The Chancellor will doubtless now blame the Iran war for the lamentable performance of the economy. So far she has blamed the inheritance, overlooking the facts that when she took over the Conservatives had restored growth to being the fastest growing G7 economy and had inflation back down to the 2% target after the wild swings of covid and too much Quantitative easing from the Bank. She took inflation up to nearly double with large rises in public sector costs and charges and she depressed output and pushed up unemployment with her taxes on jobs, farms, small business and business property.
Her current spin line is she has prepared the UK economy to withstand the shock of the Iran war, yet the OECD forecast says the UK will suffer the biggest downgrade in growth as it is very exposed. Of course it is. The government has a policy of getting us to import more energy,. more food, more high energy using manufactures through its mad self harming pursuit of UK net zero. It also happens to boost world CO 2 at the same time! Imported LNG in a damaged global market is bound to be scarcer and dearer than UK gas down a pipe from our own fields. Imported petrol is likely to be dearer than refined products from our own refiners, yet the government has allowed and created closures through penal taxation of 2 of our 6 refineries.
The government says it wants to tackle the big loss from the fall in public sector productivity but so far has not taken measures that will reverse that loss. It says it wants to control the benefits bill yet it keeps going up and the government invites in many more illegal migrants. It says it has an industrial policy, yet its carbon taxes and high energy prices policy undermines so many factories and plants. The government does not know what to do about the rash of closures in so many industries.
When the issues become too embarrassing it turns to open ended subsidies. It is paying £1.3m a day to keep the last two blast furnaces open, struggling as they do with age and sky high energy taxes and costs. It has had to offer a £100m short term grant to get the recently closed bioethanol plant re opened to produce enough CO 2 for UK needs.It has helped pubs with rip off business rates but not a lot of other High Street businesses under financial pressures to close.
So we still have a government rightly committed to faster growth following so many policies that produce the opposite. The Iran war will be used as an excuse, but many of us have been warning from before the war that the UK economy was not going to grow faster anyway.
If the Bank of England now keeps interest rates higher or even raises them that will increase the intensity of the downturn. A big external energy price rise is like imposing a big new tax on UK business and consumers. It is deflationary, after the obvious first round upwards impact on inflation. The last thing the Bank should do is make it worse on the downside in an orgy of over compensating for its past disaster of printing too much money.
March 29, 2026
Reeves does her growth, growth, growth rain dance and says that Growth (and keeping the cost of living down) are her top priorities. But almost every single policy she, Miliband, Starmer, Lammy, Mamood, Phillipson push destroys growth, increases the numbers on benefits, pushed tax payers overseas and pushes up the costs of living.
We have insane doom loop policies that will clearly end in economic, industrial and defensive suicide in very short order.
The only real questions are:- Is this deliberate, evil vandalism and destruction of the UK by these ministers or are they all really just all deluded ….. ?Are they already in a scorched earth agenda as they realise they will likely never see power again?
March 29, 2026
I’d go with the deliberate, evil vandalism option. No one could be this thick. One thing is for sure, most of these ministers will leave office much richer than when they entered.
March 29, 2026
Daniel Hannan
“Britain should slap sanctions on any country demanding slavery reparations.
If Ghana wants to lead a Third Worldist posse against us, we must not be cowed”
Indeed but we have Mastermind Lammy and this government who want UK taxpayers to be forces pay vast reparations.
Lenny Henry has called for £18 trillion in slavery reparations for Caribbean nations and Black Britons in his new book. This is about half a £ million per tax payer in the UK! Probably one of the few funny things he has ever said.
March 29, 2026
It is estimated that the African Barbary pirates took between 1 and 1.25 million white European Christians into slavery between 530 and 1780. Still, people like Lammy and Henry prefer not to discuss this. They have a single-track mind full of racism and hatred of white people, even though they themselves have benefited from the wealth the West created.
March 29, 2026
Starmer seems set to roll back his proposed lengthening of indefinite leave to remain from 5 to 10 years – under pressure from Tory scum, scum, scum Rayner.
Also an EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender. One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels.
I expected a Starmer government to be truly dire – but he has been even more appalling than even I expected.
March 29, 2026
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is taking “immediate” action to fix the foundations of our economy.
In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves laid out plans to rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.
HM Treasury and The Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP
8 July 2024
How this going then Doom-Loop Rachael?
March 29, 2026
Is this true – as is being widely reported?
A key ally of Keir Starmer was last night accused of being ‘rewarded’ with more than £1 million from the taxpayer for his ‘secretive firm’ after ( the sovereignty has not yet been legally surrendered and these timings may be wrong ed)surrendering British sovereignty in the Chagos Islands, sparking a bitter conflict of interests row. An organisation founded by Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser (NSA), received the money ( including some? ed)following his appointment as the Government’s Chagos envoy after Labour’s 2024 election win.
Reply It is true allegations have been made in the Mail newspaper which need to be read carefully. It is also true Inter Mediate, a company Powell has been involved with, has received ODA money for conflict resolution work. A Parliamentary question about why and how much received a blocking answer refusing to give details. I have not seen any evidence that Powell received money for promoting the Chagos surrender, other than his salary as National Security Adviser.
March 29, 2026
The whole Chagos deal stinks and needs urgent investigation by the authorities.
March 29, 2026
“The Authorities” are probably up to their necks in the deal so any investigation will find “nothing to see here.”
Just like the Police investigation into Family Voting in Gorton and Denton.
March 29, 2026
Good Morning,
I read every day about businesses closing and going broke. I met a local, mid-career entrepreneur yesterday who runs a specialist fabrication business, employing 200 or so people, from next month he will not employ any new staff owing to the new employment rights laws, despite growth opportunites. This is socialist ideology in action, we cannot live with this for long.
March 29, 2026
Sir John you know that if we produce more UK gas we don’t get it any cheaper, it goes on the market price. Right wingers like to push this falsehood, just like we need to drill for more gas and oil, there’s nothing left in the sea bed .
Reply Why peddle government lies? There is no world price for gas. Gas in the UK is 4 times the price of gas in the US. Imported LNG will usually be dearer than home produced gas down a pipe given all the extra costs of liquefying, transporting and converting back to gas. There is plenty more gas in the UK if only we were allowed to produce it.
March 29, 2026
I believe that we confuse ourselves with the word ‘growth’, as though the choice is between ‘growth’ and ‘no growth’. This choice is impacted by:
A) the UK running a trade deficit – this weakens the UK’s ability to control its destiny.
B) capitalism being an ongoing process of creative destruction (eg impact of AI).
Because of the above, I would argue that i) ‘regeneration’ should replace ‘growth’, ii) the choice is between ‘regeneration’ and ‘becoming poorer’ (standing still is not an option because of the trade deficit), and iii) the future can look very bright because of amazing emerging technologies which can contribute to solving the world’s problems.
The UK has incredibly inventive engineers but both the Government and the City are doing their best to prevent their skills being harnessed for the benefit of the UK – this is not a difficult problem to solve if there is a will to do so,
March 29, 2026
Growth is what politicians aspire to, to make it easier to continue their policies of spending and waste. British people could have the same benefits of growth if the government reduced spending, made the public sector more efficient and can the wasteful activities. Growth would be a bonus on top, but it needs a relaxation of legislation to achieve it.
March 29, 2026
During the 14 years between 2010 and 2024, the Conservative government issued hundreds of new drilling licences for N Sea oil and gas. Seven licensing rounds over 14 years led to 20 new and re-licensed fields. So far, collectively, they have produced only about 36 winter days worth of gas – about enough to last until May Day.
Source; End Fuel Poverty Coalition
Many industry figures have conceded that new drilling in the N Sea will not lower UK energy bills, as oil/gas is priced on international markets by a global cartel
Following the Donald’s recent orders for the UK to re-start exploration in the N Sea, Badenoch, Farage, Tice etc have been loudly agitating for yet more drilling. Apparently, they believe Trump’s dangerous fantasy that the N Sea contains endless fossil fuel reserves
Many economists, climate experts and large swathes of the electorate hold that the future for our country lies in homegrown renewable energy, better home insulation and EV’s. The fact is, our economy is still very vulnerable to oil/gas price shocks – such as now. Again.
Reply Why do you never engage with the critique of the government’s deeply damaging and ill informed spin? Gas by pipe is usually cheaper than LNG. Home gas pays lots of tax to the UK Treasury, imported to foreign governments. There is plenty of untapped gas offshore and onshore.
March 29, 2026
Norway manages to extract gas from the North Sea, some of which they export to us, comprising 10% of UK gas needs.
March 29, 2026
Don’t you just love Norway?
Population of less than 6 million, almost all electric with nearly 90% from hydro, and praised for it, and yet they make £billions from selling oil and gas!
March 29, 2026
Don’t forget the tax income from the hundreds of thousands of well-paid workers who work directly and indirectly for the gas and oil industry. This is a huge benefit to the UK economy.
March 29, 2026
Our government should receive payment for the drilling/production licence in product not cash. This confirmed supply can then be used and sold at prices to mitigate supply shocks from elsewhere, and sold to the UK market only.
March 29, 2026
To be fair, the Iran War will make the economic situation here far worse than it otherwise would have been, but it was already dire and getting worse.
I wonder if Sir John agrees with me that they are deliberately trashing the economy and making us even more reliant on imported food, energy and manufactured goods as a means to justify taking us back into the EU?
Combined with their other divisive policies, not least the refusal to stop the influx of criminal migrants, it seems to me that they are deliberately creating the conditions which will lead to civil unrest in order to justify a form of martial law.
March 29, 2026
Why is it worse here , as a ‘Green energy super power’ surely we should be the least affected?
March 29, 2026
@Donna. I agree. I think the ruling class wants to provoke civil unrest in order to impose ever more controls over the population. The EU fits into this trajectory: it’s an undemocratic, authoritarian, corrupt vehicle that serves to further the aim of creating a corporatist (i.e. fascist) system across western Europe and beyond. They have been undermining EU nation states for decades, and see internal and even external (eg. Russian) nationalism as a threat.
March 29, 2026
I think at some point they will impose Covid-style restrictions. Perhaps the coming energy crisis, which they’ve been implementing on a “slow and steady basis” but will now be turbo-charged by the Iran War, will be used as the excuse.
Blackouts will result in rioting and looting in our oh-so-enriched cities. That would give them the excuse they need.
March 29, 2026
The government has no interest in growth of the economy only growth if the public sector.
Yesterday there was a demo by estimated 50k idiots against fascists and the far right aka Reform.
These are probably funded by the state via proxies as they all carry expensive placards similar in nature.
The real idiots in Westminster know their time is up and are mounting a concerted effort to discredit true patriots.
Net Stupid is a cancer at the heart of government together with mass immigration which is designed to destroy us.
March 29, 2026
My understanding is that government now get majority of business rates councils get to keep only a small percentage. No wonder they hiked them
March 29, 2026
Local councils should keep all the business rates, then they can attract more business with competitive rates.
March 29, 2026
The wholesale price of UK electricity shot up last week to £113.75/MWh. with the April 2026 futures contract at a humungous £139.45/MWh, thanks to the Ayatollah regime closing the Strait of Hormuz
Recently, Miliband secured an offshore wind AR7 strike price average of £91.20/MWh in England and Wales and £89.49/MWh in Scotland. Which means that almost as soon as the new capacity starts generating, large sums will be earned by the Treasury under the CfD scheme
Labour have already announced that (targetted) support will be available – yet again – for energy bill payers. Straight from British taxpayers to Big Oil’s bottom line – to be paid out as special dividends to shareholders
Net stupid Richard Tice and his Reform ‘Leader’, the dreadful Nigel Farage, have been ranting on again about how it’s net zero that is going to bankrupt us. And definitely not the oil & gas companies’ blatant price gouging at the pumps. Yeah, right!
Reply The latest renewables offer electricity much dearer than electricity from gas when you adjust for the carbon tax levied on gas based electricity with no such tax on renewables. Taxpayers also have to subsidise the renewables.
March 29, 2026
Nuclear power also gets subsidies. Would it be economically viable without them?
March 29, 2026
What are these subsidies. Nuclear power has given us clean, reliable base load for over 60 years. People keep saying the oil and gas industry are subsidised but u can’t see it. Apart from normal business expenses they are massive contributors to the Treasury. Renewables on the other hand are massive subsidy tuckers.
March 29, 2026
@SG. The Straight of Hormuz is open. It just depends whonyou are. As AI says “according to Iran’s current policy amid the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis, the strait is selectively open to vessels from neutral or pro-Iran (“non-hostile”) states, but closed or highly restricted for those linked to the US, Israel, and their allies.”
This may help supply chains, but the cost of the raw material will reflect global prices.
Another factor affecting the availability of hydrocarbons (and to a certain extent the price we pay) was someone blowing up the Nordstream 2 pipeline and deciding we would not buy from Russia.
The world is awash with oil and gas, but we’ve decided to limit who we buy from, and extract less of our own product.
March 29, 2026
Capitalism in action – growth goes to where it is made welcome.
The average Briton is worth no more than the average Indian or Chinese person – subject to investment in national infrastructure and education. We got away with ignoring these facts in the days of slow ships and slower government – now all the world can move at warp speed – except our Parliament.
No good expecting Reeves or Badenoch to help, they can’t, they are stuck with the old ways. We will have to wait until we have become sufficiently poor to allow skyscrapers to be built in the Cotswolds and giga factories paying small wages cover the land. Most people housed in cheaply built slums.
March 29, 2026
Good morning.
Has anyone had their 2026/27 Council Tax Bill in yet ? I would imagine it will be raised to something like 4.99% from last year. Thousands of pounds just to have my bins emptied once every two weeks.
March 29, 2026
It’s all those old people who spent all the money they ever had, leaving themselves nothing for their old age to pay for their care home, so the council picks up the tab.
Make that expense discretionary and perhaps council tax bills can be lowered.
March 29, 2026
@Mark B. Yes, I have. And yes, that’s what they’ve done.
March 29, 2026
9% for me yes nine percent. and more pot holes that there are traffic cones to mark them.
We must ensure the high salaries and pensios of our council permanent staff are fully funded of course, oh and the increase in pay given to councillors which the LibDem controlled council voted for themselves.
March 29, 2026
@Mark B – here in Wokingham the Local council has in recent days started to badly fill in the masses of pot-holes – there must be a local election in the air.
In recent days I stopped to speak to a council operative charged with clear last autumns detritus from our footways. He was struggling as by now it was a congealed baked on mess. He said yes it was harder work than it used to be, he said Wokingham used to have 12 teams keeping the streets and footways clear, it is now just him.
What the lunatics somewhere miss, is that dumps of detritus and vegetation getting baked on to our roads and footways hold moisture that then freezes that then causes and aggravates cracking leading to cost that are exponentially greater than good ongoing management.
Then again our local council was able to splash out £5.5 million painting ‘maple leaves’ on a busy roundabout to confuse and attempt to cause accidents to the unweary.
Who do these people (councillors) work for?
March 29, 2026
When Labour criticise the last Conservative Government’s record they never mention the effect Covid or the Ukraine war had on the economy , it is all rolled up into a denouncement of ’14 years’. As such Labour have made clear the rules of the game, the war in the Gulf should be ignored and it made all their fault.
March 29, 2026
@Iain Moore – if it wasn’t one thing it would be another. We pay and empower our elected representatives to keep us and the country safe, secure, self-reliant and resilient. Outside interference/events always happen, that why we have a Parliament to ensure we progress above the noise.
We have 650 elected members all in neglect of their duty, we have 650 elected members that shy away from seeking confirmation of their direction at the ballot box. We have 650 elected members that fight democracy.
But I get your point…
March 29, 2026
Government policy from the Tories and Labour is killing off the buy-to-let market. It is no longer viable to rent out mortgaged properties. This Government don’t seem to realise or care that small landlords are selling properties to corporate companies. These corporations pay little tax on their revenue as they have their headquarters abroad. Instead of raising tax revenue, the greed and envy of politicians are causing a reduction. Many tenants are being issued Section 21 notices before the May changes. I expect the corporations will replace them with the asylum seekers, the Government is moving out of hotels. Having just rented out one of my properties and seen first-hand the desperation of people looking for a home, it makes me sad to see how politicians have let down the British people.
March 29, 2026
“This Government don’t seem to realise or care that small landlords are selling properties to corporate companies.”
It isn’t a question of not realising or not caring – that was the plan. The Gov is working in the interests of the WEF and global Corporations. They want small, individual landlords to be driven out of the market.
https://pe-insights.com/record-1-5bn-invested-in-uk-rental-market-by-private-equity-firms/
March 29, 2026
Sir JR you forgot to include the old chesnut favoured by Reeves and Labour.
‘It’s all the fault of Brexit’
March 29, 2026
Sadly when growth declines we never see any reduction in Government spending just more borrowing to bridge the lack of growth
March 29, 2026
If only we had followed the Scouts Motto “Be Prepared” especially in the ten years since the vote? I mean it’s so very obvious that as an island nation with 70 million how vulnerable we are and in so many respects – no need for me to spell it out. Growth is important but in the overall of what’s happening in the world today it is only one part – for instance recently we see where even the armed forces have been allowed to run down? This is all happening on various Government ministers watches and makes me wonder if we are lacking in the quality and experience of politicos we project to high office however my stronger instinct is that as a nation we have been too busily rewarding failure while pandering to populism.