why not? The Independent said they were signing off on around 60 new projects per year. Wiki said in October 2007, it was around £68 billion in initial investment from private companies. With total future commitments of £215 billion, by November 2010, that figure had risen to £267 billion. The big downside was that it was an expensive way to borrow, significantly higher than government borrowing rates. Coupled with higher maintenance spending.
June 20, 2025
All the doors in the hospital – not just one doorway.
I doubt the architect had any problem – it was all passed by the Planners after all.
June 20, 2025
If the private sector won’t fund a large infrastructure project I would suggest it is because they know it isn’t viable. Enforced taxpayer participation in dodgy “investment projects” which the private sector can’t / won’t fund themselves will inevitably end up in a “capitalising the profits and socialising the losses” debacle.
Guido reported yesterday that Scottish Widows has declined to participate in Rachel-from-Complaints request to invest more in British stocks. They are, quite correctly, prioritising the interests of their customers which means investing globally. It will be interesting to see if The Treasury now acts to mandate the policy, potentially damaging the long-term prospects for those investing in private pension.
https://order-order.com/2025/06/19/blow-to-reeves-as-lloyds-pension-arm-slashes-investment-in-uk/
June 20, 2025
Sir John
The further the Government is removed from any project the better, that means that the Taxpayer not the Government as they would like you to believe is removed from equation – the Paymaster.
Governments, their Bureaucrats just don’t have the wear-with-all or the expertise to understand what a competitive market place is or what it does. To many personalities whether it is for personal self-esteem or political ideology want to be bathed in the glory of other people’s hard work.
The State is there to create the framework to allow potential to be released, not to turn society into a Socialist/Communist regimes where they can be hands on with everything and do nothing.
To much of the Uniparty thinking is it is ‘them’ and the next ‘election’ that is ‘society’ and neglect that working with and for others is the job they have been empowered and paid to do, is the economy therefore the wealth creators that are society – nothing else.
June 20, 2025
Governments are hopeless at picking good investments, not their money and they do not get the return so what do they care? They select for political or religious reasons so we get the insanity of net zero, HS1 & HS2, the pushing of heat pumps and EV cars, our current insane health care structure, the bonkers energy agenda, the road blocking, mad multi-million £ roundabouts, the insanity of mainly duff worthless degree funded by soft student “loans”…
June 20, 2025
So Retail Sales volumes dropped 2.7% in May. So much for Reeves’s growth, growth, growth pathetic “rain dance” while pushing massive anti-growth policies in every direction on top of Miliband’s net zero rip off unreliable energy insanity. But then from my recent observations in London circa 10% of retail must now be shoplifted! Now that the police seem to have effectively decriminalised 99% of shop lifting!
June 20, 2025
Channel Tunnel opened in 1994 with the Eurostar trains going from Paris to the French entrance of it the same year (and also going to Brussels). HS1 opened in .., 2007, displaying to the world the incompetence of the successive British Governments and British-related private companies for anything related to infrastructure.
Since 2010 HS1 has been owned by two Canadian pension funds and this till 2040 when the British state might take over the ownership.
newcivilengineer.com 06/03/2020 ‘Very well delivered: HS1 has brought £4.5 bn of benefits to UK’.
ft.com 31/05/2024 ‘Making tracks: Is Eurostar’s monopoly under threat?’.
railtechnologymagazine.com 13/06/2024 ‘HS1’s costs down and performance up despite challenges’.
railadvent.co.uk 06/01/2025 ‘Rail regulator orders High Speed 1 to cut charges to train operators’.
June 20, 2025
Chanel tunnel brings no benefit whatsoever. HS1 can’t compare with the rest of the railways which, by the way, we invented privately and built privately and GAVE to the world – bringing much value to places like India, demonstrating to the world (again!) the brilliance of the unequalled British free of state/corporate control.
June 20, 2025
Well thanks for that hefner.
But what actually is the point you are making.
Asking for a friend.
June 21, 2025
I’ll make the point clearer, for your friend Sam: LL is wrong, HS1 Ltd is a private company supervised by a regulator, appears to be successful, and the profits are likely to benefit Canadian pensioners.
June 21, 2025
Would you want to ban these and other foreigners from investing in UK companies hefner?
The UK has billions invested in other countries companies around the world.
Imagine if they all turned round and did the same to us.
Are you turning into “a little Englander”?
June 21, 2025
Not at all. You didn’t understand. LL is wrong saying that HS1 depends on the state. That’s it.
If anything you should recognise that here I was celebrating a private company.
June 21, 2025
But the HS1 did depend completely on the state which gave a grant of £3.2b at the start and then had to subsequently underwrite loans to LCR ;
According to the public accounts committee “Delivering the line and sale of HS1” (find on http://www.parliament.uk)
“1. In 1996, the Department for Transport (the Department) awarded a contract to London & Continental Railways Limited (LCR) to build a high speed railway linking London to the Channel Tunnel (High Speed 1), and to run the British arm of the Eurostar international train service (Eurostar UK). Construction of the line was to be funded partly by government grants (£3.2 billion) and partly by LCR borrowing money, secured on future revenue from Eurostar UK. Very shortly afterwards, by the end of 1997, Eurostar UK revenues were only a half of LCR’s forecasts. Consequently, in 1998, the Department and LCR had to restructure the deal and the Department agreed to guarantee most of the money LCR would borrow to fund construction. When it offered the guarantees the Department did not expect they would be called on. This is our third report on High Speed 1.[2]”
In the end the DoT had to nationalise LCR and Eurostar taking on a £4.8b debt in June 2009.
HS1 was later sold for £2b, representing a total loss of around £6b, hardly something to celebrate.
June 21, 2025
You are wrong about HS1 hefner
lifelogic and dixie are correct.
Which is why I originally asked you what your point was.
June 22, 2025
Which was why I talked about the
´Incompetence of successive British governments and British-related private companies’ and then said ‘Since 2010’…
June 22, 2025
Covering every possible opinion there hefner.
Impossible to argue.
Everyone has done badly.
Well thanks for that.
June 23, 2025
Just a thought: Maybe that’s the difference between someone trying to put comments after looking at various facts and ‘a little boy’ with usually no much to say but just gut-reacting after seeing the name of a contributor they want to shut up. Who knows?
June 23, 2025
Why put little boy in quotation marks hefner?
Who said that?
Not me and not you.
My post to you is correct, you have covered every base in order to seem correct.
Like backing every horse in a race to achieve a winning bet.
ps
Your comments are rude and bitter.
June 20, 2025
The Major and Brown initiatives for Public-Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiatives were, I understand, phased out in 2018 having become regarded as too costly for the benefits yielded. This government seems to seek reintroduction of schemes of that type and one wonders if it is the off-balance sheet nature of the financing that is the main attraction, thereby allowing Wrecker Reeves to incur yet more debt.
June 20, 2025
They were devised to keep state borrowing off the public record.
These people are just too clever by half.
June 20, 2025
Some of the national infrastructure facilities have fallen into the domain of local and national governments doesn’t then need those entities (the State as we call it) themselves to be the ones running things hands-on. Yes, the Taxpayer can own the infrastructure, they paid for it in the first place, or more correctly the consumer, but the service delivery should be by time limited contract with private operations.
The case in point today would be Thames Water, it was forced into private hands, by the organisation that took it over by creating the money for the purchase through a combination of selling structural assets and creating loans against the rest. The purchasers (its shareholders) paid nothing, the taxpayer/consumer had everything taken away – so there is now just a debt. If the ownership of the structures remained with the funder, the taxpayer, the user/consumer, and the day-today-running was then contracted out on a time limited basis, the only thing that could have happened was the contractor could lose its contract through neglect – service would be their priority not the funding of debt at the expense of others. Then the failure would only result in replacement of the team/contractor running it day to day.
These projects are hampered by not being able to be competition driven, that is the customer moving, the customer/consumer is actually the hostage yet it was these very consumers that paid for the infrastructure that was then taken away from them. There is something intrinsically wrong with how things panned out. That fault line is with Government, Parliament and their Bureaucrats they do not have what is takes to run anything hands on, they don’t understand or comprehend, they can’t even dispose of things that don’t then cost everyone else a lot of money and hardship.
June 20, 2025
From the Telegraph
“Thames, which has 16m customers across London and the South East, has been pushed to the brink of collapse as it struggles under the weight of £16bn in debts.”
Not 1 penny of it is the company concerned or its investors money they are insulated. The debt refers to the loans they took against the assets rather than use their own money.
In reality Thames Water is to big and needs breaking up. The assets left should be returned to their consumers/customers and they should be the ones actively appointing a contractor to run the service – the Government, its Blob and Taxpayer money should be no where near the organisation. Rationally Government cant run its self so why let them near anything critical to the consumer.
June 20, 2025
Our politicians think they know best and have an absolute right to our money.
It would be more honest if they ran for office on the basis that we would have to keep our wallets open, and allow them to take as much as they wanted, for as long as they wanted, to do anything they wanted.
June 20, 2025
@Wanderer – judging from the outpouring and the way expenditure has been managed this century the proof of Government in action seems to suggest you work for them as their Minion formally Surf, before that Slave.
Members of this crowd have published papers suggesting the people should get a weekly handouts and all income earned is property of the State. The argument being it forces everyone to be equal, they exclude themselves of course they are superior
June 20, 2025
+1
June 20, 2025
I see protesters from Palestinian Action Group have broken into Brize Norton airbase and damaged a couple of planes.
The police need to take action, in case individuals who will be openly military try to intervene in the right to protest.
June 20, 2025
The Police? I’d have thought military using their weapons was justified.
June 20, 2025
We should look to the Victorians on how to get things built – Parliament did it’s job then by making it possible for private money to create great infrastructure – the railways was but one example, but government then took a back seat, mostly, especially where funds were concerned.
Excessive government spending on risky projects is a symptom of the big state’s ambitions to own and be in control of ‘everything’. It’s another irrational factor that comes out of socialist dogma.
Government should be encouraging new projects, not funding them with debt or our taxes, but like thieves in the night they just know they can do what they want with our money, and they are not very good at it.
Once it can be properly defined again, we should insist that HMG sticks to its day job and nothing more.
Currently, the main functions of the UK Parliament, according to Parliament, are to:
They are not doing any of this very well or honestly, so branching out into other perilous activities is not something they should engage in.
June 20, 2025
@Bryan Harris – yes they governments have been removing ownership and possessions to be the dowry you pay to them as your rulers. It is about fighting you to keep you beholden for the privileges they confer. That is why the now forgotten ‘English Law’ still practised in the free democratic World was removed and replaced by the EU’s favoured ‘ Napoleonic Code’
The first put democracy the helm, the one that created, amended and repealed Laws nothing is illegal unless it was found to be required to be so by democratic consensus. The alternative put the Bureaucrats in charge of Laws if they hadn’t given you permission it is by default illegal – democracy has no place.
June 20, 2025
The private sector will certainly fund all the good ones, and make money from them. The only reason for all these Wealth Funds, GBE, etc. is to get money into Government vanity projects that no one in their right mind would touch. That is what Socialism is all about.
June 20, 2025
New figures from the Office for National Statistics show public sector borrowing was at £17.7 billion in May
https://order-order.com/
Tax High – Borrow High
June 20, 2025
Drastically cut the size of the Government and the Civil Service, then cut taxes on businesses and people so there is room to grow and take on big projects in the private sector. It seems every Government project, of any sort, will always go well over budget and take twice as long as estimated.
The private sector is the horse that pulls the public sector cart. At current taxation levels, the horse is getting exhausted pulling an ever-expanding cart!
Sadly, we have now, and have had for some time, governments which have no understanding of the economy, no experience of running and building a business and no expertise in infrastructure projects. We are governed by amateurs when we need professionals who have succeeded in the real world.
June 20, 2025
I think the UK should have learned from Hong Kong where the utilities were all listed , were well regulated, provided a good , efficient service and provided shareholders with decent returns.
June 20, 2025
+1 Hong Kong learned that from the British. What is being done to destroy Britain is deliberate. In 24 hours we have been given the go ahead to kill babies until ‘they are born’ and anybody can be ‘assisted to die’.
Frankly I’m in the mood to assist a number of individuals to die who I will not mention explicitly.
So I’m hoping that one of the new jobs in this growing industry will be available to me. The wages might not be great but if I can choose the individuals job satisfaction will be off the scale.
June 20, 2025
As at 11:00hrs today we’re importing 19% of energy from France via interconnectors https://grid.iamkate.com/
Have we reached our energy capacity, isn’t it windy or sunny enough or has it always been the energy security policy to buy energy from France (maybe thats the cost of boat people)
June 20, 2025
It is generally sunny, quite windy, nobody has heating on – why do we need 20% from France?(nuclear offload).
When will the House ask very awkward questions of the gathered MPs?
June 20, 2025
Those advocating public sector funding fall into two camps:
1) Those who believe that public sector salaried employees are as good at making investment decisions as private sector market driven and the public sector are effective at managing projects,
2) and, those who idealogically believe that everything should be done by the public sector.
We are now being ‘led’ by the latter and this will result too much money spent on too many ‘projects’ that will overrun and cost more with no return on investment. ROI is an alien concept to those in the second group.
June 20, 2025
“How does the state avoid getting the ones the private sector does not want?”
Why would the state want to avoid wasteful, ideology driven, economy destroying projects such as Net Zero when socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor?
June 20, 2025
I wouldn’t oversell UK broadband. Ookla’s 2024 numbers show the UK to rank 44th globally in broadband speeds. Hardly world leading. France, at 6th, is the highest ranked European country and the average broadband speed in France is more than double that in the UK.
As a Thames Water customer whose monthly bill has recently been increased by over 50% while Thames Water have been found to be paying out dividends completely unrelated to performance, I can’t say that privatised infrastructure has been a shining example of good quality.
June 20, 2025
and the u-turn on winter fuel payments will be recovered by increasing standing charges from those who will not get the payment.
You couldn’t make it up. A socialist’s wet-dream.
June 20, 2025
The winter fuel payments cancellation was a party policy, a point of principle, justifiable that no government can be held hostage to prior legislation ….but heyho the media didn’t like, the opinion polls didn’t like it and farage didn’t like it ….so we u-turn throwing away our principles
June 20, 2025
102 criminals were smuggled, into the UK yesterday 19th; and escorted from the safe country of France…
June 20, 2025
Since the PM says he will “smash the gangs” why doesn’t he start with the fake charirities who are aiding and abetting the illegal migrants crossing the Channel? Or is assisting a crime no longer a crime?
June 20, 2025
….and rule that all charities must be for the benefit of the UK; to maintain charitable status
June 20, 2025
off topic.
A British Army veteran has told GB News that he feels “degraded” by Bracknell Forest Council, after losing out on emergency accommodation to the Afghan Refugee Scheme. George Ford, who was shot on a tour of Afghanistan, began suffering from severe PTSD and he was eventually forced out of the house where he shared with his long term partner.
Bracknell Forest Council have failed to find him a home, but 300 Afghans are said to have been housed at a four-star hotel in the area as part of the resettlement scheme.
Speaking to Patrick Christys, Ford hit out at the “shambles” process of the accommodation system, and the council failed to help him when his life was at “rock bottom”.
Ford explained: “It’s hard having to put myself out there, I don’t want to be out here like this, and it’s just been a shambles, the whole process. A couple of years ago, I approached the council, when my life had literally hit its last rock bottom.
“I was stabbed in the back, I got resuscitated, and I said this is enough, I needed some help. I went to my local authority, and they just point blank denied the Armed Forces Covenant even being signed. They said even if we did sign it, it wasn’t going to get me anywhere.”
Brits are second class citizens, thats very clear.
June 20, 2025
Dear Sir John
Contrary to what you write, it seems to me that electricity regulation has been a disaster, more or less since the Blair government commissioned the fraud-ridden former US company Enron to device its new energy trading market. Since then, the market has been thoroughly rigged by subsidies, taxes and guarantees but still has the perverse effect of tagging prices to that of marginal fuels, ie imported gas.
By contrast, the first 20 years of water regulation was a great success, allowing unprecedented infrastructure investment while keeping prices among the lowest in Western Europe. Why has it gone wrong?
One reason is that most regulated companies have been taken over by anonymous bank-constructed private international consortia (or in the case of Northumbrian Water a hitherto unknown Chinese group) because the interests of City fixers and speculators were always more important to both Conservative and Labour governments than local accountability and identity. To be honest, Sir John, I cannot recall any occasion on which you quoted this trend as a beneficial consequence of privatization.
In principle, I think that regulated private monopoly has much to commend itself as a vector for infrastructure investment, especially where, as in water or local power networks, competition can be simulated by comparison.
Unfortunately, I can think of three regulators, who I shall not name, who arrogantly assumed they were so superior to the regulated, who they took to be dullards or crooks, that they turned perfectly stable industries and organisations into disaster areas, twice over in two cases.
Reforms by the late John Prescott, no doubt well intentioned, also converted some functioning regulators into internally focused bureaucracies instead of being industry focused, turning regulation into an unwanted new industry in its own right. Reforming regulation is, however, both easier and far superior to direct state control.
Reply I argued for competition. I got Mrs T to put in golden shares to key businesses to stop foreign takeover. Blair/EU abolished those
June 21, 2025
@Reply It appears then that Golden shares are not the answer being vulnerable to future government/political corruption. So what is a more robust alternative?
June 20, 2025
‘Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano sent jets of lava shooting over 1,000 feet’ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawaii-kilauea-volcano-lava-fountains-watch-video/
Just another volcano erupting, but don’t worry as it doesn’t effect man-made climate change nor milibands fiscal net-zero plans
June 21, 2025
John,
To me; the concept of a Golden Share only really works if it is used to hold important assets. Ones that are fundamental to the British Interest, where in the long run, the British Interest is more valuable then having Foreign control driving it by some Strategic plan! For example; Dumping, driving prices down, making the whole industry, non-viable. Chinese/Indian Steel! The Profit Motive is too short term to invest in such industry’s, for any other reason! If we a Strategic view, from the 80’s, onwards, it could of been used to drive Economic Efficiency. For example; Driving a Cheap Energy strategy, Cheap Food (profitable) farms, Training and Skills, even a Strategically important investment vehicle! A Sovereign Wealth Funds could of been used to drive Infrastructure Investments, which sensible Norwegian Politicians managed (Their Wealth Funds is now growing faster then their Economy, and is used to drive funding of higher Living Standards)!
The problem is who benefited from the 80’s Oil Boom (consumption), artificially driving up House Prices, and all we’ve have done is artificially held interest rates up, because we need to attract foreign investors, holding our debt?
Look what has happened;
The two programs of QE, went straight into Asset Prices!
No real suggestion of how we really fix to our Banking system, given the Financial Crash of 2008/9?
And, now the Labour Party is using debt to continue the nonsense!
26 years of the Labour Party, and you wonder why the People in Wales, left behind from the 80’s, can’t be bothered!
I pity the Younger generations, paying the price; Student debt, House prices, Renting (Negative Savings), NetZero, lower long term growth, and the lose of opportunity, that is now inevitable!
But, the real solution has to start with the quality of Politician, and not narrow minded, self centred, idiots, repeating old mistakes!
Growth is what is needed, not Cuts! Not until you effect change to all Peoples Living standards, and change the Culture by which we live! With 24 hour News, People are well aware of the situation, so the Economy has to be run to include everyone! So, they can see how life is more profitable, for themselves! And, not, if the truth be known; a Marxist/Collectivist trap, which is what the Tory’s (Not Labour, following on from Blair) tried to do! Forcing everyone into PAYe, and attacking the independent contractor’s with IR35, us the Plebs!
That’s how I see it!
Regards,
RDM.
Reply To fix it takes more than finding a few better politicians. Talented people in politics often get briefed against and sidelined by the weight of the wrong headed establishment.
June 22, 2025
This might sound patronising, but I put it a bit differently; Why, because it works within a number of area’s of the State!
“Silly old Men fighting silly old wars”!
Not a fan!
June 26, 2025
Instead of direct government funding for these projects, tax relief and tax incentives need to be offer to make them attractive to private investors just as EZT where uses in the 80’s and the M5 toll road.