Unemployment fell last month. Good news says the Chancellor. Yet the figures show there were fewer people in employment than a month ago, down 6000, or a year ago down 74000. Vacancies were down too. What has happened is more people have decided not to look for a job and more have been put on benefits for life. Bad news.
Growth improved last month. It still left it crawling along like the EU at under half the US rate at 0.8% for the last year. Why does the UK establishment always settle for European third best? No surprises there, as most of the measures Reeves and Starmer have introduced have slowed growth and damaged business. There’s been the jobs tax, the oil and gas bans, the high energy prices, the business rates, the farms tax, the subsidies to stop growing food, the sky high Council taxes, the give aways to foreign governments, the crippling influence of the EU.
The complacency oozes out from the government. No published plans to deal with looming shortages of jet fuel, other oil products, and chemicals. No plan to sort out HS 2 or the Post Office, nationalised industries. No plan to save the steel industry, now on high subsidy life support from taxpayers. No plan to boost housebuilding in line with their ambitious targets. No plan to speed up grid construction to keep the lights on.
The dithering also goes on. I was told the other day by the Lords rail Minister that 20 months on the government still does not have a new budget or new timetable to deliver Birmingham to London HS2. It took a Conservative Lords amendment to force the pace on controlling smart phones in schools, as the government was lost in consultations and options. 20 months on and the defence plan still awaits the money to pay for it. We await a social care new policy whilst local government is put through an expensive and unpopular reorganisation.
April 23, 2026
‘The complacency oozes out from the government.’
Starmer is probably more concerned with holding on to his own job at the moment. Others in government may reflect on their own future and that of the Labour Party.
April 23, 2026
A wise commentator from the 1970’s, I think, said, ‘you’ll have the level of unemployment that you’re prepared to pay for’. Moving from unemployed to forever benefits is as useful as moving from hotels to HMO’s.
We’re now in the age of self-delusion with this government, and it’s so pathetic they think we’re going to believe them. The increasing loss of businesses, violence from illegal immigrants and inflation/shortage of energy supply are going to bring this nation to collapse.
April 23, 2026
AI says – That is a classic line often attributed to the British economist A.W.H. Phillips or associated with the economic policies of the Thatcher era.
April 23, 2026
I’ve just heard it, in substance, by the late, great, Sir Humphry Appleby! The radio interview between himself and ‘Ludo’. Brilliant.
April 23, 2026
Complacency has oozed out of every government for the past 20 years. This lot have taken it to the next level though. I reckon if another country invaded they’d just step aside to avoid any bother.
April 23, 2026
Complacency would be doing nothing. If only governments of the last 20 years had been inactive.
Doctrinal and unnecessary intervention with an increased tax base to give away ever more welfare to the “sick” and idle, And still the recipients and their acolytes say it’s not enough.
Less is more when it comes to government.
April 23, 2026
The Labour Party has no future, the last thing the UK needed after the 25 lefty lunacy, climate alarmist, tax, borrow, waste and over-regulate, open-borders of Major/Blair right through to Sunak was Starmer’s Labour and he is showing this in spades. The doom loop lunacy continues.
April 23, 2026
They just said Trump has attacked Starmer again not really at all. Trump is giving him sound advice of roughly “You will not survive unless you ditches your mad energy policies and control the borders”.
Too late now anyway for him. Hopefully he will explain to the King that Climate Alarmism is a hoax when he gets to the states.
This morning we got a letter (2 actually) from our mortgage bank (one of the big UK banks) telling me that “climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather from hotter summers to wetter winters. In recent years severe weather has caused damage and disruption…”
Dear bank the climate and weather have always changed and always will and severe weather has always caused damage. Why do they think I want to hear lies pretending that these severe events are increasing due to a tiny bit more CO2 in the air from my Bank! Why do they thing summers will be hotter and winters wetter? They cannot even predict correctly the climate for May starting in a weeks time!
April 23, 2026
Britain Is Poorer Than Every US State — The Damning Reality Under Starmer And Reeves.
A new Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) poll asked British voters where they thought Britain would rank if it was a US State, they guessed nr7. Actually we rank last, Nr 51.
April 23, 2026
@Lynn A. I saw recently that Cuba, after 66 years of sanctions, still had better life expectancy, health access, education and housing than some of the poorest US states.
April 23, 2026
And therefore MUCH better than the U.K.
What an indictment.
April 23, 2026
Well yes, because Castro decided that if they could only afford one thing, then it would be good healthcare.
They developed very good cancer treatments for instance and in fact have (had?) a very profitable heathcare ‘tourist’ business whereby rich foreigners paid for treatment there. But in every other area life (and more so now) is pretty dire for Cubans…
April 23, 2026
If you can’t afford the poison called medicine you are often better off.
April 23, 2026
Perhaps true but what is the source of this claim.
They certainly have more interesting cars and vehicles.
Cuba is famous for its “living museum” of roughly 60,000 vintage American cars from the 1940s and 1950s—such as Chevrolets, Fords, and Buicks—kept running through extreme ingenuity, often with swapped diesel engines, custom parts, and vibrant paint jobs. Following the 1959 revolution and US embargo, these cars became everyday transport (almendrones) or tourist taxis.
April 23, 2026
Cuba owes a lot to Fidel Castro, the very unreasonably criticised PM then President.
April 23, 2026
Being rather thinner helps and warmish countries do seem to be rather better than cold ones for life expectancy. Over intervention by doctors (which can happen a lot with US style medical insurance systems) can often kill people too.
April 23, 2026
@Lynn Atkinson – I saw those stats, very telling. In the EU only Germany matched some of them. At one stage a few years back concern was raised that the Wealth & GDP of California was getting close to that of the UK – now it has left the UK in its dust.
April 23, 2026
Lower Covid “vaccination” rates and lockdowns will have helped them too.
April 24, 2026
Far lower MRNA Covid vaccination rates that is that had their own far safer version.
April 23, 2026
@Lynn Atkinson
A April 2026 IEA report indicates that the UK’s GDP per capita is lower than all 50 US states, ranking it 51st (including the District of Columbia). The UK’s GDP per capita is approximately compared to over in the US, with even Mississippi, the poorest US state, having a higher per capita GDP than the UK.
Most Brits do not realise they are poorer than the average Americans, Swiss, Australians or Singaporeans. When asked to rank the UK among 50 US states on GDP per capita, on average people placed the UK 7th, richer than 43 states. The truth is far more miserable – we are last
How far does the UK Parliament wont to drag us down on the back of their individual personal ego’s ?
April 23, 2026
@Lynn, have you looked into what metrics the IEA used for this? Digging into the details is always worthwhile since, as part of the Tufton St mob, they have a specific agenda to try and promote.
Firstly, they looked at average income calculated using arithmetic mean rather than the median. Outlier incomes (high or low) distort this figure, whereas the median is the mid point where 50% are above and 50% are below, so is a better measure.
How you use the data can be used to distort the message to the outcome desired.
To illustrate this, consider 4 people with incomes of 2,2,2 and 1. Average income using arithmetic mean is 1.75, but median income is 2. Using arithmetic mean, 75% of people have an above average income, whereas using median, nobody has an above average income.
If the incomes are, instead 2,1,1 and 1, arithmetic mean is now 1.25 meaning 75% of people have a below average income, but the median is 1 meaning nobody has a below average income on that measure.
Furthermore, looking at income per capita without looking at costs (e.g. healthcare access) is only considering one side of the coin.
Of course, it also depends on where you pull your data from. The Statista figures for 2024 (the most recent year for which they have published full data) shows that UK GDP per capita in real USD was $53,340 which is higher than 10 US states, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Montana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Idaho, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi.
April 23, 2026
Ah, so no agenda choosing an exchange rate on a bad day to ‘prove’ that the U.K. is actually better off than Mississippi!
Perhaps to be really fair we need to exclude those whose incomes are derived from the State, the whole NHS, Teachers and benefits claimants?
Let’s compare the take home pay of wealth creators, on ppp terms?
At that rate we could well fall behind Cuba!
April 23, 2026
Rachel Reeves talks up a bad story, you can say that again, like her boss Starmer you know the other part of the comedy act they both sing from the same hymn sheet but out of tune with the rest of the U.K. Even Max Bygraves told a better story than this pair of incompetents
April 23, 2026
Mick,
Fings ain’t what they used to be?
April 23, 2026
not so much a ‘story’ more of a ‘dirge’.
April 23, 2026
Two-Tier had one major objective: to re-align us with the EU as a precursor to making us an Associate Member when the Ukraine War is finally over.
Why deliberately delay / scupper the ending of the Ukraine war? Because if there was a quick ceasefire, he would not have got the UK into a position where we could also become an Associate Member.
He now has another objective: to remain in No.10 at all costs. Neither he, nor Reeves, care one jot for the economic and social destruction they are causing.
April 23, 2026
@Donna. I saw a report that Ukraine was considering getting immigrants from African countries to make up for labour shortfalls (they don’t expect a great return of exiles post-war). This, along with fast track EU membership makes an interesting mix.
April 23, 2026
That any trying to get cushy jobs for his mates at all costs it seems and line up a new one for himself I assume all while acting for the interest of the Chinese (Chagos) and the EU it seems. This all against the interests of UK voters!
April 23, 2026
Re the crippling influence of the EU, the Commission is taking control of agricultural seed production. Only big firms like Bayer will be able to pay for regulation and sell seed, which will force uniformity.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/who-owns-the-seed?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=b9r3f
April 23, 2026
Indeed government, the annti-democratic EU and big business want ever more regulation so as to kill competition. A conspiracy against consumers.
April 23, 2026
There would be no dithering if we had anti-government riots as in Ireland, or here last year.
There is no dithering when it comes to preventing the British people know what is going on. Reporting the existence of certain court cases is banned: you can only find out about them in the foreign media. The reason for the bans has nothing to do with national security.
There is no dithering when a jury is not informed of the true nature of the charges laid against the accused. Such matters are only revealed by a brave MP using parliamentary privilege.
There is no dithering when it comes to getting under the heel of the EU.
It’s all a matter of prioritues.
April 23, 2026
the conservative position on mobile phones is wrong.
for a start a lot of people depend on phones for their immediate health now, for instance diabetics are using their phones to control their insulin pumps and live blood sugar monitoring. you simply cannot take their phones away or switch them off.
it is crazy policy making by the clueless.
April 23, 2026
Any one size fits all policy is usually stupid and damaging.
Sir Two Tier in a Tweet Today:- St George’s flag stands for unity over hatred and decency over division.
Those are the values I will always fight for. Some try to hijack our flag to spread hate, I reject their plastic patriotism.
Well Sir Kier, your Two Tier justice and evil agenda and “Islamophobia” definitions, rape gang agenda, open borders… are the main causes of division and hate. In all his revolting statement he makes no mention of England just “Britain”. The sooner this vile man is gone the better for all.
April 24, 2026
I believe the conservatives introduced an amendment to specifically exclude medical usage.
April 23, 2026
There is certainly a large dose of that going on, along with dithering.
Have they run out of steam and ideas already or is it their nature to behave like amateurs while in office, or are they stretched mentally and politically?
The plans they produced, or at least most them, while in opposition were never passed by the British public, so you can add arrogance to their poor behaviour. They clearly have a vison to impose a hard line socialist state on us, and it won’t be long before we are subservient to the EU, not to mention issues around net-0.
It’s good that labour have been forced into a series of u-turns, but we do need to slow them down, distract them so they devote less time to taking away our freedoms. So I don’t mind if a certain amount of lethargy creeps into their decision making as long as that doesn’t mean they go off half-cock, unprepared and without thinking things through fully.
April 23, 2026
If you can’t think an abundance of time does not compensate.
April 23, 2026
@Steve Bullion – complacency? or part of the ‘Plan’
April 23, 2026
The US war in Iran has demonstrated the lamentable state of the Royal Navy. Only one small ship with a leaky water supply was serviceable and then only available at a week’s notice. This is lamentable. When Russia invades we will not receive a week’s notice of their intentions. We need a Navy which is alert and ready for action with NO notice. Voters should demand that a person with Military experience be appointed Minister of Defence.
April 23, 2026
The ships are the least of our problems, multiple Admirals who have never been and are never likely to be seasick!
April 23, 2026
The data manipulation regarding employment figures, is too politicised to be useful.
Those of us who have run businesses know, there is no single metric that allows clear overview of the business. Government overview of the British economy is no different, but because of media coverage it is always looking for something positive in numbers describing economic activity.
Too often this political need for a positive set of numbers leads to obfuscation and confusion, with story lines developed to report normal variations in positive light.
We are through that period when the new government was able to use the past administrations policies for the numbers being reported. We are now in the look for excuses phase and world events again provide the simple though fallacious reason for any failing metric.
What we, and by that I mean government need are clear untarnished data which tells the simple facts.
Basic data such as total number of people resident in the UK is always obscured always hidden, why?
Unemployment becomes confused by part time work and full time employees. For instance is someone working 16 hrs/week employed or on benefit payment and is the total employed number inclusive of the state funded casual part time cohort? The simple measure would be total number of working age adults in the country, i.e. those over 18 versus the total number in employment paying NI.
The ONS provide data, but to be meaningful it requires great detail and becomes way too long to absorb for most.
I would like to see ten basic metrics that are uncluttered and factual be adopted as the reflection of economic health. These numbers should come from the ONS and simply reflect the facts uncluttered with political hype.
Over to you John.
April 23, 2026
Yes – Analysis Paralysis
Not entirely unknown in the private sector but it usually results in swift change at the top. Here we have the classic ‘Deadman Walking’ situation, with no one prepared (or frankly qualified) to replace him until the disaster (for Labour) that will be the local electionsis over. Even then I wonder whether fear will overcome ambition. None of the potential replacements can save this ship under it’s current heading and (in their hearts) they must know this. Of course fanatics are willing to die for their cause, so let us hope we don’t end up with a Kamikaze PM.
April 23, 2026
Not so bad at talking up a story yourself SJ when you talk up the benifits of brexit
April 23, 2026
Just as with this Parliament as they support her, as does the Government she is a member of, all signing off on her ambitions and aspirations – she sells the line that it is Brexit s fault, Oh wait, its the war that is not a war’s fault.
She is diligently constructing the narrative inline with her boss that if they force the country back under the EU’s yoke all the UK’s woes go away.
The bit missing is that thanks to her as we have the fastest rising tax rates in the G7, which the Parliament ‘own’, the highest energy prices of our competitor nations which she and this Parliament ‘own’ , all embedded before the situation in the Gulf region. This Parliament created this situation, no one else is culpable.
The Country certainly needs a General Election so as to stop this destruction
April 23, 2026
“No plan to speed up grid construction to keep the lights on.”
There is a plan for the national grid to be upgraded enclosed in NESO’s Clean Power 2030 project which they cost at “over £40bn/year”. However, unless the government solves the problem that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine (particularly at night), then the planned grid-scale electricity storage of around 150 GWhrs – sufficient for 2 or 3 hours of peak demand by 2030 – will not keep the lights on however much overbuilding there is of installed renewable and national grid capacity. However, there is no plan to upgrade the local grids, 80% or more are unable to supply more than 1-2 KW/household continuously, which means that there would need to be severe electricity rationing to cope with 4KW+ heat pumps operating 24/7 in cold weather plus 7KW ev chargers. The idea that there will be cheap electricity available to householders when the wind blows and the sun shines is just a pipe dream.
April 23, 2026
There is no plan to stop the invasion across the Channel. There isn’t even a plan to keep the invaders secure in enclosed camps instead of allowing them to freely roam the streets. The “smash the gangs” plan does not seem to exist. There was a seriously feasible plan, the Rwanda plan, but the last government decided to call an early GE ahead of its final implementation and test knowing the Opposition would win and cancel it.
April 23, 2026
The saga continues….
Riot-trained police will be sent to beaches in France as part of a new £662m deal with the UK to stop illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is due to sign the three-year agreement with France on Thursday, which will see at least 50 police officers, trained in “riot and crowd control tactics”, drafted in to tackle violence and “hostile crowds”. The deal will involve France deploying millions of pounds worth of drones, two helicopters, and a camera system to intercept people smugglers and illegal migrants.
yawn.
By the time an issue presents and the helicopters set off, the latest RIB will be mid-channel.
April 23, 2026
“What has happened is more people have decided not to look for a job….”
It may also be the case that employers cannot afford to take people on or, are now making staff redundant especially with increased NI, minimum wage, increased business rates and high energy costs. I would imagine, too that the small family business are deferring investment because of inheritance tax.
April 23, 2026
The Government dithers because it is led by a ditherer! The PM cannot see where we are going because he has no vision, no desire, no curiosity, no interest in the UK and its people. He does not listen to anyone except those who say what he wants to hear.
Even with two major wars, and several minor ones, the PM can’t see the need to increase our spending on defence. The PM can’t see the need to be energy self-sufficient, or to be as self-sufficient in food production as possible.
When the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a ditch! The UK’s ditch gets deeper every day this shameless PM and Government is in power. They are an utter shambles.
April 23, 2026
Why on earth are the Lords involving themselves in restricting smartphones in schools ? And you imply you think it’s a good idea ! This is the sort of nanny state socialism the Conservatives indulged in under Sunak and it’s obviously still going on – performative banning of things. Phones in schools are an issue to be dealt with by the headmaster (who can already ban them) and the parents – the government should stay out of it.
April 23, 2026
Happy St Georges Day.
It’s not only people moving out of work to claim benefits. I know very smart, necessary workers are retiring early after the pension changes, several doctors, dentists, business people.
April 23, 2026
Whilst Starmer’s Gang favours the policies of Russian communist revolutionaries like Lenin and Trotsky it seems to be baulking at the prospect that success depends on shooting people into submission.. Nevertheless it cannot conceive of the possibility that there is anything wrong with its policies. People just need to change their views, understand and stop opposing the Gang – it really does know best.