It is time to be bold.
The world teems with opportunities for us once we leave the EU on 29 March next year.
We must show how we will use our new financial freedom from paying so much to the EU.
We must become again the low tax party. We believe individuals and families are best spending their own money on their own priorities. We need to cut the rates of Income tax so people keep more of what they earn.
We must be the party that backs enterprise and lets people enjoy the rewards of success. That means cutting the rate of Capital Gains tax.
We must be the party that helps people own their own home. Lets begin by getting Stamp duties down from the high levels George Osborne wrongly imposed.
We should want to have a strong car industry, and allow people to buy good modern cars made in the Uk . That means taking Vehicle excise duty back down to more realistic levels.
Its not just a case of cutting corporation tax for the bigger companies , but cutting taxes on small businesses and individuals who take risks, create jobs and drive innovation.
Whilst we are about it lets cut business rates as well.
Some of these measures will raise more revenue, as the Treasury has imposed high rates which bring in less revenue. Others have a cost to be paid out of the savings in the EU budget.
We need to make the case again for freedom and free enterprise. This week we heard the marxist alternative. They tried that recently in Venezuela.The nationalised oil industry which was meant pay for it all now struggles to produce half the output it used to produce when in the private sector. They ended up gravely damaging the golden goose, a country with more oil reserves than any other now has empty supermarket shelves and an economy in collapse. Marxism has driven them into needless poverty.
So lets explain that price controls, nationalisations, government interventions may look well meaning but end in tears. Those policies hit the poor instead of helping them, and drive the rich out of your country. If government does not support and promote free enterprise it makes the country poorer. You can tax an economy into poverty. You can spend and borrow too much in the public sector leadig to a rapid inflation and a fall in your currency, which also hits the poor you are trying to help. You do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor.
95 Comments
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September 28, 2018
My younger members of the family, nephews, nieces, great nieces and great nephews would be grateful for a cut in inheritance tax to help them finance their expensive future education.
September 28, 2018
Inheritance Tax should be abolished. It was what Major promised…but never did, like much else.
September 28, 2018
It certainly wasn’t intended for people in ordinary jobs and homes.
September 28, 2018
It’s a ukip policy.
September 28, 2018
Osborne promised us Ā£1M threshold each many years back when Brown bottled his early election. He then ratted on it and Hammond is still ratting on it. Though Hammond has engineered a complex (essentially fraudulent) scheme to ‘pretend’ he is working towards Ā£1M (for a couple). Few are fooled but his pathetic con trick.
This while putting up countless other taxes and delivering appalling and generally deteriorating public services.
How do you know when a politician is lying as they say?
September 28, 2018
Excellent post JR. may and Hammond are not listening to you or others of a similar mind. They try to shut you down. We can only go by fact. Your party imposes the highest taxation in fifty years, it gives away tens of billions each year in foreign aid while public services are in a dire mess because of your party’s mass immigration policy. May and Hammond want to be a vassal state of the EU and are prepared to pay a vast taxpayers ransom to do so. Osborne introduced another quango, OBR, because he claimed the public trust in the Treasury was absent! Hammond has taken fake Treasury reporting to a new level and has enlisted the BoE, Carney, to help! Your party has Fiscal incompetence as a matter of fact, particularly in taxation, giving away vast amounts of hard earned cash and wasteful spending.
Good post, not the May and Hammond New Labour virtual signalling way. May has proven to be underhand and a liar. No way of coming back from that. Change your leader or Corbyn will be in power. I will never vote for May no matter who is the opposition to her. Ditto for Cameron when he was there. You lost my vote under Cameron and will not get it back until a Tory becomes leader and your party changes its selection procedures for MPs..
September 29, 2018
This post suggests that perhaps the electoral system requires a new approach altogether. Perhaps Simple majority voting and PR are equallt fail to respond to the needs of the day.
The voting system should reflect the views of the electorate in a more nuanced way.
Instead of simply stating the preference of the voter perhaps there should be provision to assert his NEGATIVE vote.
To illustrate the application of such a system modification to a Corbyn-May contest a comparison of two negatives would be an exciting outcome.
September 28, 2018
Exactly, but only if they are English of course. I would suggest the UK Government go one step further and use more of English taxes to spend on the English for a change so our young, sick and elderly can enjoy all the freebies the other nations of the dis-UK enjoy thanks to the over generosity of this anti-English Government with our taxes.
Despite being the only net contributor to the UK coffers, England still receives far less per head than the rest of the UK – disgraceful.
September 28, 2018
well said
September 28, 2018
JoolsB
“Despite being the only net contributor to the UK coffers, England still receives far less per head than the rest of the UK ā disgraceful.”
Left wing-ism, political correctness, giving in to blackmail and extortion. It’s all a great big piss take isn’t it.
England is a dirty word nowadays.
September 29, 2018
If abolition of IHT is too much of a stretch, then the government should apply CGT rates beyond higher thresholds. It is absurd that shares held at death are subject to a confiscatory 40%. 20% on gains would be more equitable.
September 28, 2018
Not a mention of employer’s national insurance?
The government should be encouraging employment, not taxing it like it was some kind of social evil.
September 28, 2018
Tax exists to fund Govt & reduce adverse behaviour. A few simple sources should be adequate. Charging for good things like employment is adverse itself.
September 28, 2018
Taxes should only fund the very few things that government can do better than companies and individuals. Defence, law and order and not much else.
Every Ā£100 the government takes in tax produces at best about Ā£40 of value for the public. Much of it does nothing of value at all and much positive harm. The costs of collection, all the tax complexity, the behaviour changes it inflicts, the waste in government, the propaganda spending and the incompetence and corruption in government ensure this is true.
Basically we want low simple taxes, less regulation, freedom of choice, get out of the EU cleanly and go for easy hire and fire and cheap reliable energy. Just do the exact opposite of what Corbyn and indeed May suggest.
September 29, 2018
Lifelogic:
Your many points for needed improvements are well-made.
September 28, 2018
You must educate the public on the Lafffer Curve, bang on about it, quote it, use actual data to prove it works, keep on about it etc to shoot down Labours plans.
If you donāt, people will believe more and more taxation means more to spend.
September 28, 2018
If you read the original article you will realise that John Redwood knows that the Laffer curve is a myth. The second sentence in this section makes it clear:
“Some of these measures will raise more revenue, as the Treasury has imposed high rates which bring in less revenue. Others have a cost to be paid out of the savings in the EU budget.”
To summarise, if you cut a tax, revenues might go up and revenues might go down, a bit like the disclaimer you see about investments.
If the Laffer curve was a guarantee, why haven’t all governments cut all tax rates to 1%, or 0.1%, or 0.001%, or 0.0001? If the Laffer curve actually worked as you claim, this would give them far more money to spend than they raise now.
Ask the people in the state of Kansas in the US how well implementing Laffer’s ideas went for that state.
Reply Not so. I am clear about where a tax cut will increase revenue and where it will lose revenue. With Income Tax cut the 45% rate and it will raise more revenue. Cut the 20% rate and it will lose revenue. Cutting the high Stamp Duty rates and the current property CGT rate will raise more revenue, because the rates are above the Laffer inflexion point.
September 29, 2018
Peter Parsons
I suggest first you find out what a Laffer Curve is, that will answer some of your more ludicrous questions.
I already debunked your Kansas argument once, using again now is just well telling porkies.
Blimey some people just have no real world experience
Every country that has tried it ( including the fabled Scandinavian high tax economies) raised more revenue with small cuts in the rate of taxation .
September 29, 2018
I know what the Laffer Curve is. It’s a thought experiment drawn up on a napkin in a restaurant.
As John Redwood states, cutting tax rates can cause revenues to fall. There is a belief held by some on here that cutting tax rates always increases tax revenue, which is simply untrue.
The politicians in Kansas are reversing many of their Laffer cuts as the state had gone from frunning a surplus to running a large deficit. Laffer’s ideas (for which he was well paid as a consultant) failed.
September 30, 2018
Peter Parsons
You clearly dont understand. You said above about cutting tax to 1% etc. Laffer never said anything of the kind. The Laffer proposition is that there is a point at which if you tax too high, revenue falls. Therefore you need to set the tax at a rate that encourages people to pay and therefore increases revenue
As I already explained to you in detail the Kansas experiment had nothing to do with a laffer effect .
Our tax rate is too high and cutting it, just as they did in Sweden, Norway, Latvia and other places ALL resulted in INCREASED revenues.
Its not a thought experiment its an incredibly well known, tried and trusted business mechanism. I reduced my prices 10% and increased turnover 30% . Setting the correct level of price for the market is straightforward common sense
September 29, 2018
Laffer theory is about setting rates carefully to gain the revenue you are aiming for.
It isn’t about reducing tax rates to the levels you mention.
Kansas is a poor example which high tax big state magic money tree fans love to keep using.
September 29, 2018
So “setting rates carefully” can mean putting them up as well?
September 30, 2018
Peter Parson
Yes of course you can put up taxes, but what happens in the real world is that the higher they go the more people look for ways not to pay and the less revenue you generate. The higher the taxes then less is invested, its a downward spiral.
Under Labour in the Seventies, the top rate of income tax rose to 83 per cent and reached 98 per cent when an investment income surcharge was applied. When the Conservatives won the 1979 general election, Geoffrey Howe cut the top rate of income tax from 80 per cent to 60 per cent – and the basic rate from 33 per cent to 30 per cent.
He ended up cutting top-rate taxes to 40 per cent and actually increased the revenue generated because people were less encouraged by the unfairness of the system to find ways to avoid paying.
Above a report by PWC on taxation
September 28, 2018
The politics of punishment have strong emotional appeal. Laffer curves notwithstanding, I suspect lots of people are happy to vote against their own interest so long as government promises a good beating to those they hate.
September 29, 2018
eeyore
That is EXACTLY the problem.
You see people demanding tax increases on big companies etc, who the hell do they think will end up paying these increases?
One of the major problems with our society is that there are far too many taxes and far too complicated systems. Some things are taxed 3 and 4 times out of the same earnings, yet they still keep demanding more taxes.
Government should be ring fenced to supply essential services only and to raise suffiecient tax to pay for them
September 28, 2018
Educate Hammond in Laffer curves (and indeed business and economics) too. The man is a total menace to confidence in the economy. Even if he is slightly preferable to the total lunacy of Corbyn & Mc Donnall.
September 28, 2018
Mathematically speaking the Laffer curve is a simple probability distribution function, by default centered on 50 percent. Is that what you want? Or are you another one impressed by a pseudo scientific name about a mathematical object you donāt understand?
September 29, 2018
Puffer Fish
So does it work? I guess we can totally ignore people behaviour then if its just a maths model
Maybe some of us understand market behaviour rather better than pompous academic blowhards
September 29, 2018
Laffer does not fixate on a 50% rate.
September 29, 2018
Edward2, Indeed, and thatās the point. Now give me the reasons the distribution should not have its mode, mean, median at 50%.
Otherwise I must admit that I pity more than anything else those who consider the only sign of intelligence eventually appears on people involved Ā«Ā in the marketsĀ Ā».
September 30, 2018
Puffer Fish
I pity people who dont understand how the real world works.
I’ll answer your question though. Its not the rate at which you actually set it, its what people will pay up until they start looking for ways to avoid paying it because they think its too high. Its a psychology issue not a maths issue .
So far where its been done ( as in the UK in 1980’s) 40% has been roughly the rate at which revenues rise .
I pity people who live in a theory based bubble . I’m a great believer in multiple intelligences though, emotional intelligence is my favourite predictor of success
September 28, 2018
That would make a fine mini-speech at a conference fringe meeting – but this year, conference is going to be all about Brexit and the Chequers “agreement”
One hopes that this time a failure of the fixings of the signage behind the PM, as she makes her keynote speech, will not detract from the message
September 28, 2018
Excellent message but you need a new leader to first believe in it and second to enunciate it. Boris is showing up the grey machine politicians in your party for what they are. Opposing him not because of his message but out of sheer jealousy.
No doubt Theresa May will present a well scripted speech with as much punch as she can summon and the lackeys will all stand and clap but we know there is nothing behind the facade.
September 28, 2018
I have spoken to a Conservative politician recently. He was personable, entertaining, intelligent, and extremely sound on Leave. Yet when I pointed out that the UK will get Chequers (or something very similar) since Tory MPs won’t ditch Theresa May, he could not himself contemplate deserting or damaging the Conservatives.
And that is the real problem here. Putting one’s own party above Leave means not only is it more likely you will lose Leave (it’s secondary), but it may not do your party any good either (other people will notice).
Every Leave voter I know expected the UK to annul, or abrogate, the EU treaties without signing up to new ones. That is, we voted Leave to be no more attached to the EU than we are to Mexico, for example. If we do not get the Leave outcome we voted for, what do the Mays, Soubrys, Heseltines, Starmers, and Benns of this world think is going to happen next? – that we’ll all go home and accept Remain?
Reply There are a good many Conservative MPs currently who say they will vote down Chequers in the unlikely event that the EU changes its mind and wants it.
September 29, 2018
JR, Thank you for your reply. The EU is just trying it on as they usually do. It’s the cultural difference between us and the continent in the way we negotiate – neither side understands the other. And even if Tory Brexit MPs vote against Chequers, some Labour/LibDem/SNP Remains will vote for it. We will get a variation on Chequers because very few MPs want “no deal” (ie WTO).
September 30, 2018
JR
Its not just chequers, its not just Brexit, its the whole tax, punish, regulate, interfere , attack small business, incompetence of the present government.
You need to urgently get rid of May and Hammond
To survive as a party you must
1) Deliver the Brexit people voted for
2) Build far more houses
3) cut business rates
4) build more houses
5) use the tax system to encourage & help people
6) build more houses
7) Stop wasting our money on porkbarrel projects like HS2 and Hinckley
September 28, 2018
We are in some respects living through what future historians may call an age of idiocy. From āclimate changeā nonsense to ābadā economics. You would think that there has been enough evidence to show that Marxism and itās ugly little sister Socialism simply donāt work. Have never worked. Will never work. It seems that more or less every generation needs to relearn this and avoid the siren voices of boneheaded politicians and others who keep spouting such drivel. Fortunately we do relearn, and will correct the course.
September 28, 2018
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
Aldous Huxley,Collected Essays.
September 28, 2018
The aim of this Labour party is total political and trades-union control of the British economy. There’s nothing ‘well meaning’ about it Mr Redwood. It is pernicious and deceitful.
Corbyn and his gang talk the language of justice and equality but such language is a guise for their true intentions which is total politicisation, economic control and social control.
When will people wake up and realise that this Labour party is not the party once led by Clement Attlee. Attlee fought all his life against people like Corbyn, McDonnell and McCluskey. The Labour party is dead and it died in the 1970’s. It’s now a mere vessel for liberal left fascists and the hard left. It does not in anyway represent its core constituency
May is contributing to the spread of this deceitful and totalitarian form of politics
Individuals matter. Social groups are a contrivance
September 28, 2018
May seems to espouse cultural Marxism, as does the EU, in much of her policy making. I want grassroots Conservatism and the sooner she goes the better for this country and its people, and for Brexit. the chance to support Boris Johnson and allies is there for the taking. If the Tory MPs do not take it now, then game over.
September 28, 2018
“You do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor.”
Yet eight years of making the rich richer doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of making the poor richer. Your party needs to sort that out quickly.
September 28, 2018
Dave
Who was in charge when the financial collapse happened in 2008 and the taxpayer had to bail out Banks.
Mr Brown as Chancellor, and then Prime Minister, after 10 years of Labour control.
Remember it was he who put the FSA in charge of Bank supervision many years earlier.
What a short/selective memory you have.
Also, remember the Sorry no money left, note !!!
September 29, 2018
Guess what. The Tories aren’t facing New Labour in the next election. This is 2018 not 2008.
They are facing a very different beast that had been working on policies to address what they think is wrong with Britain. So what does the Tory party come up with to answer them. Repeating the same policies of the last eight years won’t be enough. The entire Union is at risk.
September 28, 2018
Dave , Spencers Wood
Er you might want to look at the actual data, whilst I agree a lot more could and should be done especially on housing the “poor” have in fact been getting richer. Maybe if the “poor” stopped voting for more taxes and campaigning for things like Amazon tax etc and realised that the cost of all these taxes, regulations and rules is ultimately paid by them they would get richer even quicker
September 28, 2018
I did look at the actual data.
We have increasing pay ratios – the rich are are earning a lot more than ever and proportionally much more than those on median pay. We apparently have more people in work than ever, yet at the same time we are not seeing reductions in poverty figures and we are seeing an increase in food bank use. The rich are getting richer more quickly than the poor are getting richer.
But let’s consider what you said re an “Amazon tax” and step past your victim blaming.
Personally my core politics are that of a cynic. An amazon tax is not something I’m in favour of – mainly because many years working as a low level manager in companies and small has taught me that they are slippery beasts that will quite rationally use every trick in the book to ensure that they pay as little as possible to their employees, their suppliers and to the tax man. Show me a rule or law and I just see a challenge for a lawyer or an accountant to find a loophole in. Look at the growth of in-work benefits, isn’t that just a subsidy to employers? Not very free market. So how do you address the issues of increasing pay ratios, people in full time work receiving benefits to get by, house ownership falling etc ad nauseum?
My MP has suggested that the Conservatives have to come up with some bold ideas at their conference. I agree – they do. I won’t hold my breath though. They seem to have been pretty oblivious to so many of the issues facing the UK.
September 29, 2018
Dave
Er wages are rising above inflation. Youve immediately exposed your real intention again and gone right back to blah blah but the rich are earning more… so what The poorer are earning more too
I’m not victim blaming, i’m victim shaming, you have to be a total ignoramous to not recognize that taxes are paid by the consumer not the producer.
Foodbank use. Oh yes free food , hmm I wonder why people use that in greater numbers
All your other points have some merit but are not part of your original incorrect assertion
However here are my takes on it
In work benefits = take taxes from people and give a little bit back to help them
I know literally 1,000’s of business people and they do not try to rip off their employees or suppliers. EVERYONE tries to minimise their tax bill, you included
home ownership and rentals are a big problem, they are caused primarily by NOT having a free market. Planning restrictions need to be lifted and we need to build far far more houses. Here’s another tax related idea, up until the Blair government we used to get tax relief on mortgages. How about tax relief on rents?
The Tories used to be the party of low tax, self sufficiency and home ownership. They need to get back to that. We have one of the highest tax regimes in Europe and some of the worst services. Its about time that the tax system was used to incentivise things rather than punish everyone
September 28, 2018
I am not unfamiliar with this problem: as a country we are asset rich but income poor.
The main solution is to balance outgoings to income by cutting out waste.
The cars we import have a high profit margin, those we export less so.
Question:
What profit do we derive from our exports to the EU and would we make a better margin by alternative markets?
September 28, 2018
Waste:
Abby Innes of the LSE draws my attention to the 2015 Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hood report.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/09/28/the-dismantling-of-the-state-since-the-1980s-brexit-is-the-wrong-diagnosis-of-a-real-crisis/
Paraphrased : In real terms UK admin costs have risen by 40% over the last 30 years, with public spending doubling and the Civil Service shrinking by a third. The wealthiest firms have raped us, post-war capitalism has encouraged wealth extraction not creation and sharing.
This trend to ever increasing expansion fuelled by unregulated migration and financial gambling rather than honest saving can only be reversed by altering the emphasis of the taxation and redistribution system.
We are wedded to the throw-away lifestyle, it promotes consumption, great for taxes, but it is inherantly wasteful.
We need to encourage re-investment for the future, not gimmicky give-aways (bribes) and false utopean dreams of ‘free’ goodies, and mandated higher incomes for workers.
September 28, 2018
As long as your vision is created and decided by us and not by the state.
September 28, 2018
Re the throwaway society. At our dump, there was a new looking Sainsbury’s trolley in the general waste section, just over the wall. I offered to take it back to Saintsbury’s but was told that it could not be retrieved for H and S reasons. I phoned the local supermarket and told them the trolley was about to go to landfill. The manageress said they couldn’t fetch it because they didn’t have anyone who could clean it. At another tip recently someone was putting a new pressure cooker in the scrap section. The recycler told me that another person had dumped a new kettle in it’s box because they thought the colour didn’t go with the new kitchen. Perfectly good wheelchairs had been dumped at another.
September 28, 2018
Indeed would taking money off the rich (who are usually driven, good at using capital well and making it grow) and then giving it to the feckless, lazy, drug addicts, arcade betting addicts, dim people, inept government and the likes make us richer or poorer? By what mechanism might it make us richer?
If you had several children coming int0 the above catagories which ones would you entrust your capital & the financial management of it to?
October 1, 2018
We have imported thousands and thousands of poor people both from the Eastern EU and Africa, of course statistically, this will look like the poor are getting poorer as they’re coming across with nothing to make a good living for themselves and their families.
We have caused a strain on our social housing and housing benefits because of this, as often they have no family over here to live with and have to be housed and taken off the streets, unlike in France where they just seem to leave them under underpasses in tents walking up to cars begging. Manchester has a policy of housing all homeless which is pushing local born Mancunians into expensive private rentals and staying at home with parents until their mid-30s as they are not going up the housing register for more than five years, even people struggling with reconstructed families with five children, they have no priorty and no solutions such as small extensions built on the back of 3 bed council homes often with large gardens that could accommodate a low cost extension build by the housing associations but they have no impetus to sort this out and just sit paying all their staff and senior executives massive payouts and pensions whilst patting themselves on the backs for being incredible employers at the cost of local tenants and subsidies.
September 28, 2018
Real Conservatism, and what a refreshing change that would make, but are there enough Real Conservatives to carry this bold vision which chimes well with Boris superb essay in the Telegraph today.
Just one of the totally unforgivable actions by Mrs May is the two wasted years. I am confident that this was deliberately planned for nefarious reasons to break down the will of the people and finally reverse or dilute leaving the EU. Chequers does that.
September 28, 2018
I’m unwilling to subscribe to the Telegraph so I can’t read much of either the Boris Johnson “My plan for a better Brexit” article or the Jeremy Warner “There is no point negotiating with the European Union” article.
I just note that the Boris Johnson plan would require more negotiation, more time, and no doubt more concessions, than the plan I suggested nearly a year ago:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/11/26/the-irish-border-with-northern-ireland/#comment-903216
“On the TV this morning it was stated that the UK government is ādesperateā to move on to trade talks, but this would be vetoed by the Irish government unless the UK government committed to keeping the UK in both the Single Market and the Customs Union.”
“So we should now say that rather than kowtow to the stupid destructive intransigence of the EU we will fall back on WTO trade rules and only seek agreements on the practical or technical aspects of continuing trade.”
By my estimate a free trade deal with the EU like that it has agreed with Canada would only give us an extra 0.7% – 1.4% of GDP compared to the WTO baseline, and we could try to negotiate that later.
September 28, 2018
BOF, Indeed, we have a generation of politicians and civil servants used to waiting upon, obeying, and working with the EU rather listening to the UK electorate. The EU’s technocratic functionary style of governance corrupts all who come in contact with it.
September 28, 2018
An inspired vision for tax reform. At the same time the tax code should be drastically reformed and simplified. Every small businessman should be able to easily compile and submit their tax returns.
September 28, 2018
“The tax code should be drastically reformed and simplified”…
if only, if only, if only ………!
September 28, 2018
Spent this morning in a lecure about HMRC’s ‘making tax digital’. It sounds like another massive and very costly distraction from productive work and another job creation scheme for countless parasitic jobs. It should do wonders to further damage UK productivity.
September 28, 2018
Given different taxes have different impacts on the economy you shouldn’t cut all of them by a little bit. Instead
– abolish stamp duty.
– abolish inheritance tax.
– Get rid of the withdrawal of personal allowance (a stealth tax on high earners is truly dumb – those paying it can see the cost, and those not paying it think that the rich don’t pay enough).
– Get rid of the ultra high earner tax band
September 28, 2018
Yesterday May was on our local TV continuing to spout the Chequers paper. Even the presenter was getting exasperated when she wouldn’t clarify simple questions.
Repeating the same tired drivel.
She really must go NOW.
September 28, 2018
UKIP’s policy is to abolish inheritance tax, stamp duty and the BBC Licence Fee.
September 29, 2018
Bob, UKIP are sounding more like a party worth voting for.
September 28, 2018
You have the issue of an un-propertied millennial class and an insulted generation X/Boomer class (the parents of the millennial class who voted Brexit because their pension lump sums were going on kid’s house deposits.)
Corbyn is a very real risk.
How on earth has it got to this ? May has deliberately stuffed up Brexit.
September 28, 2018
Your message makes sense, demand that you are allowed to present an expanded version at conference in place of the sycophantic tripe we usually get.
September 28, 2018
John, I hate to say it but there is no chance of any of your post today happening with May and Hammond and also Gove in the cabinet. They haven’t a clue and I have to say how disappointed I am in the whole of the Tory party putting up with it. Unless there are some people prepared to stand up and say what is wrong with your party at the conference then you are toast. I am surprised you can even go into work most days. Most of what we have read lately has been fairy tales because we all know it’s not going to take place.
September 28, 2018
Conservatives confer if in doubt about what to do next.
Those who shall lead best know how to act now.
September 28, 2018
JR
Totally and utterly spot on. The message that millions of people want to hear and to vote on.
Sadly its not going to happen with our two party system. Labour are now a vicious , far left authoritarian, fascist party. The Conservative Party ( not just May, but the majority of the party hierarchy ) are all Social democrats, tax, borrow and spend. Virtue signallers terrified of a bad press review or some university student demo’s .
In order to get what you and I want we need a totally new party. It has to be a party run from the bottom up, based on localism and iDemocracy and to move away from the old tired dogma of 20th century and to champion aspiration , innovation and social inclusion
September 28, 2018
Labour’s plans are financial lunacy and probably fraught with legal issues e.g. renationalisation. Very amusing/scary that Corby did not realise that Network Rail was already nationalised. If Labour gets in pity the Sir Humphreys.
If Hammond has any tactical awareness he should spike Labour’s guns a bit in this October budget by notionally going on a fiscal spending spree e.g. abolish stamp duty, raise the basic tax threshold by Ā£5k, lower corporation and capital gains tax, implement Osborne’s 2008? pledge – Ā£1m IHT base. As the infamous note said “the money has all gone, we have spent it”
September 28, 2018
“So lets explain ”
Indeed, unfortunately that is something Conservative MPs or Ministers rarely do, they hardly ever ideologically defend or proselytise their cause ( though it was refreshing to hear Jacob Rees Mogg on Question time last night make a defense of low taxes and growing the economy) Why its hard to say, too lazy may be, too many careerists who go with what ever fashion is currently in vogue, what ever , the result is that Labour and the left are given a free ride to and say what ever they like, which because it goes with out challenge it become ‘fact’.
When do you hear a Conservative MP pointing the younger generation, who don’t have experience of the socialism we had in the 70’s and direct them to the desperate experience of the Venezuelans ? You don’t , even though Corbyn’s agenda is close to that of Chavez and Maduro . This morning, in regards to the Head teachers marching on Parliament, I heard a passing comment from a BBC presenter referring to a UN report that said UK schools had the third highest funding in the world , ahead of the likes of Germany. We shouldn’t be getting that bit of information from a reluctant BBC presenter, but it being shouted from the roof tops by Conservative MP’s, for that would move the argument from more money, to how it is spent.
Reply I have set out the figures showing relatively high levels of schools spending in the UK on this website! The information was supplied by a government Minister.
September 29, 2018
Not wishing to be negative about your website, but it only has a very limited coverage, and as for the Ministers giving out this information, yes they say that school spending is going up etc, I saw it on the news yesterday, but there is a problem with that, a politician saying this is dismissed by the public as a snake oil sales pitch . What they don’t do is reference the spending to the rest of the world . Pointing out that UN has us listed as the third highest spending in the world , above Germany, is an argument that will carry weight. Same as the Head Teachers demonstration yesterday . I gather that our Head teachers are the second highest paid in the world, second only to Luxembourg .
So we have the third highest school spending in the world, our head teachers are the second highest paid in the world , but our children’s education is not ranked as second or third, but fifteenth. You put that argument and the public will see its as not an issue with ‘austerity’ but what is happening in schools.
September 28, 2018
Good morning
Conferences are not what they use to be. All they are now are just an excuse to rub shoulders with the powerful and once powerful. Very stage managed and sterile. And with so many policies dictated and run by the EU one cannot be surprised.
Just don’t wave any Palestinian flags. š
September 28, 2018
You know the boiling frog analogy you wrote about John….
Well the Conservative Party now just have 15316 members in London , still no action from the party to start to address the complete divide between “management” and members and activists . This slide has been happening ever since John Major and the rise of the Hesletine/Clarke/Soubry/Morgan/Duncan wets…. Nearly 25 years and still nothing
Yet they expect us to vote for a party that can’t run itself let alone the country
September 28, 2018
Message for Conference:
Cons Home survey:
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/09/our-survey-eight-of-ten-party-members-say-that-may-should-go-either-now-or-before-the-next-election.html
Our survey. Eight out of ten Party members say that May should go either now or before the next election.
NB 1. Risen from 79% last month to 83% this month
2. Cons Home banished grassroots Conservatives from commenting and taking part in surveys, so this website is not representative of all Cons, but instead of more left leaning Cons. or “progressives”, to use that ghastly word.
September 29, 2018
Chris: I am definitely not a ‘left-leaning’ Conservative supporter, nor am I any longer a Party member, but I still participate in the ConsHome surveys and my comments are never deleted.
September 28, 2018
Conservatives at Conference take note, in particular May and Hammond:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/09/27/global-cfo-third-quarter-survey-usa-is-the-only-expanding-economy/
Global CFO Third Quarter Survey: USA is the Only Expanding Economyā¦.
Every quarter, CNBC surveys its Global CFO Council to gain insight into the status of the current global economy. The CFO council is comprised of Chief Financial Officers of the worldās largest 113 companies that combined are worth nearly $5 trillion. Interestingly the council is comprised almost exclusively of multinational corporations who are generally opposed to President Trumpās MAGAnomic trade reset.
However, in the third quarter survey the CFOās note that only one economy in the world is currently improving, the United States.
September 28, 2018
We should want to have a strong car industry, and allow people to buy good modern cars made in the Uk
Instead of driving a lot of highly skilled engine oriented people to the scrap heat with this suicidal drive for electric vehicles which will not and never will be the panacea to what is wrong with our energy and pollution policy, government should be investing or at least encouraging hydrogen driven car with the only waste product being water and not demanding millions of charging points and the disposal of batteries when the vehicle is scrapped. But as highlighted in another post today we suffer with too many bone headed
politicians trying to justify their very existence by playing with peoples fear driven by the religion of climate change ably supported by the media and the BBC with its non stop gloom and doom presentations.
September 28, 2018
As I watch “low-energy” buses or cyclists progressing at 15mph with long trails of cars and lorries stuck behind them I wonder how the hoped-for reduction in air pollution can occur. If only councils/government would get the traffic flowing properly and not be hidebound to dubious environmental policies then perhaps our towns can start to flourish once more. If we go shopping as a family, then public transport is too costly. We pile into the car (which I’m paying for anyway) and make for a car friendly shopping centre e.g. Basingstoke, rather than the closer Reading, and spend our cash there. I’m sure we’re not the only ones.
September 28, 2018
I look forward to hearing about Beyond Brexit, for example, what are the proposals to refine and improve upon the current EU regulations?
September 28, 2018
Theresa May is one step ahead of you…she has set up a Working Party to handle the Project ‘Beyond Brexit’…The appointed Committee members include Tony Blair (Project Leader)…John Major…Mark Carney…and Phillip Hammond.
The Working Party has already renamed the project ‘Bin Brexit’…but the Team say this is not significant…
September 28, 2018
“It is time to be bold.” – is that a “better late than never” message?
Two years ago it would have been sufficient to be prudent rather than bold through setting up a Ministry to plan for grasping post-Brexit opportunities. What ought to be a vibrant, bold renaissance after next March (generously assisted by the type measures you propose from the Exchequer) will, under this government, be a too long period of hesitancy, doubt and depression.
What price the people’s Blue Boris to replace the doomed May?
September 28, 2018
There is an open goal for the Tories to aim at. Labour has gone full Remain, high tax, how spend, how borrow.
All they have to do is ditch May, get a charismatic leader, embrace Canada+, cuts taxes and they would walk the next GE.
September 28, 2018
J, Will they let you speak at conference or are you just regarded as a very naughty Brexit boy? I’m also looking forward to BJ,DD, JRM, AJ, BC, PMord, BJ and lot’s more!!
Will chequers fall by the wayside or be picked up again like a can and kicked down and down the May road?
Reply I do not get a platform speech at conference but will b e addressing 3 fringe meetings
September 28, 2018
Not sure why you are directing that message at Conservative members John, Iām sure the majority agree. However your leader – who you fully support apparently – and her chosen Chancellor disagree with the message, in fact seem to be embarrassed by it (May even gave her thoughts on lower corporation tax while she was in New York rather than boldly arguing the case over here).
September 28, 2018
No john..what you’re at is a big mistake..what the Uk has at this time with the EU is as good as it gets..there is no el dorado out there waiting for you..speaking from this little corner on the west coast of ireland i can only say be careful what you wish for
There will always be a place for britain in Europe, we agree, but to put yourselves outside of the decision making aspect in hopes of renewed glory with countries far away is, i am afraid, pie in the sky..it’s time for a real hard think..just my advice from the west coast of Ireland
Reply The EU never agreed with the UK vision of a free trading Europe so we are better off making our own decisions. Good luck for those who stay in. Our exit should make it easier for you to have the United States of Europe the main drivers of it want.
September 28, 2018
The prize of Brexit is many folds but the biggest is gov, council, of making our own goods instead sending 60 to 65% of the UK goods for the government to be made in the EU that the boost for the economy you are looking for with export to the rest of the world spinning off of that, the engine room is making your own good quality goods for the UK which other countries want to buy because they are well made at a good price, while the UK has been in the EU they have sent the UK next to nothing for you to make to earn money on but they get a good supply of orders from the UK with army and so on thrown in for free with finance from london helping them out all the time, all the UK is asking for is cooperation on borders but I doubt the UK will get it with countries like France who want it all for nothing while trying to steal the UK companies with their border problems come up and city of london finance workers.
September 28, 2018
Abolish ALL regulations from the EU for businesses that do not export.
Bring them back only after strict scrutiny by Westminster and a full cost-benefit analysis that takes into account the hours wasted and sleepless nights for hundred of thousands of small business owners worrying about each and every one. Looking only at the cost for a large business of completing a return misses the point: they have full-time staff dedicated to these issues. Each small business owner has to waste hundreds if not thousands of hours a year reading regulations to check whether they apply to her business. Time that they could better invest in innovation, marketing and staff developement. Ninety nine times out of a hundred there conclusion will be āIt applies. But only sort of. Iād better complete a Nil return just to be safeā. What a waste of time
Reply Once we have taken back control we can amend or repeal any EU measure. The government rightly intends to keep high employment and environmental standards, but is presumably open to persuasion about amendment to other areas of regulation. What have you in mind?
September 28, 2018
All great ideas but with May and Hammond in their posts no chance of implementation I fear. Can we really stop Corbyn just by pointing out what a s***hole Marxism has made venezuela?
September 28, 2018
John, delighted to have just read that you are on the Conservative Economy Policy Task Force!
September 28, 2018
ENGLAND is the only country in Europe without a parliament of its own.
September 28, 2018
To address just one of your points:
“We should want to have a strong car industry, and allow people to buy good modern cars made in the Uk . That means taking Vehicle excise duty back down to more realistic levels”
None of the above will help much as long as we produce cr*p cars. I remember people still having to stick their arms out when they wanted to turn left or right or hand signals when making a manoevre while the rest of Europe made cars with proper indicators.
Not to mention the obstreperous unions – Red Robbo at British Leyland springs to mind.
Reply There are many good cars made in the UK. Why run everything down here? And the large car industry we had on the eve of joining the EEC produced many good and popular cars, from memory led by the Ford Escort and Cortina, with good Minis as well.
September 29, 2018
Margaret. Haven’t you noticed we have moved on in the UK? We don’t have to signal manually anymore. LOL. I picked up my new car yesterday. British made and absolutely a dream to drive. I am over the moon with it. We have nearly always had British cars and have never been disappointed. The one time we bought German was really a let down. We soon went back to our usual choice. Even our friend who was BMW mad now drives Land Rover. Can you ever say anything positive about your own country? Very sad.
September 29, 2018
What a very odd post from you again margaret.
What relevance does harking back many decades ago have to the modern UK automotive industry who make excellent vehicles that are in demsnd all over the world.
September 30, 2018
margaret howard
“I remember people still having to stick their arms out when they wanted to turn left or right or hand signals when making a manoevre while the rest of Europe made cars with proper indicators”
Blimey margaret i didn’t realise you were that old !!! European & UK cars had trafficators ( the orange arm that sprang out of the side of the car) from 1907 onwards. The “blinker” indicator was invented by Buick in the USA in 1938 . It became mandatory on all UK built cars and also on German cars in the same year 1956
I’ve just been test driving a DB11 , crap isn’t an adjective Id use Its one of the best GT style cars I’ve ever driven.
September 29, 2018
The most important change that the British Taxation system requires is never touched upon because it is politically toxic.
The exemption from CGT for disposal of residential property created a distortion to economic activity which requires serious re-evaluation.
The intentions of the exemption are worthy in that it encourages home ownership and the ability to transfer assets between generations with minimal “friction.”
However, the distortion in the allocation of resources should not ignored.
By favouring Home Ownership over business investment
* house prices are artificially inflated by the implicit subsidy that tax free status represents.
* the cost of capital for business investment, conversely, is higher than would be the case if there was a level playing field.
* if the CGT exemption was removed Income tax and Corporation tax could both be reduced. Even a small rate to replace the current zero would allow for some reduction in income taxes.
* the above point would also demonstrate to the world an extremely competitive tax environment with low taxes.
* it would probably encourage a more stable residential property market as it would make short term gain motivated ownership less attractive.
How to make this a politically attractive offering is a different matter. I am sure that on this BB alone there would be no shortage of opposition!
October 1, 2018
I know what you’re getting at Robert but you can’t bring this in retrospectively as we haven’t all kept all of the invoices and receipts of improvements we’ve done to our home over the years, outside of London and the South East and other hot spots homes just don’t over inflate and I worked out that we could only get what we paid for our home plus all of the replacement windows, landscaping, garage extension etc plus interest on the mortgage and other loans without the enormous profit the silly Southern property market has experienced (thanks in the main to the subsidised new flat building sector and shared properties in London that only benefited the builders and caused them to add Ā£100,000 to every flat sale in a year two years ago, it is a ridiculous situation and shouldn’t be looked at as a Countrywide issue.)