The original black hole estimated around £20 bn was blamed on the previous government, though more than half of it was higher public sector pay awards made by the new government. This was more than covered by large tax rises in the first budget where we were told this would be a one off tax raising budget to get the finances into prudent shape.
Instead the Chancellor boosted spending greatly, Give aways to Mauritius with Chagos,to France who accompany Channel migrants into our waters instead of stopping the boats, to record numbers of illegals arriving here, to a surge in mental health disability benefits, to a huge increase in NHS spending with no productivity requirements, to an further increase in the civil service and more net zero projects, for paying the losses by British Steel and the Bank of England.
Now we hear the Chancellor wishes to claim her economic problems arise from Brexit. Nonsense. Anyway Brexit happened well before the election so it is not a new issue.
The truth is the black hoke would be much bigger were we still in the EU. They levy up to 1.4% of GNI or ££42 bn on the UK. The average member state pays 1% or £30 bn for Uk. We would also be paying away £4 bn of customs dues and £1 bn of plastics tax to the EU if we were back in.
So the black hole would be £35 bn to £47 bn bigger spending on our terms of membership. Instead of blaming the EU she should be grateful we are saved such a big set of payments.
I am fed up with hearing the lie our GDP is down 4% owing to Brexit. It isn’t. The dodgy OBR forecast said a loss of 0.25% a year for 15 years from our growth rate, which was also wrong. This was based on forecasts of a loss of trade. We now know our trade post Brexit is well up thanks to a surge in services which are the majority of our exports.
October 17, 2025
Good morning.
Chancers like, Reeves need to be careful of what they wish for. If the UK were to re-join the EU she will lose all power and control over spending plus, we would have to give up Sterling.
She also brought in increases to Employers National Insurance increases which has forced employers to either not employ people or, offshore the work. How does that help get more income ?
We are already at peak tax. You cannot take more from those (the wealthy) that have moved elsewhere. It leaves the next wealthy (middle-class) to shoulder the burden. And when that cash cow has been fully milked to pay the benefits of the indolent it then falls to those who are literally living on the breadline.
The problems the UK economy faces cannot, for ideological reasons, be fixed by a Labour government. A truly sad state of affairs.
October 17, 2025
All the spending increases you mention are to government or quasi government departments both at home and overseas
Reeves has no plan for growth and if rumours are to be believed she’s about to take a wrecking ball to the pension industry just as Brown did to final salary schemes. Of course none of this will apply to the bloated public sector
For the fifth day running we have very little wind over Europe. We are getting 1.3% today gas and nuclear are providing 74% of our electricity . Again we are sending power to Europe generated by precious gas only to import around 15% later in the day at a much higher rate.
There’s a power black hole on the horizon and I wonder what plan Milibrain has to solve it.
October 17, 2025
Plus circa 6% form bio fuel wood absurdly imported on diesel ships from America!
October 17, 2025
IW : “There’s a power black hole on the horizon and I wonder what plan Milibrain has to solve it.”
What evidence is there that Miliband wants to solve it?
October 17, 2025
We will not rejoin (yet). They are rolling the pitch ready to announce that we will become an Associate Member, outside the Eurozone.
October 17, 2025
Correct. The groundsmen, aka Starmer, Reeves and Millibrain are tasked with making a flat pitch turn at a whim, ready for the EU spinners to wreak havoc.
October 17, 2025
@Mark B – “If the UK were to re-join the EU she will lose all power and control over spending plus, we would have to give up Sterling.” that to a Marxist government would be a job ‘well done’ back to freeloading, off loading responsibility and prancing like a peacock and expecting reflected glory. Anything but responsibility and work..
October 17, 2025
Morning Sir John,
The real problem we have, is that, in the minds of many politicians, the answer is always to throw more money at any perceived problem.
The NHS is not fulfilling the needs of the people…. Throw more money at it.
Local services are inadequate…. Throw more money at it.
Education is failing…. Throw more money at it. How many times have we heard Chancellors or PMs say we’ve doubled or treble money for this or that?
Of course, the state doesn’t have any money of it’s own , only what they can extort from us. The Gangster State. There is an old saying that, when you’re in a hole, stop digging!.. Perhaps the Chancellor in particular and the government in general need to be reminded of this saying.
Roll back on net stupid zero, put all the costs of the boats onto the foreign aid budget but don’t increase that budget or in other words, send less of it overseas.
Stop the stupid Chaagos deal.
Stop Blair’s Digital ID.
Put Britain first and look after our people and our own industry.
October 17, 2025
@Cliff.. Wokingham. +1 agree with all that
My only observations are that as you say they don’t have any money just what is stolen in taxes to fill an egotistical void in their lives – its not about the country or its people.
Then there is the situation that the Chancellor doesn’t work alone she has a boss, 2TK then she is part of the collective responsibility of Cabinet – they all sign off on what she does. Then along come the 650 MPs in what we call a Parliament more than 50% of them have to agree with the direction being taken by the PM, Chancellor, Cabinet, or it doesn’t happen.
As inferred if they would just wish to work with the people of this great Nation and not fight them we could be moving forward not backwards
October 17, 2025
Lawyer Ayoub Khan an independent MP.
“I welcome the news that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans will not be permitted to watch the match at Aston Villa! Well done to all those that signed our petition!”
A truly appalling decision by Birmingham police et al. Two tier, evil, anti-semitic justice once again. So Kier what will you do? Nothing I suppose! Will the dire Mayor of London be following this lead next? Will Jews be banned from London soon lest it annoys the “river to the sea” protest marchers? Especially if they are “openly Jewish” as the police described them.
October 17, 2025
“all those THAT signed” – and he is a Barrister. “Not be permitted” why not just say “banned” an appallingly dangerous move!
October 17, 2025
The spirit of football is that it is a spectator sport. If Aston Villa refuses to entertain away fans I would expect EUFA to declare the match forfeited.
Fair enough the match should be held behind closed doors if the fans misbehave, but not simply because a section of Birmingham hates Jews.
October 17, 2025
@ Dave Andrews – Aston Villa football club is not refusing, rather it has been denied the necessary safety certificate needed to allow away fans inside its stadium. A club statement says the Safety Advisory Group “have formally written to the club and UEFA to advise no away fans will be permitted to attend Villa Park for this fixture” so the club ought to have no problems with UEFA.
(The Safety Advisory Group (SAG) for Villa Park is a statutory body established by Birmingham City Council under UK sports ground safety regulations. On this occasion it seems SAG member the West Midlands Police gave its advice to bar away fans in light of “public safety concerns”.)
October 17, 2025
I think the issue is with the protesters/violence outside not inside.
The fans of both teams might be well behaved.
October 17, 2025
Having made threats to sell American Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, Mr Trump has been summoned to Hungary for a bollocking during a two hour phone call yesterday with the war criminal Putin
Putin’s much vaunted summer offensive has failed – with stupendous attritional losses for his conscript army – and is clearly rattled by the prospect of Tomahawk cruise missiles dropping on his bunker. Or on Red Square for the world to see
Putin’s Hungarian lackey Orban has repeatedly attempted to use his EU veto to stop European lethal aid from being delivered to Ukraine. Hungary, far from reducing imports of Russian oil products and gas, has increased orders and has offered to divert Russian oil/gas to other countries in Europe
True to form, Orban has repeatedly clashed with Zelensky and has railed against Western sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukraine army has held its own against the Russian hordes for over three years. Now counter-attacking in the Zaporizhzhia region, for the first time in months the Ukraine army has regained the military initiative. The Tomahawk cruise missiles are a powerful threat to Russia. Let’s hope Trump is not persuaded to change his mind
Reply France and Slovakia buy Russian energy as well as Hungary. President Trump wants to get a compromise peace between Russia and Ukraine. The EU seems to want to prolong the war whilst buying Russian energy and giving insufficient support to Ukraine to win it.
October 17, 2025
Europe which is incapable of protecting its own borders is happy that Russia is busy elsewhere. Buying their gas and oil helps prolong the war which Europe sees as a positive.
Cruise missile would certainly change the trajectory of the war. Let’s just hope Putin isn’t stupid enough to use nuclear weapons.
October 17, 2025
Of course the EU wants to prolong the war. It needs to maintain “the Russian threat” in order to keep “the peasants” scared and justify the building of an EU War Machine.
October 17, 2025
the Russians might be having hands full with the Ukrainians but the EU would simply roll over and quit.
October 18, 2025
The EU (and the UK) need Ukraine’s resources. They all are facing a black hole with their economies and are heading nearer and nearer to the point of no return: the event horizon.
October 18, 2025
They need Russia’s resources which dwarf those of Ukraine.
October 17, 2025
@Reply – it would appear the UK Taxpayer in helping the Ukraine is between a rock and a hard place. 2TK’s friends in the EU keep sending Putin more money to finance his War, seemingly to counteract what the UK taxpayer spends. We mustn’t forget 2TK’s other best friend India, they send Putin money, they buy Russian Arms, they provide administrative services ‘. (the bit people don to want out) ( words left out ed)
‘India has emerged as the second-largest supplier of restricted critical technologies to Russia, with almost one-fifth of the sensitive technology that goes into Russia’s military-industrial complex getting through via India, according to a report by Bloomberg.’
We are all forced to be hypocrites thanks to our Government
October 17, 2025
So having lost the 1.2 million standing professional army and now deepening on 2 million conscripts, with the economy in tatters, you contend that threatened with (nuclear armed?) Tomahawks, the mad Russian President has ‘summoned’ the all powerful leader of the victorious side.
Stick to Net Zero, you are more sound on that than on the war in Ukraine.
In truth Putin is under pressure in Russia. They point out publicly now that everytime he offers peace he is rebuffed. They say the threat of Tomahawks is his response to the USA/Russian talks in Alaska. Putin is now desperately trying to keep lines of communication between the Trump Administratin and Russia open.
You had better get down on your knees and pray that he is not replaced.
October 17, 2025
‘he offers peace’ where did you get that nonsense from?
You mean after he has trampled all over Ukraine, taking vengeance on those who spurned his vicious, senseless (to us) attacks, he might withdraw to turn attention to the Baltics?
I suspect you know that but will not admit it?
October 18, 2025
No there were two peace agreements BEFORE a shot was fired. Minks 1 and 2. Look them up.
The first guaranteed by Germany and France, Holland and Merkel are now on record saying they were just winning more time to prepare Ukraine for war. (Russians accuse Putin of being fooled first time)
The second was negotiated and signed by the negotiators of both Russia and Ukraine, and scuppered by Boris Johnson who rushed over and told Zelensky to fight instead. Ergo 1.2 million Ukrainians, many press ganged, KIA.
October 18, 2025
‘Minsk’ my computer often; knows best and can garble almost anything. Includ8ng adding numbers if I hit a key too high!
October 17, 2025
I have previously attempted to post on intelligence matters on this blog.
Reply As your short post includes giving Lord Hague a knighthood he did not have as part of a wider unsupported allegation I am not posting it.
October 17, 2025
@Sir John
This is exactly the point that I wished to make. The secrecy laws in this country are not designed to keep secrets, but designed to prevent the public from knowing about the latest intel cock-up – the Afghan data leak is a very good example. Being repeatedly outwitted by the Chinese with the connivance of royalty does not help. I am quite sure that Lord Hague is loyal btw
October 17, 2025
To whom are you quite sure Lord Hague is loyal?
October 17, 2025
Simple mathematics suggest that we are near bankrupt as a nation already, so Labour believe they need to tax those who have been prudent, with a solid work and savings ethic even more. !
It is politicians of all colours who have got us into this financial mess, with years and years of stupid policies and promises.
No wonder many people are now starting to feel, why should I bother, when working, investing, and saving is being penalised so heavily when having taken all of the financial risks, but the government wanting most of the rewards of any success.
October 17, 2025
You cover the socialist society structure completely; in short ‘You work for the state, we tell you what you can have and you will believe you are fortunate to be so well managed’.
I believe this is the mantra said at all schools in N Korea every morning….
Welcome to the UK under dear leader Starmer.
October 17, 2025
@Berkshire Alan.
If you allow those that look in the mirror and wish to support the person looking back at them and their families, you can’t have a Marxist State. So, the first rule is to dumb down, remove the ability of self-reliance, force people to be beholden to others, preferably the State, as the State should be the only giver. One of labours advisors, advisor to the Chancellor, now an MP has written papers in an extreme left wing think tank journal, that the desire is for the Citizen is to be give an allowance, and every thing else should belong to the State.
In the same way if you have resources the pressure is for you to leave (be ejected) from the country.
Marxist politicians (in their minds) lose their personal self-esteem if they can’t be the ones handing out the money, the ones allowing you to get to next week. It’s about making you beholden to their personal ego, so you will worship them. It is nothing to do with the nation or its people, that is where the surfs, the slaves reside.
In just 18 months the framework is almost there, what will it be like with more than 36 months to go. The majority of our Legislators, the 650 MPs all support this direction. It is the Government of their choice that they have in power.
October 17, 2025
In addition Councils now redefine words to unilaterally change legislation.
In the ‘Empty Property Business Rates Relief’ Legislation (they meant vacant not empty, ie available to be relet) property owners were afforded 3 months business rates free to relet the property before becoming liable for the business rates in full on the vacant property.
A Northern Council informs me they gave a corporation (my tenant) my relief because they believed they had emptied the property 3 months before the lease expired. They say in those circumstances the ‘tenant is the owner’. I have a bill for £14k.
Why don’t we just redefine ‘citizen’ as asylum seeker’ and all live off the state as directed by ‘international law’?
October 17, 2025
Oh look – the dreadful Nigel Farage, realising that his previous support for the war criminal Putin has cost his Reform limited company much support from it’s targeted Conservative voters, has u-turned on the issue.
Straight-faced, in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday, apparently Farage now believes Putin is a ‘very bad dude’ after his previous utterances were criticised as being soft on Russia. Following Trump’s pro-Putin stance, of course
Anybody who can flippantly remove his “party’s” support for £80 billion of stupid tax cuts from their website, cannot be trusted on national security any more than Mr Cummings, or Boris Johnson could.
October 17, 2025
SG. Strange how support for Reform keeps increasing despite your disapproval.
October 17, 2025
@IAN WRAGG, – not a hard ‘dawning’, we you look at the ‘others’. It is the ‘other’s’ that have caused all today’s situations. It will take someone, anyone, that isn’t seen to be the ‘others’ to rattle the cage, be the disrupter to shake the malaise from what is becoming a corrupt Parliament full of lazy freeloaders with their revolutionary ideological Marxist appointed government.
October 17, 2025
You think Conservative voters want to go to war with Russia?
Go tend your orchids.
October 17, 2025
I don’t know any Conservative voters anymore, they all walked away.
October 18, 2025
OK, let’s split hairs. How many conservatives or indeed British people want you to go to war and fight Russia?
October 17, 2025
The EU is a political project, not an economic one. The Globalists’ use economic lies to justify it because they cannot admit the political truths. The intention is, and always was, to destroy the independent Nations of Europe and create a United States of Europe controlled by a mega bureaucracy.
Two-Tier is a puppet of the WEF and supports its Agenda. He is dragging us from semi-detached towards a formal Associate Membership. The “outer tier” of the EU, outside the Eurozone, will be created when the Ukraine War is finally over. That has been the British Establishment’s objective since Cameron proposed it to Merkel …. but she rejected it. Fortunately, the Referendum to LEAVE was therefore won but the Westminster Uni-Party then refused to honour the result of the Referendum and LEAVE.
By resurrecting the Treasury/OBR lies about the economy, Two-Tier is simply rolling the pitch, ready to announce that we are not rejoining the EU, but are becoming an Associate Member. That is why Labour is deliberately wrecking the economy. We have to be in a state of economic collapse so people will accept it. Just as they accepted joining the EEC in the ’70s when the country was in chaos.
Communism and Fascism are two sides of the same coin. The EU is a Fascist Organisation, in Mussolini’s description “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
October 17, 2025
Correct. To the Europhile the EU is their Shangri-La. Whilst we look on in disgust at an ugly troll, in their bewitched eyes it’s a beautiful maiden. One only hopes the scales will fall from their eyes, which mercifully often happens on an individual basis.
October 17, 2025
@Donna +1, so very true. But also so very clearly the plan of the project from day one. Its not about the UK, the Nation or its People its about personal, very personal, political religious ideology
October 18, 2025
Yes, the very old traditionally German one.
October 17, 2025
Labour come to power blame all ills on “the previous (Conservative) government/Brexit”
Labour get voted out and the economy is trashed. Twas ever thus …..
October 17, 2025
It’s childish, but when I think of Rachel Reeves, the old school playground taunt comes back to me.
Liar, Liar, pants on fire!
October 17, 2025
true for any Labour supporter.
October 17, 2025
Wrecker Reeves has made everything worse, clueless and ill-focused as she is. Her November statement needs to promote growth in the private sector above all things but I doubt it will. What a struggle her successor is going to have!
October 17, 2025
Yeah ….just like Sunak running away when the message was clear.
October 17, 2025
You clearly feel frustrated.
Imagine what those of us who had no avenue to influence government at any level have felt for the last 15 years.
The latest gangster government is merely the cherry on the top.
October 17, 2025
dixie
Labours plan/demand is simply :
“Pay up and shut up”.
October 17, 2025
Keep up the uncontrolled spending and the ‘Black Hole’ will get bigger – isn’t that common sense. Mr & Mrs UK Citizen to pay their taxes, subsidies NutZero, put food on the table, etc, etc, has to ‘budget’ really budget, balance what is going out with what is coming in – that is budgeting!
When Parliament, its Government (its not mine it is theirs, they chose it!) removes the seed corn of the economy, money, from the economy and call it tax they remove the very thing they are short of – the means to earn more. What’s the phrase ‘teaching granny to suck eggs’, its not just a phrase it is common sense. This Parliament with their government is fighting and fighting the good people of the nation for the satisfaction of their own personal religious ideology. 650 MPs look for self-gratification by destroying the very thing they are supposed to defend
October 17, 2025
The OBR is subject to Select Committee scrutiny, so why are they so adrift from reality in holding Rachel from Accounts to the bright light of Truth?
October 17, 2025
Sir JohnYou mention channel migrants, illegals, some even seek to call them asylum seekers. That raises the question asylum? We understand political, religious oppression and so on, yesterday there were reports of ‘asylum seekers’ under arrest for the suggested rape a woman in Brighton. Horrific.
My ( other point ed) though is (asylum seekers coming from Egypt ed). Egypt? A country with a Parliament, a Senate and a House of Representatives. What are they escaping when they came to the UK? Seeking Asylum from what? Western Tourists?
It would appear the UK thanks to its lazy freeloading Parliament, has opened its doors and is financing to the World…….
October 18, 2025
The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is proscribed in Egypt; it isn’t here.
I suggest that MAY be the reason.
October 17, 2025
I saw that GB News last night were quick to pick up on the true arithmetic of our departure from the EU, so there is some hope that the message will get out there, but this will not affect Mrs Reeves’s, and her colleagues’, efforts to maintain that their country’s problems are anybody’s fault but their own.
October 17, 2025
Not only is Rachel Reeves’ black hole of her own making it is also deliberate. There is simply no other explanation for pursuing the Net Zero project to sabotage our energy, economy and national security because the excuse that we have a climate crisis and that net zeroing our CO2 emissions will save the planet is completely false. There is no climate crisis, in fact the planet is greening as CO2 increases and as a result every year more food is produced. The real and uncorrupted scientific evidence, for instance from Happer & Wijngaarden, is that CO2 has little, if indeed any, affect on global temperature. Those who believe John Kerry that the oceans are boiling or the UN Sec Gen that the planet is burning need to look outside, Google the climate information for themselves or read the UN IPCC Working Group 1 (“The Science”) report, Table 12 in Chapter 12 which shows that there are no signals for climate change (precipitation, storms and droughts) other than some mild warming leading to a loss of some ice and snow. The UAH satellite data shows warming at 0.14 degrees C per decade.
October 17, 2025
Well said OR
Totally agree.
1.4c since 1850 isn’t a climate emergency.
October 17, 2025
For soe reason my comment is not being uploaded. Hey Ho, I will try tomorrow.
October 17, 2025
How can the SoS of ES&NZ say that buying and installing solar panels from China made with coal-fired power and slave labour is providing the UK with “clean energy”? And when is he going to publish details of his net zero co-operation deal he signed with China? And is he withholding information behind a super injunction?
October 17, 2025
If, as believed, the first role of government is to defend the UK from external & internal attacks – they have failed
1. Economic attacks from china
2. Illegal migration from europe
3. Banning a race of people to attend a sporting event (Women & girls not allowed to attend a running event and Tel Aviv supporters not allowed to attend a football event)
I fear for our country and democracy
October 17, 2025
We’re not banning you for your safety…we’re banning you because we’ve lost control of the streets
October 17, 2025
Loss of control in the streets, protesting banned brings Civil War that bit closer.
October 18, 2025
Not civil war. The British people are united.
October 17, 2025
“Instead the Chancellor boosted spending greatly……and more net zero projects”
It’s not simply the wasteful, unnecessary and crippling spending on renewables that is the major concern it is the danger to national security by forcing the country to rely upon turbines and solar panels etc. supplied by China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”. If China could not be seen as a safe supplier for 5G telecoms equipment why should it be deemed a safe supplier for our energy infrastructure? Not only is burning hydrocarbons not a cause for global temperature to rise I would rather take my chances for energy security working with petrostates such as the UK (North Sea and fracking), Norway and the USA. And, of course, building our own nuclear.
October 17, 2025
Why did the government cease the China spying case? Did China threaten to halt supplies of their kill switch enabled solar panels made using coal fired power and slave labour?
October 17, 2025
To call a deficit a black hole shows the ignorance of Rachel from Complsints. Nothing can escape from a black hole once it falls past the event horizon and into it. A deficit can be reduced and paid off. But perhaps the way that this government is running the country could be likened to a black hole..
October 17, 2025
Of course a deficit is not a debt. It is an overspend that increases debt. You can’t ’pay off’ a deficit, you can only stop excessive spending ie spending more than your income.
Once you have stopped adding to the debt, and Rachel added £18 billion to the debt in August, you can address the debt.
October 18, 2025
Technical point, the deficit is the difference between income and expenditure when the latter exceeds the former. It isn’t paid off; it is reduced or increased. Debt is the total amount amount owing at a point in time or accumulated losses, and it can be paid off.
October 17, 2025
“Instead the Chancellor boosted spending greatly…[with amongst other items] more net zero projects.”
Only a politician or an inveterate liar will continue to say that renewables are cheaper than gas despite electricity prices increasing as the amount of renewable generated electricity supplying the grid increases. Plus it was Mark Twain who said, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
October 18, 2025
Sadly Remainers are immune to facts and logic.