I am all in favour of the government spending money to obtain high quality health and education services, to ensure our country is properly defended, our law upheld and all those in need offered financial help. Governments understandably concentrate on making announcements where they are planning to spend more, and claim that the mere fact that they are spending more means things must be better. Opposition parties from the left of centre encourage this thinking and usually oppose on the grounds that not enough is being spent, making it impossible for things to be better. A badly run part of the public sector will usually blame a lack of cash rather than any error of policy or misdirected effort on their part.
This budget needs to go beyond stressing where the government is spending more, to examine where it can spend less or where it can spend to better effect. It needs to remind us all that simply spending more cash can be inflationary, or can fail to deliver what is wanted. Higher public sector wages are often desirable but need to be offered against a background of working smarter. They are affordable if backed by productivity gains, they might prove to be inflationary if more money chases the same output.
There are many areas where spending can now come down. The government is rightly ending the Furlough and other special income support measures it brought in to handle lockdowns. It needs to come up with a new plan for the railways to avoid spending a subsidy fortune on sending many nearly empty trains around the country to service patterns of work demand that have disappeared with the homeworking revolution. The government will doubtless think it too late to cancel HS2, but its poor business case has just been undermined more by the big reduction in passenger rail travel. The railway can be repurposed for more freight travel, to contribute to the green initiatives and to take lorries off congested roads.
In the health budget the huge sums committed to finding a vaccine, setting up a vaccination programme, designing and implementing a test and trace system, and putting in more testing capacity can in part be redeployed to getting waiting lists down and doing the day job as the pandemic wanes. There will also be the saving on putting in and then closing the extra Nightingale capacity. All of these sums stay in the overall budget and are rolled over for the years ahead as if these commitments would repeat.
In areas like energy, transport and housing where we need more capacity we can finance more of these through private sector investment.
The sooner the government stops illegal migration and regulates economic migration at sensible levels the better. Everyone we welcome to the UK needs a major investment in housing, public services and transport infrastructure to make their lives decent. Reducing these pressures would ease budget difficulties in several areas.
October 27, 2021
You say āI am all in favour of the government spending money to obtain high quality health and education services, to ensure our country is properly defended , our law upheld and all those in need offered financial help.ā
Well to a degree but only financial help to those few in āreal needā and not those many who choose not to work (as the tax and benefit system encourages them to). If you want high quality health care and education that last people you would let organise it is the state sector. The current āfreeā at the point of use education system and āfreeā at the point of use (non treatment, delay and rationing actually) NHS are generally dire. It kills nearly all competition and innovation. It cost the state far more than it should and gives us a much larger state than is sensible. Vouchers for education that can be topped up and making nearly all schools private and to compete makes far more sense.
The government is fairly damn useless or organising defence and defence procurement too. I assume with COP26 we are going to have Navy sail ships, battery ships, tanks and aircraft with circa 10 mile ranges between recharges. As the Queen, Russia, Brazil and China are not going to COP26 surely we should cancel this absurd circus or nonsense and save all the energy and embarrassment?
With universities we are lumbering youngsters with circa Ā£50k of student debt +6%PA interest and a 9% repayment tax on top of income tax, NIx2, council tax, Vat, ULEZ and all the rest. This for largely useless and valueless degrees in often almost useless and valueless subjects. Plus the loss of 3 plus years income and worth experience.
So many of the laws being upheld are pointless and actively damaging and many other laws that are important are not being upheld or enforces very well at all.
October 27, 2021
Simple solution is to train Nurses and Doctors and ask them to work for the NHS for 10 years, then all training fees will be wiped out.
Failure to complete 10 years with the NHS means pay back of fees then required.
Should result in more doctors and nurses wanting training, so the NHS gets UK trained staff, and Students have no debt to repay.
Obviously takes time to work through the system, but people who qualify now could be offered the same deal making it an immediate gain and a big incentive to work for the NHS instead of going elsewhere.
At the same time increase the training places gradually year by year to grow home grown and trained staff rather than stealing them from abroad.
October 28, 2021
This is the way we trained, but it is so hard. We had exams throughout our training , lectures , ward presentations and learning, clinical tutors visiting and assessing our skills on the job and were classed as members of a ward team . For finals we had state exams 3 in all and hospital exams. The full time hours could be gruelling ,doing long stretches of nights and taking the responsibility which only those fully qualified would take today . I lost a few stone coping and many didn’t last the training . It prepared us, but today it would not be allowed . As soon as staff these days get to a position where they become more senior ,therefore can command more money’ they are turfed out to agencies and it is a false supposition that a union
will back staff . They play the game of needing overseas ad newbies . In other words not many are allowed the ten years.
October 29, 2021
Margaret
Yes training in years past in most industries and professions was hard work, but from my experience it was good, and produced in the most part excellent qualified people at the end of their training, who were knowledgeable, and of immediate use to any industry or profession.
Clearly some organisations took advantage of what appeared to be cheap apprenticeship type labour at the time, and gave them perhaps more responsibility than should have been the case, but that gave much needed management experience as well, and should not be an insurmountable problem to resolve in a well run organisation.
Far too many people now get trained on theory, with little practical experience, and so when they do enter the workforce proper, they find they are ill equipped to cope.
October 27, 2021
Sir John, Government documents seen by the news channel Politico say that the Plan B scenario could cost the British economy up to Ā£18 billion if it were to go on till March, that’s on average Ā£800 million a week. What would happen to your government’s budget then, and will that be factored in to the planning?
October 27, 2021
More or less money is important and decisions have to be made, but the more important issue is efficiency. Billions are wasted on laziness, on ineffiencent uneccessary practises, policies and organisations..
October 27, 2021
A well thought out & balanced conservative approach, which is out of sync with the current conservative government
October 27, 2021
+ 1. Therein lies the problem. John is Conservative, this Government isnāt.
October 27, 2021
+1
October 27, 2021
Successive governments have failed to explain how mass immigration solves the issue of a temporary demographic bulge. The importation of (mostly) uneducated and unskilled people does not add wealth to the nation and stores up more demographic bulges for later, except those will be of people who have not contributed taxes to the state pension. It creates instability and perpetuates inequality and strengthens the socialist movement.
There will never be enough taxation to correct the problems this causes.
What use a happy, healthy, content, educated and wealthy society to socialists who thrive only on revolution and flux ? This is why we are where we are. With a largely over-promised youth indebted with degrees that offer no practical or intellectual purpose other than indentured slavery to the state.
October 27, 2021
Mass immigration is simply a Ponzi Scheme to cover up the real problem of lack of real economic growth.
The more people you import, the more the future cost will grow when they get old and retire, so the more you need more immigration to cover those increased costs, etc, etc.
October 28, 2021
It is not about economics but replacement.
October 28, 2021
We also now have hundreds of thousands of people who don’t even reside in the UK receiving social security benefits. These people receive an NI stamp which will entitle them to a UK pension in the future. Boris’s over generous Withdrawal Agreement will cost UK taxpayers a huge amount of money for many decades. We must be the only country in the world that treats foreigners better than its own citizens.
October 27, 2021
Indeed – Why can’t the Treasury come up with a balanced budget by insisting that money be saved in so many quango areas, as well as so much government waste that could fund a dozen hospitals and more?
October 27, 2021
Criticism of government spending falls into two categories: (i) waste and (ii) treachery. A perfect example of money being wasted is the mind-boggling Ā£37 BILLION spent on the pointless and useless Test & Trace scheme. I have previously said on these pages that prison is needed for wasting money on this scale. I simply cannot believe that it is possible to spend so much money, in so little time, for so little in return. We are talking of 37 thousand million pounds. I just reel in disbelief at this scale of waste. It also exposes the shocking mentality of ministers (and, of course, the PM) that they thought this was acceptable. This was an *experimental* programme, of NO proven worth or value, with NO costed benefits. Frankly they should have pulled the plug as soon as the cost rose to the Ā£1 bn level. One billion pounds is such a huge sum of money to spend on something with no certain return, but ministers seem to just shrug their shoulders at it.
In terms of treachery, look at the report in the papers today that HS2 will buy *French* steel. HS2 itself falls into the ‘waste’ category of government spending, as the cost-benefit analysis was corrupt and flawed from the start (eg. it said that travelling time was wasted time, taking no account of the fact that businessmen work on the trrain). The ONLY justification for HS2 would be if it kickstarted and promoted British businesses that could then export to the world, creating wealth in the UK. Instead, the very OPPOSITE is happening, with money being spent on FOREIGN suppliers. HS2 claim that there are no suitable British companies able to supply the steel they need, but that completely and epically misses the point! HS2 has a DUTY to DEVELOP British suppliers!!! Their failure to do so, and the government’s failure to instruct them to do so, is treachery.
As a final point, what makes me despair most, and the reason I have lost faith in the political system, is that both these examples (and almost every similar instance) reveal the failure of competence and governance on THREE levels: firstly, we have the stupidity or treason of those initially responsible for the spending; secondly, we have the failure of ministers, and the prime minister, to take immediate action to correct the problem; and thirdly we have the complete silence and uselessness of backbench MPs to demand that the government solve the problem. There is no point, no point at all, in having parliamentary committees or the like reviewing what has happened in the past (with nobody ever being REALLY punished), what is needed is *real-time* demands from MPs to stop a problem in its tracks and take action before it is too late. But MPs are just a completely useless at this. Why did MPs not rebel against Test & Trace at the time? And I bet HS2’s French steel contract will be allowed to continue without so much as a single Tory MP protesting.
October 27, 2021
Spending?????? Is anything left? Sunak been throwing billions everywhere every day.
BUT NOT FOR US
October 27, 2021
Off topic, I am disturbed by this report in the Irish Times:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/frost-says-britain-s-problem-with-governance-of-protocol-goes-beyond-role-of-ecj-1.4711126
which starts:
“Britain and the EU could resolve their dispute over the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) if Westminster was allowed to replicate EU laws that apply in Northern Ireland, Brexit minister David Frost has suggested.
He said Britainās problem with the governance of the Northern Ireland protocol went beyond the role of the ECJ, and that a resolution had to address the entire system beneath it.”
We need to ask why any EU laws, or UK replicates of EU laws, should apply in Northern Ireland when the legitimate interests of the EU do not extend beyond the nature of the goods entering its own territory.
I do not see other “third countries” agreeing that the EU can determine what goods will be allowed in their territories, what may be produced and how, or imported, and bought and sold; and for example I do not see the Canadians arguing that it would be better and would solve their problem if the EU accepted that Canada could replicate the swathes of laws imposed by the EU as part of its own Canadian law.
The resolution addressing the whole system would start by remembering that originally Single Market rules were only going to apply to the goods traded between member states:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/03/19/governing-ourselves/#comment-925726
not to all the goods within each of the member states, that latter doctrine was developed by the ECJ.
October 27, 2021
The Irish Times (the clue is in the name) was actually distorting what Frost said in the House of Lords yesterday: āObviously one way of dealing with this problem is replication. Itās not the only way of dealing with it. But the problem we have ā and this is why we keep focusing on long-run stability ā is that if you maintain a system where lots of EU law applies without consent, in the end you set up divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain as we legislate in a different way.
And therefore itās not a stable system. Therefore youāve got to have some other way than the simple application of EU law into Northern Ireland because thatās the generator of the problem.ā
So in fact Lord Frost entirely rejected the idea that the Irish Times said he’d ‘suggested’.
October 27, 2021
As repeatedly argued the ‘other way’ is not to have any EU law at all applying in Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the UK, but have UK law prescribing that all goods exported across the land border must conform to EU requirements, as envisaged in paragraphs 43 and 62 of the July Command Paper:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/10/01/bottlenecks-and-opportunities/#comment-1264289
And with the role of the ECJ being confined to having the final say on what those EU requirements may be are for any particular class of goods, which information can then be included in the EU’s case presented to an independent arbitration panel.
Clearly the UK government cannot expect to prevent the EU Commission asking the ECJ for its opinion, any more than the EU Commission could prevent the UK government referring a case to the UK Supreme Court.
October 27, 2021
Mancunius.. Lord Frost has been bending everything since he started all with Boris and no 10 complicity. You don’t seriously think the EU side are going to fall for it. We have an International agreement but which the DUP has changed its mind and now don’t like well so too bad but they have got their own way for far too long so noq they can suck it up , and if they don’t like it well too bad again.. i hope Donaldson and the rest of them have bought their retirement homes in Cumbria or whereever
October 28, 2021
Fighting talk, I would say, and in this context that could be taken literally.
October 27, 2021
The root cause of a lot of our ills lie in your last paragraph, Sir John, (there are too many ed) immigrants. Both legal and illegal migrants are flooding in virtually unchecked and having access to benefits, housing and medical care without contributing a penny.
Whilst this continues totally unchecked we will never build enough houses or have an NHS able to cope irrespective of however many billions are thrown at it. We are drowning in a sea of largess and kindness that will back fire on all those who have fled here as well as the rest of us. It is also a dreadful legacy to hand on to our grand children.
Many of your fellow MPs are too young and lack experience of life to look after and develop this country and until this changes we will continue on a downward slope of paying more and getting less. Not a happy prospect
October 27, 2021
You are so right George. The immigration problem is out of control and contrary to what Boris said when he said let’s take back control. I can’t see ANY control anywhere whether it be for immigration of these bloody nuisance protest groups. Get a grip.
October 27, 2021
+1
October 27, 2021
I have a suggestion to make. Some charities will state how much of their income goes to the āfront lineā and therefore how much is ālostā in administration.
I think all government departments should be mandated to do the same thing.
Thus, if money is being raised to reduce NHS waiting lists, an audited report should be published showing how much of this money was actually used for its original purpose and how much was spent elsewhere and where and how this money was spent.
I worry that too much of this money is diverted to the already-rich to finance their second home or new swimming pool.
October 27, 2021
PMQs ā the green party (tory) fighting the green party (labour)
October 27, 2021
Well done Glen.
October 27, 2021
You say āI am all in favour of the government spending money to obtain high quality health and education services, to ensure our country is properly defended , our law upheld and all those in need offered financial help.ā
Well to a degree but only financial help to those few in āreal needā and not those many who choose not to work (as the tax and benefit system encourages them to). If you want high quality health care and education that last people you would let organise it is the state sector. The current āfreeā at the point of use education system and āfreeā at the point of use (non treatment, delay and rationing actually) NHS are generally dire. It kills nearly all competition and innovation. It cost the state far more than it should and gives us a much larger state than is sensible. Vouchers for education that can be topped up and making nearly all schools private and to compete makes far more sense.
The government is fairly damn useless or organising defence and defence procurement too. I assume with COP26 we are going to have Navy sail ships, battery ships, tanks and aircraft with circa 10 mile ranges between recharges. As the Queen, Russia, Brazil and China are not going to COP26 surely we should cancel this absurd circus or nonsense and save all the energy and embarrassment?
With universities we are lumbering youngsters with circa Ā£50k of student debt +6%PA interest and a 9% repayment tax on top of income tax, NIx2, council tax, Vat, ULEZ and all the rest. This for largely useless and valueless degrees in often almost useless and valueless subjects. Plus the loss of 3 plus years income and worth experience.
October 27, 2021
To see just how useless and appallingly inefficient the state can be see the report into the sick joke that is the Test & Trace (Ā£39 billion was it so far) project. Or nearly anything else the state runs. Why on earth have three forms of income tax for example NI times two plus income tax? Why such absurdly complex pension rules?
Given the backlog up up to nearly 10 million people awaiting procedures and operations these Ā£billions would have been rather useful. Ā£3,900 per person on the list would be handy.
October 27, 2021
Ā£39bn for track nā trace, Ā£40bn settlement to the EU, Foreign Aid back to 0.7% by end of parliament, Ā£150bn hs2 and pay rises for allā¦..there really is a magic money tree
October 28, 2021
@glen Cullen +1 and we all get to bow down to the Worlds greatest polluters and sacrifice our lives on their behalf.
October 28, 2021
I’ve read that the Ā£39bn was the budget for 2 years of test and trace (not just track) – I would like to know how much has actually be spent and with whom and for what.
October 27, 2021
“The sooner the government stops illegal migration and regulates economic migration at sensible levels the better.”
Hallelujah! 100% agree. We can’t afford to house criminals in 4* hotels, plus the additional costs. We can;t afford bags of money paying both sides of their legal challenges.
We can’t afford a decent sewage system unless the taxpayer pays out additional money for the improvements. We are paying already through our bills and the water companies already benefit from the massive increase in housing. The mostly foreign owned companies have little interest investing money in the UK. They spend the minimum in the UK to maximise profits that will go to benefit their own countries, and now they have been given free rein to pollute our environment it will encourage them to do even less.
All you need to do now is convince the anti-UK anti-democratic members of the house to support UK interests. No easy task, but essential if your party wishes to survive. People are getting so angry they will probably vote for Screaming Lord Sutch next time around just to punish your party.
October 27, 2021
Commons select committee confirmed 15,000+ immigrants housed in hotels
October 27, 2021
That is truly shocking. Absolutely disgusting too. Why does the UK do this? No other country would. Illegal invaders get priority before pensioners, and everyone else in the country, apparently.
October 27, 2021
+1
October 27, 2021
Say Ā£100 per night hotel plus Ā£100 allowance & on costs per day = Ā£300,000 per day (minimum)
October 27, 2021
āIn the health budget the huge sums committed to finding a vaccine, setting up a vaccination programme, designing and implementing a test and trace system, and putting in more testing capacity can in part be redeployed to getting waiting lists down and doing the day job as the pandemic wanes. There will also be the saving on putting in and then closing the extra Nightingale capacity. All of these sums stay in the overall budget and are rolled over for the years ahead as if these commitments would repeat.ā
Perish the thought, but in that case could budgets not be structured to reflect reality rather than fantasy, and the burden on the taxpayer be reduced?
October 27, 2021
Good morning.
Very true. But one can also extend this to the devolved administrations. For far too long we have been sending more and more cash to them everytime they (mostly Scotland and the London Mayor) start to complain. This allows them to continue to run things badly and avoid the inevitable financial consequences of their actions. It is this avoidance that prevents much needed reform. Essentially, papering over the cracks.
HS2 never made sense. One can speculate as to the reasons why it is kept going, and one would probably not be wrong, but let us say, money talks š
Housing can be sorted by not importing so many people. Illegal immigration can be sorted by sending people back to where they came from or, deporting them to a remote Scottish island for their own safety, security and comfort. They can then be told that they will not be granted asylum and will remain there until they can be returned home. Thus deterring others from making the same attempt. Australia did this and it worked.
Finally. We need a government that realises that it can, and should, only spend what it can get in taxes. It should make clear, especially when it comes to foreign aid (yes we have not forgotten that boondoggle), that we cannot spend that on which we do not have.
October 27, 2021
More great ideas Mark especially on the immigration issue.
October 27, 2021
Just as bad as money being spent wastefully, is opportunities being wasted by money NOT being spent where it is needed, such as state aid to build our industries and science to lead the world in new technology. I am writing this before the budget, but the media reports are indicating that the government will renege on its pledge to raise spending on R&D. This would be treachery and a complete disgrace. R&D is *essential* for Britain’s growth and success. The government’s targets were already heartbreakingly unambitious, leaving us spending LESS than some of our main competitors, but if they don’t even spend what they said they would, then frankly we are screwed.
October 27, 2021
A few Ā£billion here, a few hundred Ā£billion there, and soon you’re talking real monopoly money!
October 27, 2021
SirJ youāve been holding out on us ā I never realised until listening to the spend happy chancellor that we were in a period of economic boom
October 27, 2021
I see the budget is full on Blair/Brown nonsense.
This is not what we voted for.
October 27, 2021
A very apt description
October 27, 2021
Iām so glad the MPs are all getting overexcited by their budget.
Iām NOT!
Wonder if site is working now?
October 27, 2021
Why are they laughing?
Why are they so happy?
Donāt they realise what they have done?
October 27, 2021
Theyāre all in safe full employment (although classed as self-employed but not subject to IR35) guaranteed for the next 3 years on average Ā£90k plus Ā£200k expensesā¦wouldnāt you be laughing your head off
October 27, 2021
+1
Ahā¦yes!
Good old āIām alright Jackā.
October 27, 2021
Having trouble posting today.
October 27, 2021
Got on at last. Nearly a million EU nationals drawing furlough or dole whilst living overseas.
Billions allocated to finance the channel taxi service and billions to waste on HS2 and net zero.
Nothing for social care because that actually benefits the nation.
October 27, 2021
Haven’t we left the EU and all its institutions…..I’m sure I heard Boris say that
October 27, 2021
It kept telling me I couldn’t be saved…..I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t save the Government either, and I suspect Sir John feels the same too.
October 27, 2021
I bet youād do a better job than those guffawing oh so pleased with themselves twits.
October 27, 2021
Me too.
Kept coming up with a message about ācomment could not be savedā and then comment just disappeared.
Budget was summat and nowt ..all been leaked out anyway!
Pub concession sounded a bit cheerful but landlords seeing pros and cons.
Only very large pubs can take advantage of it? And a long time ahead.
So still screwing small businesses.
Looking forward to getting everyone on Universal Income ( or whatever stupid name they call it).
The masked ones were beside themselves with glee throughout the Budget proceedings.
Hilarityā¦not sure why.
October 27, 2021
To me the main contradiction comes from the distortion or is it mission creep of the definition of ‘investing’.
Yes education is an investment, along with health, a limited amount of the needed infrastructure and those priorities that keep us safe and secure. Those are investments were it is hard to create a measurement on re-investable payback – other than for most of us its a pure ‘gut’ feeling.
All Governments and those that make demands on Governments seem exclusively to forget Governments don’t have money just access to taxpayers wallets.
So when a Government then says investment, they mean they will take from us all. That then means in todays world they are virtually stealing to create giveaways to manipulate society, there seems some sort of misplacement of taxpayer money and its true purpose.
The high-profile one and there are lots of them, taxpayer money is given directly to those that want to buy electric cars. Then to keep them on the road taxpayer money is awarded for charging points. For the most part the people that have benefitted most are those rich enough to afford the car without taxpayer help. The taxpayer never had to fund petrol stations, so charging points and exclusive additional electricity to power them, while people are promised they will get to freeze in their homes? The baulk of taxpayers are never in a position to even dream of affording an electric car – its a rich get richer while the poor get poorer often labeled as a ‘Tory’ trait played out real time. The poor get to subsidies the life style of the rich, is that investment or is it taking liberties of the Governments access to peoples wallets?
October 27, 2021
He should of stay in bed today.
October 27, 2021
Iāve just gone through all my old economic text books and nowhere does it say that a fuel duty āfreezeā is the same as a fuel duty ācutā
October 27, 2021
It is if inflation is counted… alas fuel has been inflated by the introduction of E10 on the sly. Being stuck in State manufactured traffic jams also reduces the mpg of the taxed fuel paid by commuters with already taxed income… and VAT on the repairs of the cars that they use to keep themselves off the dole – the fools !
October 27, 2021
So, contrary to all your hopes and requests Sir John, after that depressingly awful budget we are left with taxes at their highest since the 1960s (as a proportion of GDP). There is NOTHING to help industry cope with sky-high energy costs – our steelmakers spend Ā£20 million every week MORE than their German competitors – and the planned future tax increases on businesses are still going ahead. Oh, and – as feared -spending on R&D has been CUT from what was promised in the manifesto, which is a devastating blow to Britain’s hopes of success in the long-term. The target was already so unambitious – merely reaching the OECD average (never mind actually beating our competitors) – but it seems the government is now content for us to remain below average. What an absolute disgrace. This budget is a disaster for Britain, British businesses and the British people.
October 27, 2021
+1
And as I keep saying, canāt get over it reallyā¦how they all laughed!
So pleased at the destruction of a nation.
October 27, 2021
There was no mention in Todayās budget on the high price of electricity. Steel production and many other industries need lower cost electricity. Many jobs are now at risk,
October 27, 2021
also no mention of helping the fishing section (the english not the french)
October 27, 2021
Hopefully the cracks will be obvious to all by the next election.
An 80 seat majority …
October 27, 2021
Net zero cannot be achieved.
All the resources allocated on trying to achieve it are economic waste, and damaging to the environment.
It is futile virtue-signalling.
Vanity projects are consumption. They are not investment, you may as well employ people to dig a hole and fill it back in again.
October 27, 2021
+1
Our carbon is all abroadā¦as is our child labour.
Dodgy carbon accountingā¦in addition to everything else.
And now I hear that the, as you say, virtue signalling wotsits are losing migrant children by the thousands!
They came here for a better life..not to be lost!! Or worse.
October 28, 2021
Good point
October 27, 2021
A small point about the budget, but a very telling one: why on earth was the cut in the rate of tax on sparkling wine not limited to English sparkling wine? Why is he going to make already fairly cheap sparkling wines like Cava or Prosecco even cheaper, and thus help Spanish and Italian producers, when he should be targeting help to BRITISH producers? English sparkling wine is superb, and has often won international competitions against French champagne. So lets help our own producers to expand, rather than foreign ones. This refusal to specifically help British companies just shows what a treasonous bunch of politicians we have to suffer under.
(As an aside on this topic, we should weaponise the use of the name ‘champagne’ and let our own sparkling wine manufacturers use this *unless* France stops being so obstructive when it comes to cross-Channel trade, financial services and fishing).
October 27, 2021
The biggest priority tha government has got is to convince the taxpayers that monies being allocated are being used wisely and not wasted.
The perception of the majority of taxpayers is that despite all the talk and posturing they have serious doubts as to how much actually gets to the real front line after all the different levels of management and unnecessary departments have their slice of the extra budget.
All the talk has got to stop, and stop now. Actions speak louder than words.
The waste has got to be eradicated, not the head banging, hand wringing actions we are usually presented with.
Slash the waste and watch this country really accelerate and prosper. It is in everybody’s interest. Why does it never get done?
October 27, 2021
Spending priorities? It should be spending cuts!
October 28, 2021
That sound like a sensible conservative policy
October 28, 2021
The opposite bench are numb struck, bemused and wondering what Johnson is up to ….
They can hardly call for Social Service cuts, can they?
October 27, 2021
I like the bit about R&D going to overseas companies and will continue till March 2023, as much as 50% he said, I can see why the Germans are doing so well, as for the R&D in the UK, so many made apps on this money and sellout to US companies for 50 to 120 million and taxpayers get nothing back, it’s a scam, end it and put money towards tax cuts for UK small businesses. 22 billion a year and you see nothing for your money to date and been going on for years.
October 27, 2021
Sir john, a much enhanced role for the railways will simply resurrect the problem that was evaded when the HGVs took over — a massively centralised, unionised and militant sector of society was holding the UK to ransom but was replaced by an entrepreneurial, multi-centred and risk-taking equivalent. Is the railway sector sufficiently depleted that we can risk giving it the whip hand again?
JF