My Speech on what needs to be done to promote growth and prosperity.
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the national insurance increase and the farms tax were very bad ideas which did considerable damage. It is a pity that more noble Lords behind the Government did not make that clearer in time to avoid the disaster.
I hope that the new Prime Minister and new Chancellor will have learned from the bitter experience of the two Reeves Budgets, which allowed a large amount of adverse speculation, threatening everyone who is successful or enterprising or who has some savings with higher taxes. The Government were surprised when confidence was knocked. They then put taxes on in the Budget, which did considerable damage, and we ended up with higher unemployment, fewer job vacancies, cancelled , deferred investment projects and a lack of confidence in the business community. We need the opposite of all those things. I wish the new Prime Minister well if he can translate his TikTok optimism into a genuine set of policies which will promote enterprise, business, jobs and success, which are what is needed in this country.
As someone who has had conversations with and offered advice to a series of Prime Ministers and Chancellors on the Conservative side from Margaret Thatcher onwards, I have had the chance to observe at quite close quarters what has succeeded and quite often what does not succeed, and I have tried to learn from those experiences. I will share this piece of advice with the new Treasury team: take the bond market seriously. You may not like it and you may think it is wrong, but you are going to find it very difficult to argue with it.
Those very high costs of government borrowing now are a message. They are saying that the tax option is no longer there. Put taxes up more and you may even collect less revenue. They are saying that the spending is too high. You need to look at the benefits bill, as my noble friend the leader of the Conservatives in this House and our right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition have set out in considerable detail. They have described how sensible, modest cuts and proposals would help. By all means accelerate the work on how you can get more young people into work by positive means and get them off benefits, because that is crucial.
However, look at those interest rates. Labour made a lot of fuss when for one day under Liz Truss there was a spike to quite high levels in government borrowing costs, and some of them still carry on about it. I do not think they have understood that for the whole of 2025 and now for the whole of 2026 to date, government borrowing costs have been considerably higher than that one-day spike under Liz Truss. If the Truss spike was wrong, they are gratuitously wrong on an extended basis. There are two differences in the situation.
The Truss Government did not borrow a penny at that very high rate on the spike day; this Government are borrowing, day after day and week after week, at these very elevated rates, which are at least 20% higher than the worst rate under Liz Truss.
The Government have not persuaded the Bank of England to stop selling bonds into a very depressed market. The thing that got the rates back down again after the Truss Budget—which was spending too much—was of course the Bank of England stopping, for a period, selling the bonds at very depressed prices. The Government need to get a grip on that because they are doing themselves and us grave damage.
I want this country to succeed, I want a strong, fast-growing economy, and I want those young people back into work. That takes lower interest rates, not higher interest rates, and it takes proper fiscal discipline. Spouting about fiscal rules does not work. You have to do the hard work and get the Budget into more balance.
September 4, 2026
All sensible stuff John – but how do we actually get a government that will do any of this or even try to do it? No sign of one since Thatcher was evicted – and even she made many huge errors like appointing John Major as Chancellor and then letting him joint his ERM farce.
We have had to suffer climate alarmist, tax and regulate to death, open border socialists!
.
September 4, 2026
Interesting interview with Trump on GBNews last night re. Open borders, defence expenditure, energy, the Falklands… What appalling damage Starmer did to US relations with his “use of joint bases” refusal and even appointing the dire Mandelson to be the US Ambassador.
September 4, 2026
‘All sensible stuff John – but how do we actually get a government that will do any of this or even try to do it?’ People have been asking that since ancient times, with the ancient Greeks all the way through to Shakespeare / Prospero / The Tempest – and then Napoleon, and then the Russian Revolution, and so on.
Man is not capable of running this world alone. As Woody Allen says, ‘sometimes I don’t even know how a can-open works.’ Human beings (including myself) are basically too stupid, but more importantly, too corrupt to govern alone. We need a Higher Being. The Christian One. Tom Holland’s well-known book Dominion sheds some light on this.
September 4, 2026
“Beware the bond markets. The UK cost of debt is too high.“
Well what sensible money lenders would have much confidence in the UK while under the charge of Burnham and Healey (he read social and political science at Christ’s Cambridge) PPE Oxon. but not even any economics. Even if Healey wanted to do sensible things he will not be allowed too by Labour MPs then in three years we will probably just get some fairly powerless lefty coalition.
Even if we did get a decent right wing majority government it will be v. hard to do the right things and turn the country around. This against the blob, the civil service, the unions, the judiciary and the many other lefty international organisations, many charities, vested interests and forces of evil.
September 4, 2026
it needs us to stop importing vast numbers of foreigners to work here in all parts of the skills spectrum.
even if the country was paying its way in the world, which it is clearly not, replacing our entire workforce with foreigners is not going to lead to success.
September 4, 2026
and importing people who are a net burden to our welfare state is not a good plan either
September 4, 2026
Nor is encouraging home grow people to be feckless with benefits often far better than wages.
September 4, 2026
1.77 million unemployed in the UK
4.4 million working in the black economy
0.9 million illegal immigrant working in the UK
5.9 million immigrant working in the UK
0.7 million foreign students in the UK
….not a lot of people know that
September 4, 2026
“proper fiscal discipline” Well yes that would be nice to see – so what is the way to get this delivered? Implanting some working brains into all Labour MPs and Ministers perhaps? Even an early general election (which surely will not happen unless Burnham becomes suicidal) would prob. only deliver some dire coalition of the very left, the left or leftish.
It seems that if I still lived in Bloomsbury I would be likely to get a choice between Zack Polanski with his open borders and class A drugs for all and a Somalian born, female, Labour Candidate that I know nothing about but she has joined the Labour Party. These the only two candidates with any real chance! Some people even seem to think or pretend this is democracy!
I have never voted Labour or Green or LibDim but with FPTP voting you get faced with direcchoices like this?
Reply We do not yet have a full list of candidates. In six party democracy it is possible for any one of the six to win on as little as 18% of the vote, with any likely winner to have under 30%. So voters will have plenty of choice and parties can appeal to get momentum and benefit from tactical voting.
September 4, 2026
I think that’s partly why P.G. Wodehouse wrote Jeeves and Wooster. As a tonic to the craziness of the world. The world is always gong to be fairly crazy at least (remember, ‘O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm—-
And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy’). A great tonic. But not nearly as great as the one of the Cross on Calvary (although comedy part of the divine – look at Sarah who laughed and who called her son, ‘Isaac’ which means ‘one who laughs’) but still Judas hung himself on a tree. Even The Almighty can’t completely cure the world (without taking away our free will that is). Prospero had a go at trying to impose his entire will on the world and backfired and ended in tragedy. Actually, it ended in comedy, in the classical sense, when he learned that full control is impossible. (Napoleon – a hugely naturally talented man – tried something similar and left a legacy of pointless wars where lots died and lots of suffering but for what?).
So I think we need a certain dose of P.G. Wodehouse and to learn the lessons of Prospero but ultimately we need the Cross of Calvary if we’re to create a properly great – although flawed – nation, culture and civilisation. Certainly, Queen Elizabeth I, a Christian leader, and our greatest political leader, would agree. As would political thinkers such as Edmund Burke. And writers such as Jane Austen who brilliantly captured the ordinary, everyday virtues that make people in this country great (and the opposite – we want a UK filled with the values of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy – at the end of the novel – from Prime Minister down to postman – rather than the values of vain, lazy, corrupt Wickham and silly Lydia ..).
September 4, 2026
In a six party democracy with FPTP most voters will learn quite quickly how to work the system and which are the two (or perhaps occasionally three) serious runners.
September 4, 2026
‘Get young people back into work’, you say, JR, and you rightly call for an end to the Labour government’s grotesque tax on employment. But that’s not the only factor involved. Migration was supposed to fill gaps in the labour market. It doesn’t seem to be working out like that. If you look at the ONS’s into-work map you’ll see that there’s an above-average percentage of people getting jobs in areas of the country (e.g. South-West, E. Anglia) with the lowest rates of migrant-origin residents. In other words, migration has created in other areas (e.g. London, W. Midlands, Sth Lancs., Sth Yorks.) a larger pool of labour, but also more unemployed people on benefits. Who wanted that? In my view, politicians who hoped to get people on benefits to vote for them, and employers who can keep wage rates down.
September 4, 2026
Work has to pay and to be the only choice for most reasonably healthy people. It has to pay even after all the cost sof working, childcare, commuting costs, loss of free time to shop more efficiently, loss of free school lunches, prescriptions, work clothing etc. this relative to life on benefits and by some decent margin.
Many are just behaving rationally given the over generaous benefit systems that pertain in not working or even leaning how to work.
September 4, 2026
Chancellors since 2020: Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi, Kwasi Kwarteng, Jeremy Hunt, Rachel Reeves. All failed in one way or another and were ultimately ejected from office either by their own party or by the electorate and not one of them now any more than a backbench MP. However, during that entire period Andrew Bailey has been governor of the Bank of England, his position never under threat, and he’s still in place making terrible decisions and issuing hopeless directives with no criticism at all during that period from the various governments or oppositions. He is due to leave office in 2028 and draw his massive pension. After his previous calamitous tenure at the FCA he is the definition of failing upwards. I think ultimately the worst decision by any of those Chancellors was by Sunak who recommended he be appointed in the first place.
September 4, 2026
Spot on. A total failure.
September 4, 2026
@Roy Grainger – yet these Chancellors, their collective responsibility of Cabinet Governments, that through the Treasury run/manage and pay the BoE with our money. When you pay you take responsibility for the outcome, in that sense the BoE is as with all Quangos is ‘never’ independent. If the Taxpayer doesn’t pay them they are bankrupt. Is that our money removed under false pretences?
When the Media talks ‘black holes’ budget shortfalls, they never also relate that from the same pool of money that the BoE is needlessly costing the taxpayer roughly £130 billion over 5 years. That is £130billion of dead money that didn’t need to be spent and produces no return for the Taxpayer – that is the same as 50% of the UK’s defence spending for the same period that isn’t there
September 4, 2026
There was an article in The Telegraph in 2020, written by Lizzy Burden describing how Andrew Bailey was chairman of The Fabian Society at Cambridge University. Say no more!
September 4, 2026
I did once go to an intoductory Fabian talk at Cambridge- about the same time as Bailey was there. Though I was firmly a Right of Centre Thatcherite even from my early teens – far less government, lower taxes, free markets, and leaving the EU always seemed to be the way to go.
Having seen quite enough of Heath, Wilson, Callaghan types.
Given the choice between Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose television series and book (created in 1980) as a direct free-market counterweight to the 1977 BBC television series [The Age of Uncertainty] by liberal-socialist economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the debate over the Common Market in 75. The choice seemed very clear to me – so perhaps it was the BBC that made me so anti-almost everything the BBC now pushes big state. open border, net zero, tax to death, doom loop, woke lunacy.
September 4, 2026
It all comes down to the same old thing we have a ‘clown’ UK Parliament that has chosen to install a ‘clown’ Government, seemingly pushed along by a ‘clown’ Blob.
Its a combination of people not being fit for purpose of the job at every level. The sensibilities, the logic and good old common sense it over ridden by political religion, placed ahead of anything else.
If you are to spend other peoples hard earned money surely you have a responsibility to ensure the right return and value for money in return. Just throwing money at ideology because it makes you personally feel good is not what the job is despite your ego.
It is possible to have everything, fund everything but the ‘horse comes before the cart’ that money has to be earned. Really earned, that means a productive nation and people having goods and services for ‘sale’. But the majority contributing here know that, while we were off earning, contributing our systems were being corrupted from within, so much so what likes to call its self a government has now become an expensive sideline, a decease that’s not fit for purpose.
September 4, 2026
The BoE’s chief economist Huw Pill, pointed out yesterday of his concerns that the BoE has undershot its inflation target by 45%.
That is they(the BoE) have missed their brief and duty by 45%. He was outvoted by other members that seem more intent on giving the government a comfortable ride rather than do what their job pays them to do. How many industries would allow their CEO’s Directors and Management to carry on when they have been shown to be 45% in the wrong directing.
To me that a metaphor for the whole corruption of the UK’s systems and structures, good management has been made to mean ‘self’ and the next election. Not what is right and needed for the whole country and its people.
September 4, 2026
I’ve just seen a photograph of Argentine president Javier Milei and could have sworn it was Harry Enfield in disguise.
September 4, 2026
A message that no government wants to hear.
“You can not be so generous with other people’s money.”
Idealogues in both the Labour and Conservatives have expanded the size of government in order to feel good and get elected.
Shrink what the state does, concentrate on education, defence, law and order and the health of the nation (not necessarily providing care).
Reagan managed to get elected twice promising small government and trickle down benefits. Thatcher three times (although she really ought to have set up a wealth fund rather than spending her windfalls on tax cuts).
Let us convince our electorate that their overall welfare is better served with smaller state interference.
September 4, 2026
” I do not think they have understood” spot on LordR
A short memo should be delivered to every MP & Peer highlighting just two figures (1) the national debt (£3 trillion) and (2) the budget deficit (£57 billion for 2026/7)
Its shocking when you see it in real time https://debt-clock.org/
September 4, 2026
Another excellent common-sense article, but there is no chance Burnham or Healey will read and learn.
Burnham has already shown what a weak, shallow individual he is. He will never face up to and take the tough decisions needed to avoid a financial disaster. Healey has also shown himself to be a man of straw, resigning over the issue of 3% spending on defence, then refusing to make it happen when he has the power to do so.
Both would appear to be the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When what is needed for the UK to prosper and grow is obvious, why do we have a PM, Chancellor and Labour MPs who are determined to do the exact opposite?
September 4, 2026
Starmer’s very welcome decision to stand down and join the “international” gravy train typifies
where he really wanted to belong.Good riddance.Probable first stop Buenos Aires to be welcomed
with open arms.He,and his successor have so offended the US President that it is likely he
will no longer press BA against taking The Falklands.
September 4, 2026
Why would Argentina want to “take” the Falklands when our Parliament is more likely to gift it to them with an especially large dowry?
September 4, 2026
and his envelope from mauritius
September 4, 2026
If all the Tories collectively had stuck together and supported Truss through these allegations at the time, instead of wanting her out and their preferred candidate in, your party wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in today. Labour seem able to turn on each other internally, silently, a quiet coup if you like. The Tories are always so bloodthirsty that the blood loss drains you for years.
September 4, 2026
Spot on A-Tracy, fully agree
September 4, 2026
Agreed.
September 4, 2026
Argentina doesn’t have a leg to stand on.There is no ethnic connection with the original
indigenous inhabitants of Argentina and the people of The Falklands.Our unelected
incumbent anxious to raise the wherewithal to finance the break-up of the UK and
regionalisation of England will not do a Chagos(hasn’t got the dosh) so will hand –
over the islands and charter some mid-range cruise ships to bring home
those Falklanders who wish to come here or(more likely)by agreement with
the President of the USA to be re-settled there.Wonder what I would opt for!
September 4, 2026
I am afraid that Lour does not learn and will never learn. In the 21st century socialism does not work and is incompatible with Britain. The Reeves budget with its tax rises did huge damage to Britain and it may take years to recover from this and repay the debts forced on us by Labour.
September 4, 2026
The Argentine Milei talk about the Falklands is all Trump inspired mischief and this because Trump is pissed that Britain did not join his war in the gulf – the guy us untrustworthy and totally mad/ bad. However spare a thought for the suffering irish who have to put up with his visit here next weekend ostensibly to play golf but more likely for a photo shoot opportunity before the mid-terms “somebody likes me” stuff and with all the inconvenience. Apparently the Taoiseach ‘Irish PM’ M Martin invited him here during St Patricks day visit to Washington and now the rest of us have put up with it – well anyway with the amount of police leave being cancelled i’m sure he’ll get the warm welcome he deserves. murphy Dublin