The UK economy has been let down by the Bank of England, not by Brexit

Mr Carney blames Brexit for the current high inflation. This is the same Mr Carney that predicted on Brexit house prices would fall when they rose, that unemployment would rise but it fell, and GDP would decline when it went up. Funny he now just blames it for inflation when the EU has the same high rate as us, and the USA is not far behind. The pound did fall against the dollar in recent years, but so did the yen and the Euro, so it is even difficult to blame that on Brexit.

Truth is the EU, the UK and the USA have this in common. All three have Central Banks which kept interest rates close to zero and printed huge quantities of euros, pounds and dollars. They used the extra cash to buy government bonds at ever crazier prices to keep longer term as well as managed short rates very low. No wonder we have inflations. Most of the Central Banks now blame Putin’s war for the inflation and its impact on energy prices. The Fed sees blaming Brexit would look silly. The trouble with blaming energy prices is Japan, China and Switzerland also import plenty of energy at world prices but they have inflationĀ  at 3%, not 10%. Could that be because they did not bloat their money supplies as the UK, US and Euro area did?

Now the Bank of England repents and threatens to overdo its tightening after being far too loose for too long, the Treasury needs to offset undue severity by the Bank. Far from putting up taxes it should selectively be cutting them to make the UK more competitive and attractive to capital. Some lower rates produce more revenue. Nor should it be slashing productive capital investment, as we need the public private partnerships and the new infrastructure to power growth. The Chancellor and PMĀ  need to resist a remorse or revenge budget strategy by authorities who got 2021 comprehensively wrong and have created an inflation as a result. Inflation was almost three times target before Russia sent troops into Ukraine.

223 Comments

  1. Mark B
    November 7, 2022

    Good moring

    The advantages of blaming things such as BREXIT, a non person, is that such a target cannot fight back. It is, as they say, an open goal. What I am more interested in are the reason for BREXIT, or any other excuse, to be explained in detail as to why ? If BREXIT is to be blamed, then it falls to all those who sought to undermine it and the free will of the people.

    A bit like giving your party members a choice of who they want to be the next PM, only to have that choice overturned and the ‘other peoples’ choice put in charge instead.

    1. Peter Wood
      November 7, 2022

      MB,
      Yes, BREXIT is an easy target, but it shouldn’t be so. The reason is because it’s not been ‘worked’, or put into effect. In some parts it’s left a mess still not resolved. Why so? We had a PM who tried to keep us ‘aligned’ and then one who was all about show but no go. We neither planned for leaving, didn’t try to get a good leaving deal, nor a post leaving, once in a century ecenomic reset, other than arranging to rollover some trade deals. And we STILL only have a half-hearted attempt at finding benefits from leaving.
      Brexit is a generational journey, it should have been planned and implemented, to take advantage of our freedom to govern all parts of our economy and natural resources. I fear the present PM is no better than his recent predecessors.

      1. rose
        November 7, 2022

        Brexit is the scapegoat for a reason: that the next step is to instal Starmer and take us back in. We are still fully aligned; our tax is at EU heights, and EU directives have still not been removed from our law; our energy poicy is still intertwined with the EU when we should be self sufficient; and our army is compromised. The lying MSM have already primed the public and got some people repenting. It will be a toss up between blaming Miss Truss for the Sunak Slump, and blaming Brexit, when it comes to the election.

        1. Hope
          November 7, 2022

          +++++1

        2. ignoramus
          November 7, 2022

          Maybe.

          I think it’s time we held Brexit to some clear measures. Particularly the economy. I would like to see clear measures on international trade and GDP growth before and after Brexit to see the lines of trajectory, preferably with an OBR analysis (despite JR’s reservations, they are the best we have got).

          I think there is far too much waffle on this issue and far too little measurement. I want clear realistic targets and explanations if they are not hit.

          We need to make Brexit work or the public will cease to support it.

        3. Hope
          November 7, 2022

          JR needs his party and govt to fail and leave office. Sunak has now given away our taxes that we earned to foreign countries for His nutty virtue signalling while imposing His mass immigration policy.

          We have EU inspectors interviewing and checking the UK is complaint with EU laws, rules and regulations! How can that be so if the UK left! Arelene Forster highlights in her article how the UK has spent Ā£33 million pounds checking goods from GB to NI on behalf of EU! Johnson said no checks, no border! Liar. Where is the Brexit we voted for JR?

          Cameron failed to send his letter to leave and stopped any preparation for leaving the EU, May betrayed her cabinet, party and nation to prevent UK leaving EU under largest ever mandate. Johnson given an 80 seat majority to leave and act in UK interest which he deliberately and miserably failed to deliver.

          We read again more changes by Sunak from Truss at No.10, the partners and husbands of Labour front bench MPs back as head of staff for his spads! This is alleged to be a conservative govt! My arse. Is this Sunak serving with integrity again!

          1. No Longer Anonymous
            November 8, 2022

            Word has it that Sunak is being advised to take the UK back into the EU.

            They’ll take Farage back in the puppet show they call the EU Parliament… and humiliate him.

        4. Graham
          November 7, 2022

          Rose – where do we get this idea that they are going to take us back in? when ‘not in a million years’ could such a thing ever happen – if anyone thinks that the EU Parliament is going to rearrange the furniture to allow the likes of Farage, Widdecombe etc back again they are sadly mistaken.

          1. rose
            November 7, 2022

            It is sadly mistaken to think the EU Parliament has any say in what goes on. It is a sham parliament. The EU Commission and the Franco-German Axis will want us back in to bail them all out.

      2. G
        November 7, 2022

        Spot on…

      3. turboterrier
        November 7, 2022

        Peter Wood
        Exactly. Very well said

      4. Hope
        November 7, 2022

        Ed Miliband has caused more economic damage to this country than any other through climate change act and his net stupid drive. Amazingly the socialist Tories who labelled him Red Ed and his energy policy as Marxist are not just implementing it but building on it as May stated in parliament! The Tories and labour are one, absolute socialist nutters.

        High tax, big state and wasteful spending. Showering the world with taxpayers hard earned money.

        Miliband insanely thinks UK taxpayers shower Pakistan with our money while Pakistan chooses to spend its money on nuclear weapons and space programmes! I wait for the Tories to implement and build on it, then import their population to UK. How is the Tory report of rape gang of predominantly young white girls coming along or has it been a sham and been abandoned? Thousands of vulnerable girls raped and abused, why is this not a priority for Tory and Labour?

      5. R.Grange
        November 7, 2022

        Well, Peter, you need look no further than Sunak’s recent speech pre-COP27. He says this country will move to “clean” energy “faster and further”, and eventually will completely switch to environmentally friendly, cheap and efficient energy sources. We’ll be a green “superpower”, he says. So he’s following the Milliband agenda, just like his predecessors. No sign whatsoever that he cares about keeping the lights on, going forward.

      6. oldwulf
        November 7, 2022

        @PW

        Yes.

        Brexit was not on the ballot paper. The choice was “leave” or “remain.” The majority of UK voters voted “leave”. We haven’t left yet.

        Democracy in action ?
        Yeah right.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          November 7, 2022

          Of course Brexit was on a paper ballot!

        2. Lentona
          November 7, 2022

          We left in January 2020. Going badly? Very. But we have left. You got what you wanted. And you are angry and unhappy

          1. a-tracy
            November 7, 2022

            Lentona, actually we didnā€™t leave the withdrawal agreement until January 2021 when we were still in and out of lockdown.

            Factories have been reopening in the UK, jobs have been booming in the Midlands. Export markets to other countries have expanded and job remuneration has gone up several times in the past two years as we came out of covid.

            It seems like we are to be stopped and Hunt and Sunak are there to facilitate the halt.

        3. hefner
          November 7, 2022

          OW, exactly. The choice was ā€˜leaveā€™ or ā€˜remainā€™. Once ā€˜leaveā€™ had won various factions within the Leave groups have put different contents about what Brexit should/would/will be. And 6.5 years later, despite a purge of ā€˜remainersā€™ at the 2019 GE, some of these factions are still at it, with some factions now having not more than a few deluded/confused MP members but pretending to representing the majority of the British electorate.
          So was it Leave a la Hannan, a la Johnson, a la Farage, a la Starmer, a la CRG, a la NZSG, a la CSG, a la BCC, a la NRG, a la ERG, ā€¦ a la Redwood?
          Not surprising that potential voters are confused?

          1. a-tracy
            November 7, 2022

            Hefner, the popular leave votes for Farage, Widdicombe, Hannan etc. Were when they took a massive majority after the leave vote in the European Parliament. May was re-elected on a leave platform remember ā€˜no deal is better than a bad dealā€™ then she screwed us over.
            Then Boris was given a massive majority telling us Leave was safe in his hands.
            The people confused are those that trusted MPs to deliver on their GE promises.

      7. Mitchel
        November 7, 2022

        Lovely quote from Jean Monnet dating back to 1971:

        “From the day of their entry into the Community our British friends will act as if they themselves had invented it.”

        I have long said that entry into the EEC/EU was an attempt at a reverse takeover by the UK Establishment to compensate for the collapse of empire.Otherwise people here might start asking why we need the expensive imperial superstructure that has survived that collapse.

    2. Nottingham Lad Himself
      November 7, 2022

      As Nesrine Malik says in her excellent piece today “Brexit is exposed, the economy is in shreds, the party has imploded ā€“ and the government is running out of people to blame”.

      As expected, here is Sir John yet again flogging that dead horse, however.

      1. Bill B.
        November 7, 2022

        Oh well – if Nesrine Malik says so that’s the end of the matter, of course. But did she have any views on how to improve things in the other countries that I see she’s lived in (Sudan, Kenya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia), or didn’t people listen to her views there for some reason?

        1. a-tracy
          November 7, 2022

          Quite right Bill, Iā€™ve thought the same thing about several journalists spouting anti British articles week after week.

      2. Peter2
        November 7, 2022

        That well known moderate political voice…Nasarine Malik.
        Looking forward to the next moderate person you like NHL
        Hilarious

        1. NBill Brown
          November 7, 2022

          Peter 2

          Why don’t you argue your case?
          What is it about Nasarine you believe is wrong?
          What is your view on the success of Brexit or not?

          1. Peter2
            November 8, 2022

            Why don’t you give us your view too eubilly, instead of popping up trolling all the time.

    3. Gary Megson
      November 7, 2022

      This is what the Brexiters are reduced to. They cannot point to any Brexit gains. There are none. All they have left is to point to things that are going badly, and claim that Brexit is not the cause. It’s a sorry picture

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        November 7, 2022

        Well letā€™s look at the control group. Those who did not leave the EU. France – read the papers recently about the state of France? 3 million abandoned houses in France and 6 million EU citizens in the U.K.
        and there is more ā€¦. And more ā€¦ and more.

      2. Peter2
        November 7, 2022

        Same inflation in Europe and USA
        gazza
        Tell us why.

        1. glen cullen
          November 7, 2022

          I can answer that, its because of the introduction of the policies of net-zero
          ….oh and because this Tory government failed to implement a full WTO Brexit

        2. NBill Brown
          November 8, 2022

          Peter 2

          As usual no content and no answers.
          How very sad, but not surprising

          1. Peter2
            November 9, 2022

            Dont be so hard on yourself Billy.
            Maybe try and write more than a few lines in your next post.

      3. a-tracy
        November 7, 2022

        Gary, you are so rude, we spend time on every thread giving you the benefits such as reshoring British factories, making more regional jobs, higher pay rates etc. You choose to ignore them all, go back and read some of the answers you were given.
        Starting with less fees, fines, tolls and taxes to the EU.
        Our anger is with Sunak and Hunt squeezing our necks.

    4. Ian B
      November 7, 2022

      @Mark B +1 A remainer Parliment, Civil Service Establishment and the BoE would sooner see the UK go to hell in a hand cart before it is alowed to stand on its own 2 feet.
      And, where are the architects of this mess, Oh yes on a further mission to get new Orders on how to screw a Country in lavish style in Egypt.
      This is not a Country, or People First Government, this is about ego and self praise from their acolytes and masters elsewhere.

      1. Ian B
        November 7, 2022

        Today MsM – Labour has backed calls for the UK to pay other countries affected by climate change, with Ed Miliband, the shadow climate minister, calling it a ā€œmoral responsibilityā€.

        1. Bloke
          November 7, 2022

          Ed Miliband is enshadowed by the EdStone. Much of what he supports is similarly daft.

      2. Shirley M
        November 7, 2022

        I whole heartedly agree. The remainers would rather destroy our country and democracy (and they have tried hard enough via various means) than respect a majority vote. If there is any justice, they will have a majority vote overturned and we can see how well that goes down! It may well happen, if they succeed!

    5. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      BREXIT itself may be incapable of mounting any defence, but it could have a champion to fight on its behalf.

      By which I mean an official, high class and above all well armed champion, not a rabble of peasants neglecting their work to rise up with poor weapons and come to its aid … but those who should take on that role do not do so, instead they stand idly by while the enemies of BREXIT seek to destroy it.

      There is a school of thought that some of those leading the Tory party are just waiting to lose the next general election so Labour can take us back into the EU, and they are content to see BREXIT slagged off day after day.

      1. a-tracy
        November 7, 2022

        Denis, they donā€™t want us back in around the table, they only want us contributing as outsiders and tied up in knots by the SM and CU. They managed to ignore the UK for years, Junker made Cameron look like a fool asking for just a few minor tweaks.

        1. Shirley M
          November 8, 2022

          Agreed, a-tracy. They don’t want us as members, they want a rule taker, a vassal state and cash cow, and our undemocratic politicians seem willing to oblige (although the way this government is giving our money away there may well be nothing left for the UK or the EU!).

    6. Peter
      November 7, 2022

      The train unions have been very clever cancelling the strike at the last minute. Not only did I have to cancel a trip to Nottingham on Saturday, but I turned up this morning to find my local station is still closed. A very limited service to Waterloo is in operation Surbiton, Wimbledon and Waterloo stops only. I assume staff still get paid. Mr. Lynch is running rings around the train operators who will still be drawing government subsidy. Christmas schedule will be interesting.

      Time to admit privatisation is a failure and take the whole lot back into a joined-up nationalised service.

      1. Shirley M
        November 7, 2022

        Peter: Nationalisation failed. We would never be free of strikes, poor service, and blackmail for more and more pay. My solution would be employee participation. Wages from profits only, and very limited subsidies.

        1. Peter
          November 7, 2022

          Shirley M,

          We have a worse service now with a fragmented network and huge fares. Rail franchises blackmail government for more subsidy and the government cave in as there is often no operator willing to take over. Strikes have not gone away either.

          1. a-tracy
            November 7, 2022

            Peter, they should never have got rid of Virgin – excellent service, good prices, good customer relations, good food, clean toilets on the West Coast Line who and why was that decision made for the much poorer alternative.

      2. Mickey Taking
        November 7, 2022

        Christmas (Saturday & Sunday) will be trainless, much as usual. What remains to be seen is will services be cancelled for much of the week before, and some after?

  2. Lifelogic
    November 7, 2022

    Exactly Carney was chosen (and hugely overpaid too) by the dire IHT promise ratter and tax to death remainer one George Osborne. Now Carney pushes the deluded green agenda as some envoy I understand. Yet another PPE graduate it seems.

    Meanwhile Ed Miliband (the man who wanted to rob landlords to buy votes with his tomb stone of promises when he lost his general election) suggests Labour would send British taxpayersā€™ cash to climate change-affected nations (such as nuclear-armed Pakistan) for ā€˜loss and damageā€™ as he’s quizzed over ā€˜reparationsā€™
    ā€¢ Ed Miliband backs calls for cash to be given to climate change-affected nations
    ā€¢ Labour shadow minister insists it’s ‘morally right’ and in Britain’s ‘self-interest’

    Miliband the man whose moronic climate change act (voted for by nearly every MP so daft are they) is the main cause or the current very high energy prices and high energy industries and jobs leaving the UK in droves. Yet another PPE man – what is the sum total of economic and other damage done to the UK by these deluded PPE graduates with zero grasp logic or energy engineering?

    1. Lifelogic
      November 7, 2022

      Not even a grasp of real economics it seems, this despite PPE supposedly covering Economics.

      1. Ian Wragg
        November 7, 2022

        Under WEF rules, tax cuts are not allowed.
        Slowly we will be taxed to death and have an allowance from the state.
        Scotland is already to try this. Remove any incentive to work and destroy capitalism then rebuild on the NWO.
        Soinak is their placeman.

        1. Ian Wragg
          November 7, 2022

          So Soonack has reversed all the changes Truss put in place and now we have team Carrue back with Rachel Reeves husband in No.10s policy unit.
          He really is making sure your wiped out at the next election.
          Rishi jets into Egypt and arrives in a RNge River gas guzzler promising to give more of our money to corrupt third world leaders.
          Roll on opposition.

          1. a-tracy
            November 7, 2022

            Rachel Reeves the Labour Party shadow chancellor? Does she really have her husband in conservative no 10 policy unit? If this is correct this is an absolute joke.

        2. glen cullen
          November 7, 2022

          World Government with the new leadership in attendance at COP27

      2. rose
        November 7, 2022

        Don’t let Ed Davey get away. He is repeatedly interviewed by the BBC bullies on Today, but never once have they asked him why (the UK? ed) took money and advice from the Chinese while he was Energy Secretary, and why he refused to secure our energy supply for the 2020s.

      3. Hope
        November 7, 2022

        But JRā€™s party and govt.ā€™s could have changed everything it wanted over 12 years with an 80 seat majority. It chose not to.

        Parliament is a talking shop between two socialist parties trying to out,virtue signalling the other.

        Traitor May introduced net stupid from a 90 minute socialist debate where the taxpayer is expected to pay out trillions of pounds with no say or referendum!

        Sunak and Hunt currently trying to take taxes above the 75 year historic high, for big state and wasteful spending without even trying to achieve energy security in UK let alone jobs or industry security and skill sets. But perfectly content to use diesel ships to transport across the world fracked gas from Qatar and US! Sunak and Hunt are actively helping Chinaā€™s bidding by transferring jobs, industry and manufacturing to China where they know China uses coal fired power stations to transport goods by the billion back to UK!

        Covid and Huntā€™s welcomed lockdown showed how stupid it was to rely on China for so many goods and how hostile countries like China could hold UK to ransom. Johnson said UK would row back, this has been abandoned despite EU reliance on energy from Russia. Trump warned them they scoffed and ridiculed him! That was because He was a conservative and patriot.

        Sunak and Hunt are actively pursuing inter connectors from hostile EU even though last year Macron warned France would cut electric to Jersey unless UK gave up its fishing waters. Johnson and Tory party complied. Same for PPE and vaccines. No matter how hostile EU is Hunt and his likes want back in.

    2. Michelle
      November 7, 2022

      Milliband to me is indicative of a type.
      People of either first, second or even third generation who came here for safety or ‘a better life’ and once their feet are firmly under the table, start to berate us for how awful we are and owe everyone big time.

      As for floods in Pakistan, well I seem to recall flooding in the region, certainly 1970’s, before climate became a huge money spinner for some.
      Bangladesh the George Harrison number, was in part to raise funds for flooding disaster was it not?
      Is it not more to do with their geographical location than climate change?

      Here, they are applying to build on known flood plains, and like as not permission to be given as rising population now becoming a real issue, so we are going to need a lot of our own money to compensate for this completely avoidable disaster.

      1. rose
        November 7, 2022

        “Is it not more to do with their geographical location than climate change?” Yes, and not spending our generous aid on flood defence.

      2. rose
        November 7, 2022

        Yes, Michelle, there is a wretchedly ungrateful and destructive type – Alf Dubs, David Lammy, and Yasmin Alibhai Brown are my betes noires – but there are wonderfully grateful people too, like Mrs Braverman, Mrs Badenoch, and Mrs Patel.

      3. Lifelogic
        November 7, 2022

        +1.

      4. Sir Joe Soap
        November 7, 2022

        Perhaps in future we will be paid reparations by them for having to build homes on our flood plains to accommodate their citizens.
        Miliband is just part of what is now called an “industry” whose main purpose is giving away our heritage free to others.

      5. a-tracy
        November 7, 2022

        Pakistan population growth rates? https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/PAK/pakistan/population-growth-rate
        1950 37,696,264
        2022 235,824,862

        Humanitarian support totalling Ā£15 million from the UK will help provide shelter and essential supplies to people across the country.1 Sept 2022 source gov.uk

        The UK is providing an additional Ā£10 million of UK aid funding to Pakistan following the devastating floods. 13/10/22. How much foreign aid does Pakistan get?

        Ā«Ā The UK’s new Developing Countries Trading Scheme will help grow trade by giving duty-free access to 94% of goods exported from Pakistan to the UK.13 Oct 2022.Ā Ā» Yet weā€™re told we are paying Ā£35m to just send goods to Northern Ireland within our own Country – someone isnā€™t telling the truth here, and if they are this just shows how pathetic the deal is with the EU where they get free trade from us.

        The aid had increased from $586 million in 2014 to $649 million in 2015. The paper also reports that Pakistan received the most aid out of all the countries in Southern Asia, with India just behind receiving $589 million in 2015. The biggest part of the aid to Pakistan was given for basic education. Wiki

    3. Dave Andrews
      November 7, 2022

      The COP27 message is now “rich” countries to compensate the “poor” countries for their development.
      Well certainly rich countries doesn’t include the UK, with our ballistic national debt. We’re so poor we can’t pay it off and have to refinance it continually. In short, we are broke. US debt is lamentable as well as much of Europe.
      Perhaps they should turn their attention to mega-rich individuals and multi-national companies. They’re the ones with plenty of money.

    4. lifelogic
      November 7, 2022

      I see that Ofcom states in their ā€œguidanceā€ (demands) to broadcasters that:- ā€œAn example of an issue which Ofcom considered to be broadly settled is the scientific principles behind the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warmingā€. A bit out of date there as they now call it ā€œclimate changeā€ as there has been no statistically significant warming of late. So Ofcom consider it settled how would they determine this do they have a team of impartial scientists or did they toss a coin?

      So they are the the Governmentā€™s Ministry of Truth/Propaganda outfit in the UK it seems. Chaired by a successful theatrical agent Lord Grade with no formal education beyond school. Also Google their chilling ā€œBroadcast standards during the coronavirus pandemicā€ which helped to push the largely ineffective and often dangerous vaccines, (lockdowns, useless masks)ā€¦ into peopleā€™s arms. Even young people who were never at any risk from Covid.

    5. G
      November 7, 2022

      False scientific conclusions to justify totalitarian control over populations?

      Too cynical?….

      1. Lifelogic
        November 7, 2022

        I think I was already quite cynical but the older I get the more I realise that one can rarely be too cynical alas. Especially it seems with most politicians.

    6. Wanderer
      November 7, 2022

      Ll. I can’t think the voters in Doncaster North would be overjoyed at us sending money to climate affected nations, yet they keep voting for the man. Bewildering.

    7. turboterrier
      November 7, 2022

      Lifelogic
      Sod off with all these demands to apologise and pay money for past mistakes. A good place to start would be for EM to apologise to the people for what he inflicted on us with his CC act.

    8. Lifelogic
      November 7, 2022

      Three good pieces in the Telegraph today (I do not work for them)
      Chris Mullin
      Uncontrolled immigration is morally indefensible (sure is)
      JANE SHILLING
      Itā€™s not becoming for a knight of the realm to be boorish and rude. (about what I expected of this dire Man)
      DOUGLAS MURRAY
      Donors can hit woke universities where it hurts (indeed I will not be giving any more to my college or universities until they ditch all this woke lunacy and disinvestment from fossil fuels lunacy).

      1. Mickey Taking
        November 7, 2022

        But the Chinese have shored up many universities for years.

    9. Geoffrey Berg
      November 7, 2022

      I don’t really blame George Osborne for appointing Carney because Osborne at least set a precedent in scouting the world to attempt to find the best candidate for this very important job. Carney had a seemingly successful record in Canada in running Canada’s national bank. Furthermore the mistakes Carney made are also generally similar mistakes to those made by others such as those running the Euro and the American dollar.
      One can’t always get appointments right but one should at least avoid obvious mistakes such as Conservative M.P.s made (it seems to me on whims or flights of fancy rather than on clearheaded analysis)in selecting manifestly useless candidates for top political leadership such as Theresa May, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak (3 of the last 4) even when better choices were available in terms of both competence and also public electability even among those with similar political outlooks. The manifest uselessness of those they chose shows most Conservative M.P.s are politically useless as the choice of Party Leader is the most important decision most M.P.s ever make.

  3. Cuibono
    November 7, 2022

    Why are they so BOTHERED about us leaving the EU?
    I mean we know they put a tremendous amount of energy into stopping/reversing Brexit but after all it was just a democratic decision.
    So why the drama?

    1. Sharon
      November 7, 2022

      Why are they so bothered about us leaving the EU? Well, thereā€™s the worry that Britain might actually fare better than the EU block; some have their snouts in the EU gravy train; thereā€™s the worry other countries might also choose to leave. The EU is a big advocate of the one world government agenda. With us as an independent that would mess up those plans a bit. Thereā€™s still the conspiracy theory that economies that fail will leave the only option of digital currency as the panaceaā€¦ Britain out of the EU shouldnā€™t have a crashed economy and so wouldnā€™t do that! Btw there are about 100 countries, including GB, looking into the digital currency idea. (Programmable like Chinaā€™s credit system)

      So, I would say there are numerous reasons why some want us still to be part of the EU. And, no reason that would be a benefit us either.

    2. Dave Andrews
      November 7, 2022

      That’s what I think. Imagine if Alaska say decided to go it alone. There would be caution over the economic implications, but in the end everyone would say “Good for you Alaska, go and make a success of it”. Not the UK however. Somehow the UK is supposed to remain subject to some super-state with its democracy handicapped.

      1. Hope
        November 7, 2022

        Iceland made a success and declined EU membership! Not that msm would tell us. They reduced taxes to attract businesses!

    3. Donna
      November 7, 2022

      They don’t approve of democratic decisions which don’t endorse what they intend doing anyway.

    4. Jason Cartwright
      November 7, 2022

      Brexit messed up planned merger of other regional supranational political bodies into single UN world government?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        November 7, 2022

        Exactly! The English putting a spoke in the works again.

    5. Bryan Harris
      November 7, 2022

      It was always the plan of the Americans that the UK should be consumed by Europe, and not be a separate entity to deal with.

      If we imagine that the USA only started meddling in national affairs recently we would be wrong – they’ve been doing it for a very long time, and yes, we upset them when we don’t play along.

      1. Mitchel
        November 7, 2022

        Correct:”who do I phone if I want to speak to Europe?”

        Tweet from the Sirius Report yesterday:”US could end up throwing the UK under the bus wrt Ukraine war.”

        Yes,that’s what I think will happen as fatigue sets in and Trumpism gathers momentum again in the USA.

    6. a-tracy
      November 7, 2022

      ā‚¬40bn per year short.
      They have printed a load of money too, and have big bills to fund. It’s not just the low-figure membership fee they quote that they lose.
      They trade with us too, many a much higher figure than they buy from us, this trade and co-operation agreement that Boris told us he got was supposed to be a good deal. It seems the co-operation is more on the part of the UK.

  4. Shirley M
    November 7, 2022

    The government employs incompetents, but they deliberately choose incompetents who are already biased towards their aims, or able to be manipulated to put the blame where they want it, ie. Brexit. Democracy takes another beating and more power is snatched by the traitorous UK demolition crew.

    It is quite obvious the government has lost it’s collective mind and/or has zero regard for the future of our country, the indigenous, and democracy itself. I cannot believe any intelligent adult would deliberately trash their own country, economy, society and culture, especially if they have indigenous children. Maybe these political and influential traitors (I make no excuse for using that term) have an escape plan for themselves, are so wealthy that they are sitting pretty whatever they do, or they have been offered some other ‘outside’ enticement they find irresistible? Are they trashing their own future, the way they are trashing ours?

    1. Sharon
      November 7, 2022

      Good comment, Shirley! And some good questions to be answered. Is it just good old fashioned self interested corruption?If so, I find it difficult to understand the why.

    2. rose
      November 7, 2022

      I think, Shirley, it is a mixture of being removed from common sense, and not daring, in that SW1 environment – to speak common sense.

    3. Hope
      November 7, 2022

      Shirley,
      See Michelle above. They come for safety, then to conquer and change our way of life.

  5. Lifelogic
    November 7, 2022

    The fight against climate change can become “a global mission for new jobs and clean growth”, Rishi Sunak will tell world leaders at the COP27 summit. He arrived there last night on a private jet one assumes.

    Well, no Sunak that is actually just an excellent way to destroy & export UK jobs and whole industries, damage the UK economy hugely, depress living standards, push up energy costs, freeze some pensioners and the poor and ensure declining living UK standards and the UKā€™s ability to complete in the world. How is Britishvoltā€™s gigafactory getting on? Dreams unravel in turmoil and a cash crunch I see reported. Why would anyone locate such a factor in expensive energy UK without vast and pointless government subsidies?

    Mr Sunak will unveil more than Ā£200m funding to protect forests and for green technologies in developing nations. Meanwhile they fund Drax to burn millions of trees chopped down in America and insanely imported as ā€œyoung coalā€ producing more CO2 than coal does, but they then pretend this CO2 magically does not count.

    1. Donna
      November 7, 2022

      Ed Miliband was more honest about the COP intentions: it’s about extracting “reparations” from western, industrialised countries and transferring Ā£billions to the “usual suspect” who have their hands out for “free money.”

      The recent floods in Pakistan weren’t caused by climate change. The consequences of heavy rain have been exacerbated by massive population growth; more people living on flood plans and their Governments’ failure to build the infrastructure to deal with flood water.

      But they managed to build nuclear weapons. So it isn’t a money problem.

    2. Sir Joe Soap
      November 7, 2022

      This guy is a hypocrite par excellence. He can heat his pool and fly to Egypt on a whim whilst lecturing us on fossil fuel use, increase taxes for the plebs while being caught out on his wife’s non dom status, pretends to be long term UK resident to the core but holds a U.S. green card. Finally loses an election but gets the job. How on earth does he have the brass neck for this? He has absolutely zero credibility.

      At least Labour and Libdems do pretty well what they say on the tin.
      Somehow I can’t wait until this lot get turfed out for whoever, really.

      1. a-tracy
        November 7, 2022

        Seriously Sir Joe do you think Sir Keir would be any different, I donā€™t, i think theyā€™d be more generous with uk money, sign back into the Single market and customs union like the knee benders they are.

    3. Know-Dice
      November 7, 2022

      LL there was a post on this blog a week or so ago about populations and it’s effect on CO2 emissions…
      So, a quick reminder (Nuclear armed nations, figures from WorldoMeters):

      India 1960 – 450 Million, 2020 – 1,380 Million
      Pakistan 1960 – 45 Million, 2020 – 220 Million
      China 1960 – 660 Million, 2020 – 1,439 Million
      USA 1960 – 187 Million, 2020 – 331 Million
      UK 1960 – 52 Million, 2020 – 67.8 Million
      France 1960 – 45.8 Million, 2020 – 65.2 Million

      Without population control Net Zero is a complete waste of effort – That’s presuming it was worth the effort in the first place, particularly for the UK

      1. Mickey Taking
        November 7, 2022

        Brazil 1960 – 73m, 2020 – 213m
        Indonesia 1960 – 88m, 2020 – 271m
        Australia 1960 – 10m, 2020 – 25m

      2. glen cullen
        November 7, 2022

        I donā€™t care the politics or size of other nations and what they do ā€“ just stop asking for our aid, assistance and taxpayers money ā€¦especially if you have a bigger military than ours, have nuclear weapons and donā€™t endorse the philosophy of democracy & freedom

    4. Original Richard
      November 7, 2022

      Lifelogic : ā€œMr Sunak will unveil more than Ā£200m funding to protect forests and for green technologies in developing nations.ā€

      Mr. Sunak and Mr. Johnson together with their far left colleagues like the Milibands either do not know, or are ignoring the fact that the UK by transitioning from wood to coal saved our forests.

      The UKā€™s forest coverage had reduced from 15% at the Norman Conquest to 5% at the end of the 19th century and in Europe as whole the coverage had halved from 2/3rds to 1/3rd as the land was cleared for agriculture and the wood either burned for fuel or used to build ships.

      The UK, leading the Industrial Revolution, saved our forests not only by burning coal instead of wood but brought about our modern technologies and increased standard of living and life expectancy.

      At the same time, increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere from the historically very low level of 280 ppm to 400 ppm has meant improved plant growth and higher agricultural yields all over the world.

      Over the last 500 million years, since the start of the Cambrian explosion, CO2 has dropped from many times todayā€™s level. 9 times for the last 800,000 years, including at the last ice age which ended just 11,000 years ago, CO2 came down to as low as 180 ppm just 30 ppm above the 150 ppm level below which plants cannot survive.

    5. X-Tory
      November 7, 2022

      Here’s the proof that ‘climate change’ is just an anti-Western SCAM: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2022/11/07/cop-27-britain-opens-door-climate-change-reparations-poorer/

      The UK has agreed to pay ‘reparations’ for the CO2 we produced OVER 150 YEARS AGO!! We are going to pay some Ā£11.6 BILLION – and it is likely that at COP27 we will be asked to pay even more! This is complete madness. Even if one believes that excessive CO2 is a problem today, it certainly wasn’t back in the 19th century! The idea that the UK should [ay billions to the third world, while China – the greatest emitter of CO2 in the world – gets off scot-free tells you all you need to know about the anti-Western agenda of the climate change movement.

      But why has this Conservative government agreed to this insanity? And why haven’t ANY Tory MPs rebelled against this? These are NOT rhetorical questions!

  6. Lifelogic
    November 7, 2022

    A bit like calling the thousands of illegal migrants arriving in Kent every week the “small boat problem”.

    1. Mickey Taking
      November 7, 2022

      small boats, big problem.

  7. Peter van LEEUWEN
    November 7, 2022

    Iā€™m with Mark Carney, who must be an eminent expert as he has even been a long time president of the Bank of England, of one of the largest economies in the world.
    But Brexit damage is only a (small?) part of the problems. Almost the whole world (the ā€œelitesā€ or the ā€œexpertsā€) blame a number of factors, including the mini budget adventure.
    But please take heart, the Netherlands inflation is higher than the UK inflation. But we still hold our president of the Dutch National Bank and the president of the ECB in high esteem. It will all pass.

    1. Sharon
      November 7, 2022

      The Netherlandsā€¦ look whatā€™s going on there! 600 farmers have been told to cull all their cattle (climate change) and are being threatened with compulsory purchase of said farms. The farmers are out protesting daily in their tractors. That government has taken the step towards, ā€˜youā€™ll own nothing, and be happy!ā€™

      GB News was reporting ( I think Jasmine Mirkle said it, but I may be mistaken) that a couple of banks want to be the house owners of the future. If you default on mortgage payments, theyā€™ll repossess/buy the house from you, and then you can rent it from them.

      1. Mark B
        November 7, 2022

        Sharon

        The Dutch government is fretting over so called climate change due to some 600 cows. They should Google the number of cows in India. After that, if they are serious about saving the planet, they could always demand that the Indian government cull them.

        And good luck to that I say šŸ˜‰

      2. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ Sharon : after 600 fewer farms (<1% decrease), and these are only those farms which most destroy nature with nitrogen, the Netherlands will still be a huge exporter of agri-products. Protests are part of a democratic society.

    2. Sir Joe Soap
      November 7, 2022

      Well it might pass for public servants with index linked salaries and pensions. It doesn’t pass quite so easily with savers who still have an old-fashioned regard for their currency, worked hard all their lives and now holding it on deposit to pay for their old age. 1% EVERY month of their lifelong efforts lost permanently and now squandered by socialists. I agree that we voted to have control of our money here and we ended up with dolts who squandered it. This includes Carney who kept rates too low for too long.

    3. Richard1
      November 7, 2022

      Sorry but the points you make in your post indicate that you are not with mr carney on this? It seems mr carney is wrong in his view if you look at the evidence.

    4. rose
      November 7, 2022

      Peter, Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Prime Minister of one of the largest economies in the world. He was the worst eminent expert, together with his partner in crime, Tony Blair, that we have ever had, and there is quite some competition.

      Your inflation may pass, but how will you get back your farm land?

      1. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ Rose:
        “Your inflation may pass, but how will you get back your farm land?”
        You should say instead: How do we prevent more nature being destroyed by over-production of nitrogen by some farms. If these farms were transformed into biological (ecological) ones, they could still continue. (over 100 million farm animals for 18 million citizens is a bit overdone, don’t you think?)

        1. rose
          November 7, 2022

          Peter, we have seen what the result of this approach has been in Sri Lanka, which is why I was pleased Miss Truss appointed a British Sri Lankan to be our Secretary of State for the Environment (sacked by Mr Sunak, though). Your 100 million farm animals are not just for the Dutch but for their many foreign customers. What will they do for food when it is all reduced down to wherever it is going? And when other food exporting countries are compelled to follow suit? The world population is not diminishing. This thoughtless reduction of food is just like the thoughtless reduction of energy – a disaster in the making, a humanitarian catastrophe.

          1. Peter van LEEUWEN
            November 9, 2022

            @rose : Please realise what a smal and (too) densily populated country the Netherlands is, that ‘s why it now has to reform its agriculture.

        2. Peter2
          November 8, 2022

          Destroying a profitable industry and with it the livelihoods of good people.
          What’s the next industry the lunatics will legislate away?
          Maybe the one you earn your living in?
          PS
          nitrogen is a fertiliser

          1. Peter van LEEUWEN
            November 8, 2022

            @ Peter2:
            “nitrogen is a fertiliser”
            Yes, and CO2 is food for trees.
            Oxygen can be beneficial and destructive.
            After googling “Nitrogen crisis Netherlands” you can find some scientific articles on the issues.

          2. Peter2
            November 8, 2022

            When you are so short of home produced food you then need to import from more sensible nations maybe you will look back at the destructive act you are embarked on and realise what a dreadful policy this is.

    5. Mickey Taking
      November 7, 2022

      an eminent expert? hilarious. The Canadian patsy, quietly doing what he’s told.
      Which brings me to the real point – who is pulling the strings – our PM with Cabinet support must make our policy clear and have the Bank steer away from these naive mistakes.

    6. IanT
      November 7, 2022

      I don’t know anything about Klaas Knot, so will take you word for it Peter but I’m afraid Ms Lagarde has never filled me with confidence. Lagarde by name, laggard by nature – although it is true she has an impossible balancing job to do. You say “it will pass” which is of course true but the question is what will be left afterwards.

      1. IanT
        November 7, 2022

        Well thank you Peter. I was curious, so Googled Mr Knot and found a very interesting article about the Dutch Central Bank (DCB). I’ll quote a bit for you, since (as you’ve mentioned) not many people over here know much about what’s really going on inside the EU.

        “Now the ECB is raising interest rates DNB has to pay banks more and more interest over their excess reserves. These expenditures cause DNB to suffer losses to the detriment of its capital position (equity). Note, all NCBs (National Clearing Banks) in the Eurosystem face similar challenges. For this year DNB expects a small loss but for the years 2023 through 2026 a loss of ā‚¬9 billion euros is expected. Though, it could be more. DNBā€™s equity is currently ā‚¬11.3 billion. If the losses exceed ā‚¬11.3 billion, DNBā€™s equity will become negative. Although itā€™s possible for a central bank to operate under negative equity, it does hurt credibilityā€”a central bankā€™s most valuable asset. And once credibility is lost people will dump the currency issued by said central bank. For this reason, Knot wants to discuss with the Dutch state (DNBā€™s sole shareholder) the possibilities of funding a recapitalization of DNB. In other words, if taxpayers can bail-out their central bank.”

        That sounds like the DCB could be technically insolvent. Very suprisingly (in a Dutch TV interview) Mr Knot has also stated that the DCB could use it’s Gold Revaluation Account (GRA) to offset their liabilities (!!). I wonder what Christine Lagarde thought of that little bombshell?

      2. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ IanT: Klaas Knot is a bit of a “hawk”. Managing the so diverse eurozone is not easy for Lagarde, but over the long term I believe that it will hold. If Putin causes inflation, he has also caused the Europeans sticking more together.

    7. graham1946
      November 7, 2022

      What won’t pass in the Netherlands, if you allow it to happen, is to cut farming in order to build houses for immigrants. We already do it here as well as having allowed useless windmills and solar panels on prime growing land, when we are short of food. Don’t do it – join your farming protesters. You have one of the best agriculture/horticulture systems in the world, yet your government propose to throw it away on an invented so called problem.

      1. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ graham1946: see may comment to Rose, above. I would rather join the climate protesters, only I’m not much of a protester by nature (and much too old by now).

    8. a-tracy
      November 7, 2022

      PVL, Your president is a Dutch National; he and his family live in Amsterdam. Carney’s Canadian and only has British/Irish citizenship thanks to his grandparents from County Mayo, Ireland. What long-term interest is it of him or his family after hot-footing it back to Ottowa for the UK to thrive? He was at the BoE for seven years; how much of the money we printed out of thin air was he responsible for? How many of his four children work and pay taxes in the UK that now have to pay for his decisions holding our savings interest rate down for so long and the national interest rate down so low for longer than it should have been held down?

      He is now vice chairman and head of Impact Investing at Brookfield Asset Management. Are they snapping up British companies? I wonder what they are investing in with his advice.

      It is quite alarming that the money market can control the UK tax position.

      1. NBill Brown
        November 8, 2022

        A tracy

        President of what country,?

        1. a-tracy
          November 9, 2022

          PVL wrote “But we still hold our president of the Dutch National Bank and the president of the ECB in high esteem.” my reply was to Peter, Bill.

    9. Original Richard
      November 7, 2022

      PvL : “Iā€™m with Mark Carney [Mr Carney blames Brexit for the current high inflation], who must be an eminent expert as he has even been a long time president of the Bank of England,……But please take heart, the Netherlands inflation is higher than the UK inflation.”

      So did Brexit also cause Netherland’s high rate of inflation too?

      1. Shirley M
        November 7, 2022

        Obviously! Brexit is the remainers Bete Noir for ALL the ills in the world. It rained today … Brexit caused it! (yes, an exaggeration but the undemocrats blame some weird, and very distant, events on Brexit) They hate it, and they hate democracy, and they hate the UK for voting as they did. Of course, they can (and are trying hard) destroy their own country out of spite, for what good it will do!

      2. Mickey Taking
        November 7, 2022

        well in answer, UK is probably buying fewer cut flowers, and rather fewer rashers of bacon – if that helps?

      3. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ Original Richard: Of course the Netherlands suffers some Brexit damage, caused by our ignorant friends accross the North Sea, but that is much less than the self damage caused in Britain. It is very stupid that you to have left the common market, it will cost you some 4% of GDP as is agreed by the countries outside Britain (where talking about Brexit is still a bit taboo, but not for much longer).

        1. a-tracy
          November 7, 2022

          Peter, did you read the information below supplied by Denis about GDP loss being more around 1%, the reason we were told we had to leave the Common market was because if we were in we wouldnā€™t be free to trade globally, we would be tied to trade quotas and the same deals done behind closed doors against our milk production, farming etc.

          2020 from March was lockdown, much of 2021 after the withdrawal agreement was over in January so that trade deals could be arranged was in and out of lockdown which much damage done the previous 18 months with businesses closed and travel restrictions right up to January 2022 by France for example. This latest sabotage by Sunak and Hunt is just amazing to watch. The MPs supporting them are beyond the pale.

        2. Original Richard
          November 7, 2022

          PvL :

          We were told quite clearly by the PM, the Chancellor, the BoE Governor [Mr. Carney], the CBI, the IMF, the POTUS, the Treasury, the Civil Service, the UN, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many others that voting for Brexit would mean falling GDP and house prices. We believed this.

          But the country still voted for Brexit because sovereignty, the ability to elect and remove those who decide upon our taxes and policies, was considered more important than GDP.

          But I don’t expect you to understand this.

          1. Peter van LEEUWEN
            November 8, 2022

            @Original Richard:
            The issue is not that you shouldn’t have left the EU, that’s fine with me.
            The issue is that you chose to do yourselves and other harm by (post referendum!) going for a hard Brexit, instead of staying in the common market.
            For fun, have a look at a youtube called:
            “An outer’s take on post-Brexit Britain”

    10. ChrisS
      November 7, 2022

      Hello Peter.
      Pleased to see you still commenting here.
      Why does the Netherlands even need a National Bank, given that you are in Euroland? It seems to be an unnecessary duplication, considering that interest rates are set in Brussels and your inflation rate is so high.

      To have any chance of solving the endemic problems of the Euro, you need to move to full fiscal integration but I wonder what your citizens, and those of Germany and Austria will think of having to continually send huge sums to the Clubmed countries over, rather than under, the table, as at present ?

      It’s rather like English taxpayers continuing to have to subsidise Scotland with no say in the matter………………..

      1. Mickey Taking
        November 7, 2022

        Barnett and Beeching – two disasters, but for quite different reasons.

      2. Peter van LEEUWEN
        November 7, 2022

        @ ChrisS: You’re not implying that you want to get rid of Scotland though, are you?
        The national bank presidents together form the ECB Board, which collectively decides on rates and measures.

        1. ChrisS
          November 8, 2022

          Hello Peter : As roughly half the Scots want independence and English taxpayers are forced to subsidise the basket-case that is the Scottish economy under the SNP, to the tune of Ā£20bn a year, I would allow a second referendum.

          If the Scots vote to leave, that would be fine by me. They can join the EU, adopt the Euro and be yet another country which the few net contributors to the EU budget will have to subsidise ( including your own. )

          However, should they choose to remain in the UK, I would grant Scotland full fiscal independence by ending the Barnett Formula. All money spent in Scotland would have to be raised in Scotland.

    11. John C.
      November 7, 2022

      PVL, Absurd. We are to show reverence to complete incompetents? I use to respect the Dutch for their technical ability and sturdy independence. But of late, they seem to have lost their marbles. Shame, really.

    12. Peter2
      November 7, 2022

      Do you believe every person who is above you Peter?
      Sounds a bit like peasants in the middle ages…high priests all bow down.
      Maybe look at track records and who pays them?

  8. Mary M.
    November 7, 2022

    Good to see your sensible comment in yesterday’s Facts4EU, Sir John.

    https://facts4eu.org/news/2022_nov_reasons_to_be_cheerful

    1. Shirley M
      November 7, 2022

      +1

    2. Lifelogic
      November 7, 2022

      +1.

      Pearls of wisdom but cast before swine.

    3. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      That is a very good article which should be widely circulated.

    4. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      And here is another good article which deserves to be widely circulated:

      https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/eu-membership-did-not-accelerate-economic-growth-in-the-uk/

      “EU membership did not accelerate economic growth in the UK”

      I would just add that the EU made a gift to Theresa May when they appointed Michel Barnier as their negotiator, but because she had no belief in Brexit, and acted more as an impartial mediator than our advocate, at no time did she point out that by his own 2012 report the EU Single Market was only worth about 2% of GDP averaged across the member states, and probably only half of that for the UK, before taking its high costs into account, and so we could easily have afforded to leave without any special trade deal, defaulting to WTO terms.

    5. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      And here is another excellent report from a few days ago:

      https://thecritic.co.uk/britain-is-better-off-outside-the-single-market/

      “Britain is better off outside the Single Market”

      Inter alia it gives details of the Bertelsmann report touched upon above:

      “All countries are reported to have gained in terms of GDP (except Greece), with German GDP estimated to be 2.3 per cent higher as a result of the SM adding ā‚¬680 to GDP per person. As for the UK, the SM is reported to have added 1 per cent to GDP or ā‚¬310 per person.”

      “If SM membership over 20 years only added 1.0 per cent to UK GDP, why would these economic forecasters predict lower GDP over the next 10ā€“15 years by 3ā€“4 per cent? I think I can explain.”

  9. Susan Morgan
    November 7, 2022

    Our country would be in a far better place if your comments were listened to! Excellent intelligent strategies!

    1. Sharon
      November 7, 2022

      +1

    2. Cuibono
      November 7, 2022

      +1
      ā€œTheyā€ donā€™t want anything that actually works though.
      We all know that JR could run the BoE AND the country standing on his head.
      And it would be a far better place than it is now!

  10. Michelle
    November 7, 2022

    Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving to those in the remain camp be they in the political/media field or the general public who wanted to remain because it suited them personally.
    They’ve been at it in my town over the course of a few weekends with their campaign to rejoin.
    Always the same type.
    Middle class, either retired (I won’t be rude and call them gammon’s which is one of the gentler expressions used against the older generation who voted to leave) or young upwardly mobile professional, semi-professional who like as not can flit off anywhere else to work that takes their fancy.
    For many other’s life isn’t that simple.
    There seemed to be no care for all those people who lost their jobs when Blair signed us up to freedom of movement.
    All jumped on the media/politicians bandwagon of saying the locals wouldn’t do the jobs and were lazy.
    This is completely untrue and I could give many examples of people losing their jobs and E.European being used to do a lot more, for a lot less outlay and then we have lectures on ‘modern day slavery’ . Absolutely laughable. I could never see where that stacked up financially either, two on the dole for one on low wage who will need benefits to top up!!
    However, I’d like to watch them spout this argument in person in areas of E.Anglia where many did lose jobs because of cheap imported labour and really do not like being told it’s because they were lazy.
    One of the most vociferous on this is a sister-in-law of mine, who herself is half Polish.

  11. Roy Grainger
    November 7, 2022

    One puzzling thing is why austerity-enthusiast and failed politician George Osborne is suddenly all over our screens and newspapers at the moment – he’s been to see Hunt apparently, that’s nice. It’s a minor version of the John Major thing where he’s now hailed as a wise elder statesman whose views count for something rather than a failed ideologue who in Major’s case put interest rates up from 10% to 15% in a single day in a failed attempt to keep the EU happy. It’s not as if Osborne hasn’t got other things to do – it seems he’s also chairman of the British Museum despite having no relevant qualifications that I can see. I suppose being on the “right” side of Brexit gets these establishment types rewards.

  12. Berkshire Alan
    November 7, 2022

    I see the xxx Ed Miliband is now calling for us to pay so called reparations of Ā£billions to foreign Countries for weather damage, under the guise of Climate change, of which we are a very little player, 2% of total world wide emissions, if even it were true.
    Pray tell me where does he think the money will come from ?
    Are the other 98% going to pay us for our coastal erosion problems ?
    What is it with Politicians who always seen to want us Taxpayers, to pay and solve the Worlds problems !

  13. Sakara Gold
    November 7, 2022

    Our learned host attempts to blame the highest inflation this country has experienced since Thatcher banged it up to 27% in 1981 on the BoE. Printing fiat money inevitably causes hyperinflation. Having printed more money than any Chancellor in history, Sunak/Hunt are now going to push the UK into the mother of all debt-driven depressions – with tax rises and spending cuts.

    Those who hold hard assets will preserve their wealth. Those without will be living in cardboard boxes and eating from food banks. Inflation is a very effective way for government to steal the nation’s savings

  14. Donna
    November 7, 2022

    Carney and the other Globalist Remainers predicted that if we even VOTED for Brexit it would damage the economy. But it didn’t.

    Then they predicted that if we dared carry out a “hard Brexit” and leave the Single Market/Customs Union, the economy would tank. But it didn’t.

    Since it didn’t happen as they predicted, they are now deliberately wrecking it.

    We already knew the “What, Who, Where and When” which tried to overturn the Referendum. They have recently applied the HOW (preventing Johnson from delivering any gains from Brexit; then getting rid of him and, having failed to get Sunak first time around, deliberately destabilising the Markets to get rid of Truss and Kwarteng).

    We will shortly find out the “Why.”

    I think it is linked to Macron’s recent creation of the European Political Community. They now want a two-tier European Union: those in the EU/Eurozone and an outer tier of peripheral countries which will be closely aligned and effectively controlled by it. Which, strangely enough, is pretty much what Cameron wanted.

  15. Narrow Shoulders
    November 7, 2022

    We can’t deny that leaving the EU has (rightly) put upward pressure on some wages and so has contributed a small amount to inflation. We can also argue that not seeking out cheaper alternatives to the EU supplies has caused shortages and pushed up other prices (my local Sainsburys and Tesco seem to take delight in being out of stock of fruit and vegetables with many other spaces on the shelves, it is almost as they are saving cashflow and making profit from being out of stock).

    However for Mr Mark hindsight Carney to argue that leaving the EU is THE cause of our current levels of inflation makes him seem as obsessed on his chosen subject as one Lifelogic of this parish. Shame so many people want him to be right that he is able to maintain credibility.

  16. Clough
    November 7, 2022

    The BoE is under the control of globalists who follow their own agenda, not that of the country where they happen to be working. This is surely why the ECB, the Fed and the BoE all followed the same policy, as SJR points out. It may be that in countries with lower inflation rates, the government retains more control over the national bank. In Japan the national bank is 55% owned by the government, for example, and with 100% voting rights. I’m not an economist, but I wonder if this is a significant factor.

    Reply Yes in China and Japan government has more policy control. B of E is 100% owned by the state

  17. Richard1
    November 7, 2022

    It may well be right that project fear, trumpeted by mr carney and others, has turned out to be false. But it has to be admitted that there isnā€™t much to show for Brexit. Boris and subsequently Truss blew their chance. We have rolled over the EU trade deals (contrary to what project fear said would happen), but the improvements in the UKā€™s overall trade deal position have been minuscule. Every time we hear discussion of trade deals with eg the US or India, it is Brexit-supporting Conservatives who are loudest in their protectionist objections! We have of course seen no transformation of the U.K. economy to Singapore or even Switzerland on Thames. We remain a high tax, high reg, sclerotic EU-style economy. This being the case it is reasonable to ask whether it was worth it, given the undoubted downsides of inconvenience for travel to and business with the EU, and the deterioration of relations with countries like France and Ireland.

    If as seems to be the case, there is no appetite in the Conservative Party for real free trade and divergence from the EU model, the best option now would be a Switzerland (preferably) or Norway style arrangement with the EU, and resolve all the outstanding disputes. Brexit supporting Conservatives need to bear in mind that the likely Labour govt will reverse Brexit in all but name, and if they get 2 terms probably in name as well.

  18. Lisa
    November 7, 2022

    The present inflation is entirely the work of this government and it’s unforgiveable policies during the covid scam. It has squandered billions for no reason and has continued to print money like it is going out of fashion. Bankers are certainly guilty Mr Redwood but the bulk of the blame lies at the feet of this government.

  19. Sea_Warrior
    November 7, 2022

    ‘Nor [HMT] should it be slashing productive capital investment …’ I no longer have any confidence that this government knows what ‘productive capital investment’ is.

  20. Ian B
    November 7, 2022

    From the Daily Telegraph yesterday, ā€œBank of England risks a repeat of mini-Budget bond markets chaos, warn City tradersā€ What no Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss to blame?

    The Fed has incurred a paper loss of $1 trillion (Ā£880bn) this year on its $8.7 trillion balance sheet of US Treasuries and mortgage debt. What no Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss to blame?

    ā€œLiability-driven investment (LDI) funds scrambled to meet huge cash calls to shore up their hedges following the surge in gilt yields.ā€ The FCA knew the problem years ago, did nothing then and now the person that didnā€™t act then, is hiding the fact on a not me ticket. Liz & Kwasi werenā€™t around when the warnings were flagged and they got the blame!

    Central Banks working in unison! Means competing Countries themselves becoming the manipulators of markets to gain a home advantage. Anywhere else that is an illegal Cartel.

    How about someone in the UK Establishment actually working on behalf of the Country ā€“ Government, Bank of England all need to focus on creating a UK economy so we can afford their dire mistakes.

  21. Ian B
    November 7, 2022

    ā€œThe UK economy has been let down by the Bank of England, not by Brexitā€
    The obvious one here is the UK Government, its master in the World Economic Forum and Civil Service Establishment are still fighting and succeeding for the UK to remain under Yoke of the un-elected un-accountable Overlords in the EU Commission.

    Ask why are the EU Commissions representatives in the UK this week interviewing MPā€™s and Lords(?why them) this week to ensure the UK is still deploying and complying with EU Laws, Rules and Regulations? If Brexit had happened they would play no further part in the running of a free sovereign Democracy

    ā€˜Get Brexit Doneā€™ said to get elected then ignored.

  22. Tony Hart
    November 7, 2022

    The objective for the BOE interest rate should be to suppress borrowing, not inflation. There must be a minimum rate of 2%, which would increase if borrowing increases. All previous recessions/depressions have been caused by too much borrowing. Please recommend to the PM and Chancellor.

  23. Bloke
    November 7, 2022

    Mark Carney is a disgruntled ex-employee with opinions as worthless as his failed actions in office.

  24. agricola
    November 7, 2022

    The BOE, The Treasury, and Westminster Commons and Lords have been complicit in the mismanagement of the economy. As they are mostly left of centre anti Brexit they have clutched at Brexit to cover their incompetence. The current government has ten days to prove otherwise.

  25. Keith from Leeds
    November 7, 2022

    Agree with your comments about the BOE & their policy with Sunak as Chancellor equally to blame for the last three years. Yesterday it was reported that our new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, pays Ā£110 for a haircut. That tells you the man has no common sense & is going to be useless as a Chancellor, how do you think hard up voters will feel about it?
    Our new PM has banned Fracking & wants to be a world leader in green energy, is obviously committed to Net Zero, has gone to COP27 when he said he would not. Already a weak leader who will drift with the tide, blown around by the media storm & will follow the Treasury line because he has not got an original thought in his head. Small Government, low tax, forget it, this lot are big Government & high taxes!

    1. Mickey Taking
      November 7, 2022

      with Hunt as Chancellor we are all ‘going to take a hair cut’ !!

      1. glen cullen
        November 7, 2022

        Short back nā€™ sides

  26. Denis Cooper
    November 7, 2022

    JR, you write:

    “Now the Bank of England repents and threatens to overdo its tightening after being far too loose for too long, the Treasury needs to offset undue severity by the Bank.”

    A better, or at least complementary, alternative would be for the Treasury to deter the Bank from overdoing it.

    It would only need a fresh remit letter from the Chancellor to the Governor to suspend the usual 2% inflation target and so induce the MPC to moderate the increases in base rate.

    The remit letters are here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/monetary-policy-remit

    “The Bank of England Act 1998 requires the Treasury to specify at least once every 12 months how price stability should be defined and what the economic policy of the government consists of.

    This is the monetary policy remit, which the Chancellor specifies in a letter to the Governor of the Bank of England.”

    But I find the most recent was dated October 27 2021:

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1028597/CX_LETTER_TO_GOVENOR_MPC_REMIT_271021.pdf

    and in it Rishi Sunak wrote:

    “I hereby re-confirm the inflation target as 2 per cent as measured by the 12-month increase in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). The inflation target of 2 per cent is symmetric and applies at all times. This reflects the primacy of price stability and the forward-looking inflation target in the UK monetary policy framework.”

    So at what point would Rishi Sunak tell the present Chancellor that he should send a new remit letter, to prevent the Bank taking a destructively hard line in its futile attempts to meet that 2% inflation target?

    In fact as it is now November 7 is not this year’s remit letter overdue, according the Bank of England Act?

    1. acorn
      November 7, 2022

      Denis, I suspect you don’t have the first idea of how the DMO Remit works and what causes it to be changed. Have a look at the latest remit at https://www.dmo.gov.uk/responsibilities/financing-remit/full-details/ following the KamiKwasi budget. Keep in mind that the DMO’s activity has no connection to funding the government’s spending, it is purely risk free savings that pays interest for pension and insurance funds. The National Loans Fund (the magic money tree) covers the government’s cumulative budget deficits.

      1. a-tracy
        November 7, 2022

        DMO – The UK Debt Management Office is the executive agency responsible for debt and cash management for the UK Government, lending to local authorities and managing certain public sector funds.

        Do you feel they are a successful agency acorn?

        1. acorn
          November 8, 2022

          The DMO is successful at what it does. The trouble is what it does is unnecessary. The NS&I could do the job much cheaper with non-tradable products. Pension funds would then not get caught out, buying Gilts on margins they couldn’t cover, when the KamiKwasi grenade went off.

          1. a-tracy
            November 8, 2022

            acorn, if they loan the money to a local authority and that investment fails, such as these solar farms they all started investing in, or failing new shopping complexes that closed down the rest of that town, shops that had been trading in families for over 100 years, does anyone hold the DMO and their management responsible?

            I agree with you about investing in none tradable products, but not if those products are high-risk big projects; that they wouldn’t be willing to put their own personal public pension funds into to have their own skin in the game! I always wonder that about the Unions why don’t they buy and run the railways? They have big pension pots to invest.

            I really do try to understand this ‘buying gilts on the margin’. Can you help me to understand it please? So these pension funds are the public sector type from local councils and public sector ones with funds; they buy paper loans (who from the BoE?) called gilts on a set % return for giving (the BoE? Mortgage lenders? Business lenders) loans or creating that money to print out paper money or put digital money into the system? Why would Kwasi offering a tax cut to the highest earners in April 2023 and 1p off income tax (that Rishi had already said would be offered) affect this?

      2. Denis Cooper
        November 8, 2022

        This is about the MPC remit, not the DMO remit.

        1. acorn
          November 8, 2022

          Don’t worry about the MPC remit, only a couple of lines in it ever change and then only to simply confirm some action the MPC has already taken. Two regular paragraphs are:-

          “I hereby re-confirm the inflation target as 2 per cent as measured by the 12-month increase in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). The inflation target of 2 per cent is symmetric and applies at all times. This reflects the primacy of price stability and the forward-looking inflation target in the UK monetary policy framework. In accordance with the Act,

          I also confirm that the governmentā€™s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families.”
          https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/monetary-policy-remit

  27. Ray
    November 7, 2022

    How the truth hurts

  28. Nottingham Lad Himself
    November 7, 2022

    Sir John makes a Straw Man, attributing a False Dichotomy to Carney’s comments.

    He did not blame brexit exclusively at all. He simply and perfectly reasonably said that it was hard to see how one negative influence could do anything but to worsen the effects of others.

    That is quite a different matter, but typical of what we have come to expect here.

    1. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      Wrong. It seems that in the end even the Times felt it had to pull him up, maybe after my complaint:

      http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/10/26/rishi-must-set-out-his-low-tax-vision-to-get-our-party-members-on-side/#comment-1350602

      “As a “newspaper of record” the Times should publish a correction; even better, if this government believes in Brexit it should actively correct such grossly misleading propaganda on a routine day to day basis.”

      Anyway this appeared the following week, by David Wighton, former business editor:

      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-listen-to-the-alarmist-claims-about-brexit-and-the-economy-58mvjdhsx

      “Donā€™t listen to the alarmist claims about Brexit and the economy”

      ā€˜ā€˜ Brexit has had a catastrophic impact on the British economy, to judge by recent comments from Mark Carney. In an interview with the Financial Times, the former governor of the Bank of England said that ā€œin 2016 the British economy was 90 per cent the size of Germanyā€™s. Now it is less than 70 per cent.ā€

      Wow. A 20-percentage-point decline in six years. That really looks terrible. Unsurprisingly, this has been widely requoted around the world as a measure of the damage caused by Brexit.”

      “Hard stuff, indeed. But fair? Er … no. Carneyā€™s comment was very misleading. The fall in the relative value of the UK economy he cites is due to currency movements, not the underlying performance. Despite the impact of Brexit, which some economists estimate has knocked at least 4 per cent off the UKā€™s GDP, it has still grown faster than Germanyā€™s since 2016, as Carney must know.

      Exchange rates are important, of course. But, to state the obvious, they go up and down. On the same basis, the value of the Japanese economy has fallen by a fifth compared with the United States in the past year. The pound was very strong at the start of 2016 and fell after the Brexit referendum. If Carney had gone back to 2013, when the effective sterling exchange rate was similar to todayā€™s, the decline in the relative size of the UK economy, even on his measure, disappears. But many people who read Carneyā€™s comment wouldnā€™t realise that. They would assume he meant that the UK was somehow producing 20 percentage points less relative to Germany. That was clearly how it was interpreted by some anti-Brexit commentators.”

      And even that corrective article itself contains several errors …

    2. Peter2
      November 7, 2022

      Well why keep posting here NHL?

      1. NBill Brown
        November 7, 2022

        Peter 2

        What is wrong with making clear what Carney actually said?

        1. a-tracy
          November 7, 2022

          But NBill Denis has explained that a correction in the Times was printed?

        2. Peter2
          November 8, 2022

          So eubilly you obviously agree with what Denis has said just above?

  29. am
    November 7, 2022

    Carney is now employed by the WEF but he always, even when governor of the BOE, played their tune.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      November 7, 2022

      I always think of Carney and Bercow as two sides of the same fake coin.

  30. Ed M
    November 7, 2022

    Brexit is a bit like a dysfunctional family where everyone is blaming the other instead of trying to change themselves!

    Brexit can be either a blessing or a curse. A blessing if we use it to build a sense of patriotism / national good will. But a curse if we just keep arguing with each other, secretly resenting each other.

    At end of day, can’t we all agree that Sovereignty is a great thing instead of losing sovereignty to bureaucrats in a foreign country? But at the same time, can’t we all agree that you need proper leadership, a plan and money to extricate oneself from something as complicated as the EU?

    This is what we have to focus on. Not blaming others. Not finger-wagging.

    1. Shirley M
      November 7, 2022

      Ed: I’d like to think it could happen, but it is impossible unless the losers accept democracy and the majority decision instead of damaging and sabotaging the country at every opportunity. By hurting us, they also hurt themselves, but find that preferable for some odd reason …. or they are on the EU payroll in some way and the damage to the UK is offset for them personally.

      1. Ed M
        November 8, 2022

        I’m trying to look at the big picture

        1. Brexit CAN work beautifully!
        2. We need to first start building bridges and trust inside the UK between Brexiters and Remainers. To try and persuade Remainers of a positive vision of a Sovereign UK country. There’s no point trying to browbeat them into agreement. At end of day, a healthy, sovereign nation depends on good will not judgement or fear. That’s something we can all do. Finding a strong leader, plan and the money to pay for Brexit is more difficult (but possible).
        3. We also need to start building bridges with Europe. NOT to return to the single market. But see how we can have as close relations to them as possible in terms of trade, culture and security. This is directly good for us. But also because we want a strong, safe, secure, prosperous Europe around us for geo-political reasons.
        4. We also need to start making the case with fellow Europeans why the EU / Single Market can’t work in the long-term. Unless of course the world is heading down the road of total globalisation / harmonisation but even here this could potentially kick up some huge, deadly existential problems for the future, as countries feel suffocated by being swallowed up by others and where there is a lack of a national and people have self-indignity / purpose etc (that’s getting a bit overly politically philosophical this time of the morning – but something like that ..).

    2. Mark B
      November 7, 2022

      People forget that it was only 28 countries that were members before we decided to leave, and most of those 28 were net recipients of funds paid by Germany, the UK, France and the Netherlands. The rest, like Greece, finacial basket cases.

      Just 28, now 27 countries in the EU compared to how many outside ?

      1. Ed M
        November 8, 2022

        I share your frustration. I am genuinely on your side! I genuinely think the best is for the UK to be a sovereign nation. It’s a question of getting there – and in the best way possible.

        At end of day, if we’re going to get there, we’ve got to somehow figure out how to stop all this dysfunctional, Christmas-family time arguing. Just going round and round in circles, achieving nothing but increased frustration – and groups of people feeling more and more isolated towards each other and resentful.

        I want to love my country (and a sovereign one!) and its people. Not be angry and resentful like a dysfunctional, arguing family at Christmas! Let’s instead try to be the functional, having-a-laugh family together on the beach in Bali or wherever …

  31. Bryan Harris
    November 7, 2022

    When incompetence and mismanagement go hand in glove with economic distortions and socialist dogma, we get what we have today – a deliberately created financial and social cesspit.

    We need to get away from the vague idea that somehow this all just happened by some fluke of nature and nobody was really responsible for manipulating it. As the issues get deeper and more painful, it becomes all the more clearer that there were, and still are, guiding hands, taking us down.

    With little in the way of national sovereignty left, our institutions seem to be as powerless as we are in resisting our destruction.

  32. Bert Young
    November 7, 2022

    The BofE should not be “Independent” from our politico-economic system . The same is true of other countries and their Banks . Wars and other factors do influence how money is spent and how economies result ; but Banks alone should not be left to determine what the solution rates are. What is in a country’s vault is a much more important factor and how it measures up to that in others .

  33. Robert Miller
    November 7, 2022

    Exactly – the big mistake was to allow the money supply to expand so much during the COVID crisis. And since monetary growth has now fallen back it makes no sense to squeeze further.

    Further we need a Bank of England that believes in the essential truth of the quantity theory of money.

    1. acorn
      November 8, 2022

      RM. The quantity theory of money (Milton Friedman monetarism), assumes that velocity of circulation of that money is constant M = P*Q. Since universally proved to be false. M*V = P*Q is the correct version of the identity.

      The UK money quantities M1 and M2, currently have the lowest velocity of circulation seen for decades M1V = 0.87 and M2V = 0.70. That means that one Sterling currency unit, takes part in a transaction once every 14 to 17 months. The non-government sector is saving not spending; and now, the government sector wants to save and not spend. The perfect recipe for a recession.

  34. graham1946
    November 7, 2022

    How can you raise taxes in the face of a recession, which I believe we are already firmly in as I said a week or two ago? Presumably they want to make things worse. Who was responsible for what we now face anyway?. The fact is that the Tories have been in power for 12 years and we are worse off than ever. They were taken in by the Liberals during the coalition with the climate scam and not allowed to build power stations. It was said by Clegg that Nuclear would not come on stream until 2022. How we wish that were so now. Labour had the same opportunity in the nineties and early this century. Then of course who was Chancellor during recent years? – one Rishi Sunak who is now promoted via the back door against all democratic principles. The future is Bleak if we have to rely on a failed Health Minister and failed Chancellor backed up by seat warmers in the HoC with no discernable talent but issuing hot air.

    1. Mark B
      November 7, 2022

      Employment is quite high and there is still demand in the system. They believe that these factors are what are driving inflation and they need to combat it. Trouble is, if they go too hard to fast we could end up with a depression and stagflation.

      1. graham1946
        November 8, 2022

        Yes. employment is quite high and wages are quite low, which is why we can’t take any more. They have yet to recover to 2008 levels. I was at the shops again yesterday and it was quiet. Depression will inevitably come if they take much more out of the system. You would expect demand in the system a month before Christmas and no doubt credit cards are taking a bashing. Wait to see what January/February brings. They’ve done more than enough. It will right itself as demand falls and I can see that with my own eyes each time I go to the shops. It’s amateur hour again and we are going to be hammered by two people who know practically nothing or we would not be in the situation we are.

  35. NBill Brown
    November 7, 2022

    Sir JR
    Interesting working hypothesis.
    There is Brexit, energy prices, war in Ukraine, mini budget and low British productivity and then the BoE.
    Blaming only one of these for our high inflation is obviously wrong.
    The question is how much each factor has
    contributed ?

    1. Peter2
      November 7, 2022

      Does Sir John only ever blame one entity for our current difficulties eubill?
      Seems you don’t come on here and read every day

      1. NBill Brown
        November 7, 2022

        Peter 2

        Do you have the answer to the raised question?
        You are right I don’t have time to read all from Sir JR.

        1. Peter2
          November 8, 2022

          You said Sir John blames only one thing eubilly
          A completely false statement.
          You should post an apology.

          1. NBill Brown
            November 8, 2022

            Peter 2

            I was referring to the heading. Issuing apologies that should have come from you to Hefner and others a long time ago

          2. Peter2
            November 9, 2022

            You therefore reveal that you never read the whole article nor many previous articles.
            Hilarious.

  36. Pat
    November 7, 2022

    Good morning

    Energy cost is a critical factor of the UK economy and this blog has advocated UK-produced natural gas as the most economical and least carbon intensive fuel in transition to NZ.

    The left repeatedly insist that renewables are currently cheaper than fossil fuels and claim that wind generated power is nine times cheaper than gas. These claims are uncritically parrotted by the national press. Other sources point out that these claims are very suspect based on the current high natural gas prices compared to renewables CFD bid prices of Ā£40/MWH, which are not a contacted sale price, but a floor price for the supply contract qualification. There is also the added complication of the government carbon credits scheme.

    Sir John, do you know of a reliable unbiased source to compare energy prices? This needs to be aired as our present and past prime ministers make energy commitments to Cop 27 as we speak.

    1. ChrisS
      November 8, 2022

      Sorry Pat, but the inconvenient truth is that all renewable energy sources, other than hydro-electric power and non-existent tidal systems, need 100% back up for when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. Of course, that is often the case in the depths of winter when demand is highest.

      To illustrate the size of this problem, in winter, my own perfectly-aligned Solar array produces 10% of the output it produces in summer.

      The backup has to be expensive additional stations operated by nuclear, gas or oil.

  37. Iain Gill
    November 7, 2022

    deary me both Boris and Rishi spouting scientifically illiterate nonsense in Egypt, our political class really have lost the plot.

    they really should shut up for a bit and listen to people with half a clue.

    1. glen cullen
      November 7, 2022

      Iā€™m quite ashamed of our leadership

    2. Mark B
      November 7, 2022

      When do we get to see one of them blowing up a Pyramid ? I eman, think of all that CO2 all those slaves produced building them ?

      /sarc

    3. Mickey Taking
      November 7, 2022

      true but where to look?

  38. Lynn Atkinson
    November 7, 2022

    Ah but inflation was under 2% when the war in Ukraine started – 2014.
    The Bank has overdone it and the market is afraid of a resession. So the Ā£ has dropped.
    Will the Bank apply the same logic as it did to the proposed Truss budget and repent – resign – reverse policy?

  39. a-tracy
    November 7, 2022

    From Todays Guardian re Hunt: “Early drafts of the statement contain plans for up to Ā£35bn of spending cuts and up to Ā£25bn of tax rises, which are likely to include freezing income tax thresholds and targeting dividend tax relief.”

    Who is briefing this?

    “A Whitehall source said the figures remained estimates and subject to change but that Hunt, the chancellor, told an all-staff meeting he was looking for measures totalling at least Ā£50bn-60 bn. The scale of the measures has been made greater by the Bank of Englandā€™s dire forecasts last week when it predicted that higher interest rates would push the economy into the longest recession since the 1930s.”

    So what is the deadline Hunt has taken his instruction to get this let’s say Ā£55bn by? Has he got to do it in a year? Wanting to hit dividends doesn’t exactly inspire the go-getters to go and get more might as well be a slow year and hunker down. How come you never hear someone like Hunt say how he’s going to make money, attract people to buy more British goods, help British companies export more, and help British-owned companies to grow productively?

  40. Pauline Baxter
    November 7, 2022

    Sir John. I am sure that you are a committed ‘Brexiteer’. Also, I believe you want the present Home Secretary to succeed in stopping the invasion of illegal immigrants.
    So – please read the book by Gerard Batten titled ‘Road to Freedom’.
    As I remember it he argued that the best way to get out of the E.U. was to repeal the Act that Heath put through Parliament, taking us in to the E.E.C (Common Market). He believed that doing that would instantly abolish all the legislation forced onto us since.
    He also suggested that it was against our age old Constitution for that Act ever to have gone through.
    Is it possible even now, to repeal that Act?
    It seems to me that doing so would immediately solve many of the problems that have been caused by attempting Brexit by a different route. (Northern Ireland, Fishing Grounds, Immigration, for example.)

    1. Denis Cooper
      November 7, 2022

      https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/68/contents

      “European Communities Act 1972 (repealed)”

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      November 7, 2022

      I think Batten should red a few of JRā€™s books!

    3. bill brown
      November 7, 2022

      Pauline

      Interesting, but as usual not a very realistic solution to a problem which is not that easy to solve.
      We still have to be able to trade with the rest of Europe

  41. agricola
    November 7, 2022

    If you wish to take a stab at the latest
    disparity between the US Dollar and Yen, Euro, Sterling then take a look at energy.
    Petrol USA per litre ā‚¬1.06 Ā£0.913
    Same petrol at UK Tesco Ā£1.64 and in Spain ā‚¬1.75

    Fuel Duty UK is Ā£0.5795 per litre plus VAT at 20% on product price plus duty. Give or take a bit there is the difference between the USA and UK. Both countries have their own sources of fuel. The UK chooses politically not to use it prefering to leave us vulnerable to World events. The same head in sand, thumb in bum, mind out of gear applies to gas. We have it but choose not to use it. Where else do you need to look to sort out the cost of living, perhaps government, whose profligate spending needs drastic surgery. With my money and everyone elses
    Westminster is out of control.

    1. Mark B
      November 7, 2022

      The U.S. under President Biden is chronically short of diesel and has been selling its oil reserves to China of all countries, whilst demonising fracking and putting off investors. It also cancelled an ol deal with Canada. Their fuel prices, although lower than ours, have risen far higher.

      In less than a weeks time the American people will be asked to give their verdict on this administration. Whilst it is still too close to call, it does not look good for the democrats and the President.

      And don’t mention the word, ‘impeachment’ šŸ˜‰

  42. Ian B
    November 7, 2022

    A little collection of plagiarised snapshots from the MsM today

    ā€˜The Bank, it seems, can never be wrong. Indeed, its own projections ā€” based on financial market expectations of future policy rates ā€” mostly confirm as much ā€˜

    ā€˜In its November 2022 Monetary Policy Report, the Bank forecast an inflation rate two years from now of only 1.4 per cent before heading to 0.0 per cent at the end of 2025. ā€˜

    ā€˜Britain opens the door to climate change reparations for poorer nations. Noā€‰10 could be forced to pay out aid cash to countries hit by global warming disasters.ā€˜

    All right, most of this ā€˜click baitā€™ but occasionally it gains traction as we have a Government that goes out of its way to be compliant and appease our Competitor Nations. The reality is other Nations see this weakness and a chance to put the UK down. Countries are just Businesses that compete, they are not all daft. What we donā€™t have is a Government, its Civil Service and the BoE that will be just as combative in supporting and defending the UK. The majority of MPā€™s(Our host being one of the few exceptions) in the HoC are what is now termed careerist and nowadays wont even stand up for their constituents those that are paying their wages.

  43. a-tracy
    November 7, 2022

    I canā€™t believe what Iā€™m reading this lunch time ā€˜Rishi Sunak last night paved the way for Britain to pay reparations to countries most impacted by climate changeā€™ and Ed Miliband ā€˜demands Britain makes ‘climate reparations’ to countries like Pakistanā€™.

    These two men would rather see pensioners freeze this winter and children go without breakfast. Ā£65 million to go out of the UK who gave him permission to do that, not the electorate that is for sure. He and his wifeā€™s family could make a personal donation of Ā£65m if he wants to be so grandiose. The Milibands arenā€™t short of a bob or two either. He wasnā€™t going last week now heā€™s going with our cheque book out. Does he realise that stopping the government from spending this month is freezing up our whole system, no doubt theyā€™ll all try to blame it on Liz Truss – we donā€™t believe you, we SEE you.

  44. Paul
    November 7, 2022

    EU inflation is higher, 10.7% vs 10.2%

  45. glen cullen
    November 7, 2022

    UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says ā€˜ā€™Where on the highway to climate hellā€™ā€™ ā€¦has he not looked out of the window ā€“ nothing has changed

    1. Mark B
      November 7, 2022

      glen

      Do you ever get the feeling that all this Climate malarky is just a global tax on the richer countries to the poorer ones ? ie Socialist wealth transfer.

      Just a thought.

  46. Iain Gill
    November 7, 2022

    All I see is politicians promising to give away more money to other countries, and burden us with impossible fake green costs. Money that will just get added onto our ever expanding national debt. And at the same time they want to increase tax, and cut spending, to supposedly reduce the amount we need to borrow.

    You couldnt make this stuff up.

    How clueless could our political class possibly get?

  47. Christine
    November 7, 2022

    UK announces major new package of climate support at COP27.

    GOV.UK reports:The UK continues deliver on our key funding commitments, spending Ā£11.6 billion on international climate finance

    Other Government news: We need to find Ā£60 billion to plug the UKs financial black hole which will mean unpalatable tax rises and spending cuts.

    Will the markets react to this blatant misuse of UK taxpayers money? I doubt it.

    This Conservative party is truly disgusting and needs wiping out. How you Sir John can remain a member when so many British people are suffering baffles me.

    1. The Prangwizard
      November 8, 2022

      Sir John may have some sensible views but claims he can change the party only from within, and thus he will stay no matter how insane or evil the Tory party becomes and acts.

      Sir John is now well and truly part of the problem, as much as the rest.

  48. Iain gill
    November 7, 2022

    Could someone ask the pm to do a back of a fag packet estimate of the amount of raw materials needed for all the batteries and motors, like cobalt, to deliver the vast quantities of electric vehicles being promised. It just doesn’t exist. Not to mention the massive expansion of power grids and power generation needed. Why are our leaders so easily misled?
    So much bunkum…

  49. mickc
    November 7, 2022

    Inflation is everywhere, and at all times, a monetary phenomenon…Milton Friedman..
    This is always, and everywhere, entirely right.

  50. Iain Gill
    November 7, 2022

    nice to see Rishi promise to give Ā£3bn to Nairobiā€™s Railway.

    I am sure the people sitting on the slow old trains from Middlesbrough to Newcastle will appreciate it.

    This government may as well print up some posters telling people not to vote for them.

    1. IanB
      November 7, 2022

      @Iain Gill, throwing money around like it’s going out of fashion, while not only denying but ensuring the UK cannot create wealth or survive.

      This is NOT a UK Government

  51. Henry
    November 7, 2022

    I see Boris there doing his Donald Trump stuff trying to upstage Sunak – he’s only short of wearing the awful baseball cap?

    1. Iain gill
      November 8, 2022

      They are both mad, throwing masses of British money around abroad and arguing for crazy fake green nonsense. So the markets were scared of Liz’s tax cuts but are happy with spraying money around abroad? Something smells.
      This is not democracy.

  52. Lindsay McDougall
    November 7, 2022

    You 100% right. Your problem is how to put your message across to a Prime Minister, Chancellor and Opposition that are in no mood to listen,

  53. Peter Parsons
    November 8, 2022

    “Mr Carney blames Brexit for the current high inflation.”

    The opening line of this article is wrong and suggests that John Redwood hasn’t actually read Mark Carney’s interview. In the interview it is quite clear that Carney regards Brexit as a contributing factor, not the only factor.

    Not the same thing as saying Brexit is the only reason, as is implied by John Redwood.

    1. Peter2
      November 8, 2022

      Read Denis Cooper’s excellent post above Peter.

  54. Tom Frazer
    November 8, 2022

    Another error he made was going against bank policy in July 2016 when he removed the bank reserve buffer. The official policy was that the economy should be in ‘Stage 1’ (see below) while Carney was openly stating the further risks to the economy due to the Brexit vote. The idea that the banks needed more cash to lend at this moment was ludicrous, let alone the drifting from official BoE policy.

    “Stage 1: Risks facing the financial system are very subdued:
    the postĀ­crisis repair phase
    Risks facing the financial system will normally be subdued in a postĀ­crisis repair and recovery phase when the
    financial system and borrowers are repairing balance sheets. As such, balance sheets are not overĀ­extended. Asset
    and property prices tend to be low relative to assessed equilibrium levels.
    Credit supply is generally tight and the risk appetite of borrowers and lenders tends to be low.
    The probability of banks coming under renewed stress is lower than average. So in these environments the FPC
    expects to set a countercyclical capital buffer rate on UK exposures of 0%.”

  55. Lindsay McDougall
    November 8, 2022

    Right on. And there is something else. UK Government borrowing was Ā£303 billion in FYR 2021/21 (Yes!!!!!!!!!!) and Ā£154 billion in FYR 2021/22. Guess who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in those two years. The same man who gained the Premiership on the grounds that Boris Johnson’s successor was fiscally irresponsible.

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