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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.