Outside Parliament they are digging ip the road to put in an expensive new cycle lane. They have just spent large sums on putting up ugly metal fences when there are already good defences against attacks. The government has money to subsidise companies bringing in foreign employees, when we need more jobs for UK citizens who have lost their jobs under this government. The government has plenty of money for net zero excesses.It puts billions into HS 2 and hundreds of millions to subsidise a Chinese owned steelworks. It grants thousands of sick notes for life to people with mild mental health conditions who would be better off working.
The government sees more public spending as the answer to every problem. They have created a destructive money go round, imposing unaffordable taxes on business, then having to pay some subsidy to stop too many going bust.
Starmer and Reeves have come badly unstuck over controlling defence spending, They now seem to be having the negotiation over more defence spend with the new Defence Secretary which they refused to have with the old one. Why?
June 14, 2026
It’s what liebour governments do
Tax and waste on a slightly higher scale than the tories.
Rumour has it that Milibrain would be Burnhams Chancellor, what a combination. The country may never recover.
June 14, 2026
IW,
If it becomes Burnham and Milibrain watch the borrowing costs go through the roof and the £ fall through the floor. It may take that to remove these nation-destroyers from office.
If there are vacancies requiring special skills, why aren’t our higher education establishments responding to the demand and training our own?
June 14, 2026
Peter:
Because the old Polytechnics who used to do that have been renamed as ‘Universities’.
I am more than old enough to remember going to a Polytechnic, and I learned my skills there.
The Politicians think we are fools, and don’t know what they are doing. Well they should think again,
June 14, 2026
Indeed, when I went to university in the seventies it was about 10% of 18 years only that did so. Other went to Poly or FE colleges to learn building skills, electronic repairs, catering and similar. Now they all want to teach thinks like PPE, gender studies, sociology, languages… when what we needed was more engineers, builders, welders… not fewer.
A lot more mature student now too and nearly 60% of the intake is female now so nearly 3 women to 2 men. This makes sense are men pay more to go in effect as women far less likely to repay their loans due to more career gaps, part time worn and lower pay.
June 14, 2026
It is what Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak did too. Much of it pissed down the drain doing no good and vast net harms – Net Zero, Covid “vaccines”, HS2, benefit payments to augment the feckless, open borders to low skilled migrants… Must add up to well over £2 trillion and the damage done perhaps 4 times that.
Well said Peter Hitchens – Top doctor say who still thinks Letby is guilty needs their head examined. So why must she still continue to suffer.
Even tossing a coin would have prob. got about half of the 15 right yet six of our “learned” appeal court judges twice have refused her even an appeal. Educated into stupidity like those Hampshire police handcuffing a man stabbed to death, the senior fire people at Grenfell another report out today 9 years ago was it? Then we have the sick joke Covid Enquiry with sick joke Hallett.
June 14, 2026
I suspect had those Hampshire police officers gone to this incident on their first day of work before any police training they would have done their jobs far better than they did after they have been “educated into stupidity” indoctrinated into the police’s reverse “institutional racism” and DEI.
Grenfell report update was out in May and the fire 9 years ago today! Still no charges for manslaughter or even malfeasance in public office – the deliberate commission of an unlawful act or willful neglect of duty by a public official acting in their official capacity. It constitutes a severe abuse of public trust and is treated as an indictable criminal offense in many jurisdictions.
Surely we’ll over 100,000 guilty of this just in the UK but almost no one and certainly no one senior is ever charged.
June 14, 2026
Surely we have well over 100,000… rather.
June 14, 2026
That’s why we need hard nosed professional technocrats from outside running things – get a group on loan from the IMF because it’s clear we cannot do it ourselves.
June 14, 2026
Unfortunately too many of the technocrats running things are bull-nosed quangocrats appointed for adhering to “the narrative”. For example Fintan Slye, the CEO at NESO supports Miliband’s mad dash to energy catastrophe.
June 14, 2026
The government acts like someone starving with a begging bowl who fills it and then spends the money on bitumen to paint over people’s windows.
June 15, 2026
Or even worse to inject them with dangerous and ineffective COVID “vaccines”
June 14, 2026
In 2025, central banks around the world bought 863 tonnes – nearly $100 billion worth – of physical gold, making it the fourth largest year for central bank gold purchases in over 15 years – Source, World Gold Council
Central banks are buying up so much gold because they wish to diversify away from fiat currencies, particularly the $dollar. Poland, Kazakhstan, Brazil, China and Türkiye alone collectively added 255 tonnes of gold to their reserves last year
Recent geopolitical events – particularly Russia’s dollar reserves being effectively locked out of the SWIFT system and subject to sanctions – have raised concerns among other nations. These developments have prompted many central banks to reconsider the concentration of their reserves in U.S. dollar–denominated assets.
To hold gold bullion one needs strong hands, because of the volatility. Gold is currently on sale during one of it’s classic profit-taking pullbacks. In times of currency stress, central banks can sell gold in global markets to support or defend their domestic currency. Exactly what Russia and India have been doing this year.
Gold offers the ability to diversify a portfolio with an asset that carries no counterparty risk, is globally liquid and can be sold or monetized when needed. The alternative is the SpaceX IPO coming to the market at about 1000 times projected earnings next year.
Reply This site does not offer investment advice. SpaceX reports losses. Gold incurs physical holding and insurance costs.
June 14, 2026
SG. I bought some physical gold last year and sold it 3 weeks ago making 18% tax free. All done cash in hand.
Wasn’t happy having it at home and storing it would have incurred costs.
Love my Premium Bonds.
June 14, 2026
Holding Premium Bonds may well see your money devalue most years. You may get a partially smaller loss due to prizes not meeting inflation. The really 22,000 to I gamble winning may see you make a decent profit but mostly it contributes to the temptingly high prizes.
June 14, 2026
Musk is surely a genius at flogging dodgy shares to the public vastly over valued prices. But as they say markets can remain irrational for quite some time – perhaps rather longer then you or I can afford to short these stocks! Not just Musk but many of the AI and large tech stocks.
June 14, 2026
Keynes discovered for himself that markets can remain irrational for longer than you can stay solvent. On Wall St. the phrase for profiting from position liquidation of those caught out is “filled and killed” as they claim the collateral.
June 14, 2026
so the British state is threatening to lock up Google and apple execs who dont facilitate mass searching of everyone’s phones. what happens when Google and apple pull out of the UK completely, and there are no smartphones available here? I dont think the clowns in government have really thought through the consequences.
we become more like a maoist totalitarian country every day.
June 14, 2026
@iain gill – a scheme with contrived protection. The only one that are to be protected is the Establishment all these spurious events entail the State being handed date on the masses. Not monitoring or thwarting bad actors but the general population, why is that the overriding principle and function of these outpourings?
A Parliament in fear of its People
June 14, 2026
the social media ban on children is just to force all adults to register, so they can track who exactly is saying what.
sadly the conservative party has been on the tv supporting this communist extremist.
June 14, 2026
Presumably they have already negotiated access with the Chinese.
June 14, 2026
And don’t let us forget for one last minute the Breakfast Clubs Starmer is always spouting about who pays for that oh yes the tax payers not the workshy couch potatoes who find it very very expensive to pop into Aldi or Lidl to pick up a less than a tin of white lightning packet of oats to fead there offspring because it would mean dragging there fat arses off the couch away from loose women on tv to cook for them
June 14, 2026
Yes I don’t understand any of it either.
It’s becoming embarrassing to read about the mistakes and self harm this Government is doing to the UK.under a PM who appears to believe he’s doing great, can’t control his cabinet and won’t accept his failings and move on.
Labour waited 14 years for this.My prediction is they will wait many more than 14 years after the next general election to get another chance at governing;Let’s hope so!
June 14, 2026
This is why I really resent paying taxes. The money is largely wasted.
June 14, 2026
It is a moral duty to do all you can (legally) to avoid paying tax as far as possible, then to invest and spend it wisely yourself. Far better that way for everyone and it seems the only way to stop government waste. As they say if voting changed anything much they would have abolished it!
June 14, 2026
I absolutely agree there LL. We can’t boycott paying tax we should all legally avoid paying (or forcing others to pay), wherever possible.
June 14, 2026
Labour = incompetence. Nothing new ………..
June 14, 2026
@Old Albion – that what they want you to believe. A master ‘Plan’ to be implemented by any means
June 14, 2026
This is an article I wrote for another site, but it fits the bill for this diary:
IT’S VERY hard to have any sympathy with the Prime Minister as he stalls in making sure adequate funds are available for our defence. Is he blind to the money he is wasting on non-essential things?
Labour have announced that £4.5billion will be spent on new walking and cycling routes, to ensure people prioritise ‘active travel’.
Their press release says: ‘New national targets announced by the Department for Transport will mean more than half of short journeys in towns and cities will be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2035.’We don’t appear to have any say in this!
This is all linked to the idiotic ideology of Net Zero of course but it’s doubtful that this cash came from Red Ed’s spending pot.
This year the UK has committed a further £752million plus drones etc to Ukraine; this is on top of other payments that came to more than £21billion. We could save a small fortune if only Starmer would stop whispering support to Zelensky, which would go a long way to bolstering our own defence, but I fear he is so anti-Russia that he wants the war to continue until the UK and EU armies are strong enough to join the war and really try to punish Russia.
Sensible commentators suggest that taking some money from the Net Zero budget would easily pay for a greatly enlarged defence budget, but Starmer has neither the will nor the balls to force Miliband to cough up. Instead he will make us sorry we even got interested in the subject as the rumour is that money will have to come from public services, the things we rely on most in our daily lives, though of course the welfare budget will never be starved of funds.
We all know how wasteful quangos are with overlapping criteria and expensive tastes – if only it stopped there. The following is a short list of regularly identified wasteful spending:
Failed IT projects and digital programmes – large NHS, Home Office and other IT systems that run over budget or are scrapped;
Procurement and contracting inefficiencies – single‑supplier contracts, lack of competition, scope creep and poor contract management across government;
Underused or empty government buildings and estates – offices and facilities not consolidated after hybrid working;
Poorly targeted tax reliefs and subsidies – reliefs that deliver little public benefit or are captured by those not intended to benefit;
Fraud, error and welfare overpayments – recoverable overpayments and weak verification in benefits systems;
Ineffective overseas aid or low‑value overseas programmes – projects with weak monitoring, high admin costs or limited measurable outcomes;
Local authority adult social care inefficiencies – fragmented commissioning, delayed transfers of care and variable procurement driving higher costs;
Military procurement overruns and capability delays – programmes with long delays and cost growth from requirements changes;
Energy and infrastructure project cost escalation – large projects where poor planning/contracting increases taxpayer exposure;
Redundant or duplicated regulatory programmes – overlapping reviews, advisory bodies or initiatives with unclear mandates.
So it seems there is plenty of scope for Starmer to get a grip on waste that could help fund better defence, but he won’t: he is too busy selling us out to the EU – more money wasted – and ‘building his legacy’. In any case the MoD are in such a farcical state that even if they had all the money they needed they would screw things up with poor contract provision or simply throwing money at obsolete or inferior equipment.
Ye Gods, how long does it take for one bungling Prime Minister to resign!
June 14, 2026
Good morning.
And a very nice lane it is too 🙂
When governments are allowed to print and borrow without money as they wish, it will be able to spend, spend, spend.
One other problem, which I have highlighted here before, is that the Executive is made up from the Legislature. When we have separate elected parts of the government, when the Legislature is independent of the government and the PM, we will never have a balanced sensible government.
June 14, 2026
On the same day that the press were filled with stories of the Defence Ministers’ resignations there was an official announcement that £4.5 billion was to be spent on new cycle paths and pedestrian crossings. The disconnect with the real world is astonishing. Here is the official announcement: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cycling-and-walking-boom-with-45-billion-for-thousands-of-new-routes-and-safer-crossings
June 15, 2026
It could have provided a useful contribution to road resurfacing and potholes repairs to the benefit of all. I was astonished recently when a badly potholed local road was that needed proper resurfacing and rebuilding in places where the substrate was crumbling into the ditches, and all they did was a patchwork quilt. A further section was properly resurfaced a couple of years ago – just ahead of the election.
June 14, 2026
On the same day that the press were filled with details of the Defence Ministers’ resignations over the defence budget, Heidi Alexander announced an extra £4.5 billion would be spent on cycle routes and crossings. The disconnect with reality is astonishing.
June 14, 2026
You are partly right Lord John. We might start with Parliament – far too well protected, far too cosseted. A mass( clear out of MPs by electorate? ed) every decade or so would probably improve the quality of management and cut the bloated numbers.
We need foreign workers – we can’t breed enough of our own. Making babies is too expensive for the middling class and my dear the cost of education! To help make matters worse Parliament has cut education budgets in real terms. In order to hire enough non-thickos we need to buy in like any other sensible industry.
Of course we followed the off shoring mantra – very sensible. But our genius legislators conveniently ignored the consequent loss of jobs for ordinary folk – and cut the education budget, no point really. The net effect is we have to pay benefits to keep them alive and from rioting. Not their fault, just lazy-thinking legislators.
For many years defence spending was a boondoggle. Turn out old fashioned unreliable junk and provide a revolving door for the top brass. Despite fantastic expenditure on management consultants the projects always go wrong and no one is to blame. Not as if the kit is all that high-tech, an Apple phone is far more up to date. Never mind, the Ukrainians are showing the way, Chinese toy drones and a hand grenade or a self driving jet ski (but they don’t need Admirals!).
June 14, 2026
How much is the government spending on the NHS to treat lifestyle diseases? A search suggests it’s in the tens of £billions every year. Relieve the NHS of the responsibility and put it out to the private sector, paid for by insurance, charities or crowd-funding, and the saving would be colossal.
June 14, 2026
John, you don’t get to a national debt of £3,000 billion without real effort. The Labour government aided by its permanent helpers in the Public Sector spending departments know how best to waste taxpayers mandated contributions. The constant demand for ever more money from fewer and fewer net contributors to state funds can only end in collapse of the funding.
While we are blessed with more and more ‘essential’ spending such as LTNs, 20 MPH zones, low emission control zones, unnecessary cycle lanes, more traffic light control crossings, ever lower speed monitored motorway limits, ‘safe motorways'(?) state funded electric charging points, road narrowing, pavement widening, de-trunking A roads, road humps, ….please fill in what I have missed.
Meanwhile what is not filled in are pot holes, hedges are not cut back road signs are obscured that were once hailed as road safety spending essentials and so it goes on.
More HR2 anyone?
June 14, 2026
“The government has money to subsidise companies bringing in foreign employees” The Government has money to finance foreign nationalised industries in their home Country. Essentially the UK Parliament and its Government have money to ‘burn’. The the preference is for UK money and wealth to be sent, expelled, from the country never to return. While at the same time removing the means for the UK to create more money, by expelling and banning the means of its generation.
How else will the Starmer ‘Plan’ to reset the country to suit his personal ego be implemented. We have a Parliament lead by a PM that ‘hates’ the UK and its people with a passion.
These actions are not mistakes, miss-steps or ineptitude, this is the ‘Plan’ from a UK hating legal professional that is cleverer than the minions are led to believe. To under estimate 2TK is the biggest blunder. 2 year in, 3 more horrendous ones ahead.
June 14, 2026
It’s not “tax and spend” it is “spend and tax”. Deliberately high spending is used to justify high taxation to cause impoverishment and eventually a financial crisis. The false climate crisis was invented to bring us an energy crisis and mass immigration is not just to reduce GDP/capita but mostly to cause a social crisis. Socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor and the aim of these deliberately manufactured crises is to bring down democratic western nation states.
June 14, 2026
“The government sees more public spending as the answer to every problem.” Yet nowhere in this move is any thought given to creating the money to spend. Are they that ‘thick’? I doubt it they have a different trajectory in mind
June 14, 2026
Today Starmer has announced that the Royal Marines boarded and seized a Russian shadow fleet tanker in the Channel last night. About time, since he first threatened to do so about 400 russian shadow tankers have run the channel past Portsmouth and Devenport
The RM, who have just lost the last Albion-class landing ship HMS Bulwark to Brazil for roughly £20 million. She just had a £72 million refit. Only the MoD could waste taxpayer’s money like this.
The new SoS Defence Dan Jarvis should revisit this stupid and costly decision and keep Bulwark and with it the country’s amphibius assault capability.
In early 2026, the UK made moves to sell three of it’s River-class Batch I offshore patrol vessels (HMS Tyne, HMS Mersey, and HMS Severn) to Uruguay. These are smaller, lightly armed patrol boats rather than front-line combat ships, but we definitely need them. They have been sold off primarily because we have no refit capability left to maintain them
June 14, 2026
@SG. How would we feel if another state seized our ships because it didn’t like our foreign policy?
Are we not being hypocrites complaining about the Iranians doing something similar?
June 14, 2026
SG: “They have been sold off primarily because we have no refit capability left to maintain them.”
Are you sure, SG? Or could it be because they are to be replaced with vessels running on wind and solar power to keep to PM May’s Net Zero by 2050 legal commitment?
June 14, 2026
Not just this government.
Civil servants don’t change with the government and continue to bank 28% employer pension contributions
June 14, 2026
a major potato grower in NYorks has to bring in Poles to harvest the crops.Has been granted permission
for accommodation caravans on site(valid 3yrs).Reason:they cannot get folk here.
Of interest:today a new ferry service operates from Boulogne to Cork. Freight and passenger.So another
route that our immigration services will be incapable of monitoring and,heaven forfend,stoking up
more problems for NIreland.
June 14, 2026
Why do we allow foreign students to get student loans ….foreign students owe the taxpayers @£900 million in none paid debts https://www.gbnews.com/money/migrant-crisis-university-students-vanish-900-million-loans