Lecture on Central banks

Today I will give a public lecture at 11 am in All Souls High Street Oxford about Central banks.

I will ask  why the Fed, Bank of England and European CB all got their forecasts hopelessly wrong and took inflation up to around 5 times target. I will ask why The Peoples Bank of China and the Bank of Japan presided over inflation that stayed around 2%.

 

I will ask why the Bank of England first blamed the Ukraine war for the inflation, when UK inflation had hit 5.5% before the war, and when the war’s impact on world energy prices did not cause the same problems in Japan and China.

I will ask why the Bank has more recently blamed bad weather affecting food crops yet they have no weather forecasting variable in their model, and when overall food commodity prices have actually fallen this year.

I will why the Bank’s model has produced such wrong forecasts of inflation yet the Bank does not change its model.

I will examine the bizarre notion that these Banks are independent, when they are important arms of their respective states controlled by national legislation and in four cases owned by the state. Their leaders are appointed by governments.

I will ask why the 3 Banks that got it so wrong do not tell us why and remedy their mistakes.

 

 

95 Comments

  1. Mark B
    May 26, 2023

    Good morning.

    I will ask why the Bank has more recently blamed bad weather affecting food crops . . .

    You think that is bad. I heard, Janet Yelland, Head of the US Fed’ blame high inflation on, and I quote; “Lack of equity, diversity and gender recognition.” She then went on a rant about climate change and then abortion. ie She is pro-abortion, apparently. What any of that has got to do with the US economy I don’t know, but is the kind of people that are running the show.

    I will examine the bizarre notion that these Banks are independent . . .

    I believe they are semi-independent but, those at the head of them (see above) are fully on board with all the political nonsense / mania and just wish to parrot what the bigwigs say in order to keep their jobs.

    There can be no deviation from the ‘part line’ 😉

    1. PeteB
      May 26, 2023

      Mark, semi-independent is an optimistic view. They don’t answer directly to the politicians that appoint them but they are all brain-washed into groupthink ways of working. Parrots, as you say.

      Other questions for Sir J to ask:
      1. Why did central banks pursue ZIRP for so long? Low interest rates also ultimately led to high inflation.
      2. Why do they feel migrants are necessary to squash inflation and generate GDP growth? Evidence of GDP per capita says otherwise.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        May 26, 2023

        The DO answer directly to the politicians who appointed them!

    2. Javelin
      May 26, 2023

      It’s just pure propaganda now to accelerate the destruction.

    3. glen cullen
      May 26, 2023

      Record World Cereal Outputs Forecast for 2023/24
      https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/

    4. Lifelogic
      May 26, 2023

      Indeed dope in the US too.
      Dopes like 40% overdrafts for all Andrew Bailey who still remain in post and Chancellor Sunak who presided over this disaster even gets promoted. Interest rates now back at rates after the Truss/Kwasi budget.

      David Frost today sensible as usual.
      “Net zero zealots are treating the public like fools
      Instead of a real debate on the economic pros and cons of the policy, we get smears and cancellations

      Some of the worst policies ever pursued in this country have been those which nearly all politicians supported at the time. Keeping Britain on the gold standard. Running down our Armed Forces in the 1930s. Demolishing our historic cities and replacing them with concrete. Joining the EU’s Exchange Rate Mechanism. Only a handful of free thinkers questioned these. But when the disastrous results became clear, suddenly few people wanted to defend them.”

      I would add the Millennium Dome, the Poll Tax, almost everything about the EU treaties, Net Zero, the current mad energy policy, the vastly high tax rates & complexity (modern 50% slavery in effect) and many other total disasters.

    5. Gabe
      May 26, 2023

      Indeed appalling (token?) incompetents the Fed too.

      A good rule is that any organisation that feels the need to claim to be “independent” rarely or perhaps even never really is. Nothing really is independent of government look at the appalling BBC propaganda outfit and the (surely criminally negligent?) vaccine regulators.

      “Astonishing rise in atrial fibrillation says the BHF”, 50% up it seems but they are being rather coy on the dates and the reasons! I assume they too are highly political and not really independent. See the recent Dr John Campbell video for more details.

      1. Margaret
        May 28, 2023

        In general practice more and more AF is found because we are looking for it.Nurse practitioners actually take radial pulses and follow up irregularities with an ECG. Conduction problems such as AF were previously not discovered if the rate or other concomitant arrhythmias didn’t cause symptoms.

    6. iain gill
      May 26, 2023

      Just as bad as the Bank of England is the Financial Conduct Authority, and Financial Ombudsman Service, both of which are corrupt and incompetent. Both allowing severe problems within the big banks, insurance companies, pensions companies, to go unchecked.

      Its a public sector regulatory framework that simply does not work.

  2. Donna
    May 26, 2023

    Perhaps when you’ve finished asking Bailey why the Bank of England failed so spectacularly to control inflation, you could then turn your attention to the Government and ask them why they’ve failed so spectacularly to:

    a) reduce immigration
    b) control our borders

    They had an excuse pre-BRINO with the ridiculous free movement of people policy.

    Now they don’t; they have the ability to control it. Why haven’t they?

    1. Nigl
      May 26, 2023

      Actually Sir JR should be asking in this lecture why people are not held accountable, if this was a private sector cock up, the Chief Exec would soon be out.

      Why no criticism from Sunak/Hunt or challenges?

      Why are they wedded to OBR rubbish, again why no challenging results, instead slavishly accepting them and acting to our detriment?

      Why not even challenging their modelling accepted by independent experts to have major flaws?

      Sir JR of course knows the answers but OmertĂ  rules and we suffer.

      In other news more push back on high taxes, cost of doing business, this time from a major drug company resulting in lost investment equals employment equals tax revenue.

      Truss proved right, the Treasury continues to be in denial and incompetent.

      1. Mickey Taking
        May 26, 2023

        Are you expecting Sir John to spend his lecture time demonstrating what a complete horlicks the Government has made from when elected to probably the next election?

      2. Ian B
        May 26, 2023

        @Nigl +1

    2. Ian+wragg
      May 26, 2023

      Your wasting your time John. The reason China and Japan didn’t have runaway inflation is because they actually manufacture things and don’t rely on ma’s immigration and the housing market to survives.
      They don’t follow the WEF on the ruinous path of net zero and they have some technicians advising them, not arts graduates and ppe idiots.
      Carry on the way your going and there’d going to be another massive brain and Industrial drain away from this nonesense.

      1. John Hatfield
        May 26, 2023

        Ian, ‘your’ is a possesive pronoun like ‘my’.
        ‘You’re’ is the correct abbreviation for you are. Sorry,but it irritates.

        1. Margaret
          May 28, 2023

          Things which irritate me.
          Too to two
          Of off
          Our are
          There their their’s theirs
          Headed instead of heading

    3. PeteB
      May 26, 2023

      Good question Donna. The rhetoric was just that.
      Government sets the criteria to allow people into the UK. Granted 150,000 or so in the last year were from Hong Kong and Ukraine and were a humanitarian need. Still doesn’t explain the 750,000 other arrivals. Government is CHOOSING to let these people into the UK.

      1. a-tracy
        May 26, 2023

        Pete 150,000 were from the EU with settled status coming back; there is nothing the UK government can do about that.

        Temporary student visas shouldn’t really be included, only those that are permitted to stay afterwards.

        1. Mark
          May 27, 2023

          If the students are truly temporary (and to qualify as migrants they are coming for at least a year, otherwise they are merely visitors, excluded from the stats just as tourists are) then there will be a corresponding number of emigrants at the end of their stay. That is lacking. The student route is a backdoor around the rules, and has been for a long time. There was a temporary crackdown in 2012 when a number of purely bogus “colleges” were shut down – they were in fact visa fronts – and some colleges who were found to be operating in the same way to enhance their incomes were slapped on the wrist.

          1. a-tracy
            May 27, 2023

            I didn’t know that Mark. So a two year degree from any old college can bypass immigration? But how do they get work permits if they just stay on after their degree? Or do they just marry a Brit?

    4. Lifelogic
      May 26, 2023

      Also why Andrew Bailey was ever appointed and why he has not been fired yet by Sunak and Hunt.

      1. Richard1
        May 26, 2023

        Indeed with his record at the FCA he should never have been appointed.

    5. Old Albion
      May 26, 2023

      Saved me typing that ‘Donna’

    6. Beecee
      May 26, 2023

      Perhaps because they do not know how to?

      1. Donna
        May 26, 2023

        Are you claiming they’re thick Beecee?

        I think Fraser Nelson has it right in today’s DT. They don’t WANT to. The Treasury and Big Business demands a continual influx of low-wage immigrants.

    7. Mike Wilson
      May 26, 2023

      Why haven’t they?

      Because endlessly increasing the population is the only way they can get their magic growth. Without growth the house of cards will come tumbling down as the debt just grows and grows.

      ÂŁ2.6 trillion and growing every second. If the population stays the same there will be no growth, no increase in taxes but the debt will keep going up – as borrowing is used to fund day to day expenditure.

      The government, any government, can promise you anything they like about immigration. The fact is without it we are in a debt death spiral. Even with it, there is a collapse coming.

      When the debt is 3 trillion, coming soon, and new debt has to pay 5%, the bill will be ÂŁ150 billion a year.

  3. Original Richard
    May 26, 2023

    The reason is because they’re all dedicated to implementing Net Zero and not running the economy to the benefit of the population.

    High energy prices and high inflation is one of the tools you they are employing to “rewire the whole financial system for Net Zero” as explained by our PM, when Chancellor, at COP 26.

  4. DOM
    May 26, 2023

    Stop playing silly games John. You know what the truth is but telling it could destroy your career as we have seen Bridgen.

    Those who dare to question the new Neo-Marxist ideology are liable to criminal prosecution while CB’s are mere facilitators of this new poison that seeks to weaponise identity and our living world for total control

    1. glen cullen
      May 26, 2023

      Good words DOM

  5. turboterrier
    May 26, 2023

    You can ask away Sir John but whether the people that really need to listen will and you get any answers apart from banking and political gobbledegook?
    They are incapable of thinking outside the box, but then they were never in it in the first place.

  6. Fleur
    May 26, 2023

    So glad to have you as our MP, John. You ask all the right questions and challenge the govt on our behalf. Thank you.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 26, 2023

      Indeed alas with so little effect on this appalling government.

      “The Tories have a dirty secret: they don’t want to reduce immigration
      The whole government system is hardwired to favour mass migration: it’s the ultimate short-term fix”

      Fraser Nelson today in the Telegraph today.

      Indeed thirteen years of promises and lies but zero attempts to restrict low skilled and low paid immigration to sensible levels. It seems the real figure is 749,000 net calculated on the same basis as last year. Political dishonesty again just as they are fiddling crime & burglary figure by excluding thefts from out buildings and garages. Few are fooled. But is is not even a short term fix it causes a huge decline in living standards per cap in PPP, housing shortages, vast tax increases, higher crime rates, more crowded roads, worse policing, lack of decent schools, poor healthcare, drug issues


      1. Old Albion
        May 26, 2023

        Sadly ‘lifelogic’ the majority are fooled.

    2. Margaret
      May 28, 2023

      Learn to love the questions ?

  7. Bloke
    May 26, 2023

    Valuable evidence is presented in the court of public opinion. Errant Central Bank leaders should be sentenced to solitary confinement in a Coventry office. Economies need protection from their harming ways.

    1. Gabe
      May 26, 2023

      The public needed protection from dangerous government vaccine coercers and incompetently negligent vaccine regulators too. Alas they did not get that either.

  8. BOF
    May 26, 2023

    Will you please, Sir John, bring up the vexed subject of CBDC.

    We need assurance that cash will continue in perpetuity to prevent central banks and government having the ability to exert undue control over the people, to limit individual freedoms to spend our own money on our own choices.

    I note that there is a powerful movement in Switzerland to introduce measures to guarantee cash in perpetuity.

    1. Radar
      May 26, 2023

      BOF, agreed, the plan to launch an Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) here in the UK is well under way.

      According to the US think tank Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker the UK is currently at the ‘DEVELOPMENT’ stage. Next stage is ‘PILOT’ and then finally ‘LAUNCH’.

      Cash/printed bank notes here in the UK and Crown Dependencies must NOT get phased out. A digital currency operated by a nation’s central bank brings with it huge privacy and central (government) control issues.

      Switzerland is at the ‘development’ stage too therefore this matter of CBDC here in the UK should now become an urgent matter for debate!

  9. BOF
    May 26, 2023

    And of course, printing and borrowing half a trillion pounds has nothing to do with causing inflation. Never mentioned by BofE. Now I wonder who presided over that?

    1. Ian B
      May 26, 2023

      @BOF – the Taxpayer is the BoE go to funder for their mistakes, the Conservative Government doesn’t care they know they can just raid your wallet for ever and a day.

      1. BOF
        May 26, 2023

        Ian B. True, and all the more reason to vote out the WEFminster Uniparty.

  10. Ian B
    May 26, 2023

    The obvious conclusion would be direct political control of a tax payer funded operation, as opposed to a pseudo independent entity that has to flex its muscles to make out it is doing something.

    The lesson being that all outlets receiving Taxpayer subsidies/funding of any kind, should be formally politically controlled, with accountability and responsibility laid at the door of the democratically elected.

    What we have is a fudge that achieves nothing other than stroke ego’s and the self esteem of individuals.

    The appointment of these cabals misses the point, it is a normal ‘human’ trait to protect any position gained, creating empires is part of that process.

    1. turboterrier
      May 26, 2023

      Ian B
      Your last paragraph about “human traits” is the very reason that the civil service has grown to become virtually uncontrollable. The damage control empires within ensure dilution of responsibility and accountability.

  11. Ian B
    May 26, 2023

    It’s everyone else ‘not me’

  12. Derby
    May 26, 2023

    Prices about 8% higher in the UK than elsewhere in Europe thanks to the red tape, border checks and labour shortages caused by Brexit.

    Reply Not so

    1. hefner
      May 26, 2023

      data.oecd.org ‘Inflation (CPI)’
      Total, food, total less food less energy, annual growth rate (%), April 2023

      Not 8%, but UK higher by +7.5% for food compared to average OECD, by +2% compared to Germany, by +3.5% compared to France.

    2. Ian B
      May 26, 2023

      You have been reading the Guardian. That is simply not a true statement, some, just some, of the very few goods we get from the EU have risen. We do not by ALL our needs from the EU as the Guardian would have you believe.

    3. Christine
      May 26, 2023

      What a load of rubbish you write. You obviously don’t live in Spain where their energy and food prices have gone up just like they have here.

      1. Gabe
        May 26, 2023

        Energy far cheaper in the US and China than the UK. Can be 6 times higher in the UK mainly due to net zero and government market rigging.

        1. glen cullen
          May 26, 2023

          100% due to net-zero

        2. IanB
          May 26, 2023

          @Gabe. Have been the situation since this Conservative Government sort to punish energy users with their high taxes

    4. a-tracy
      May 26, 2023

      Derby, how much is are the following staples in Europe, lowest price to highest price, I’ve been told our prices are lower:
      Milk 2 litres
      Eggs 12
      Butter 500g
      A hard Cheese 500g

      Our ONS only check certain brands on a certain day, they said the butter was ÂŁ7.50 when it was ÂŁ3.75 the day after. They don’t compare all the brands of that product on the day they check; simple supermarket comparison sites can do that why can’t they?

      I’ve noticed its best not to buy the brands in the ONS check list! There are much cheaper alternatives and the minute those brands go in an inflation list their prices inflate.

  13. Lynn Atkinson
    May 26, 2023

    May I draw your attention to the ‘Degrowth Conference’ opened by Ursula van der Leyen in the EU Parliament chamber. These activists are funded to the tune of €10 million, to produce the pseudoscience to support the deindustrialization of Europe.
    The central banks are on board.
    Please listen to a few of the speeches if you can. ‘To de-colonise, undermine white supremacy and live a ‘human life’ we need to ‘de grow’.
    Ursula’s €400,000 annual income and expenses are of course, ring-fenced.

  14. agricola
    May 26, 2023

    Central Banks not fit for purpose run by people long past their sell by date. Appart from yourself and Liam Halligan where do you find the people strong enough to tell government to stop printing money to cover their profligacy. In the UK our central bank is in good company alongside all the ministries and their scribes who are equally incompetent at carrying out the tasks they are titled for. They are too busy undermining politicians they dislike to do the job they are paid for. Meanwhile the people suffer the consequenses.

  15. Javelin
    May 26, 2023

    Traders now expect rates to rise a further 1% to 5.5%. As somebody who works in an investment bank on fixed income – my opinion is that the cause of inflation is (1) NetZero pushing down productivity through green farming (2) NetZero pushing up energy prices by relying on external energy (3) mass migration pushing up the demand for goods and services (4) higher taxes due to supporting low earning migrants (5) higher taxes due to not enough pressure on people working (6) high taxes due to crippling gold plated Government pensions.

    Lots of reasons and none are easy to fix within a year.

  16. Keith from Leeds
    May 26, 2023

    You will undoubtedly do an excellent job, but again to the wrong audience. The PM & Chancellor need to hear your message, plus about 90% of Conservative MPs. The lack of understanding of basic economics is frightening!
    I repeat, why has Andrew Bailey not been sacked? If you tolerate mediocrity & failure, that is what you will get.

  17. Ian B
    May 26, 2023

    Why have a democratically elected Parliament and Government when they refuse their duty of taking responsibility and being held accountable for the Countries Legislation and how money(tax) taken from individuals by law, is spent?

    Aren’t all today’s failings the fault of what has become a ‘freeloading’ Parliament?

    So with the failure of those that have been empowered by the people, should there be any surprise that others, the Central banks, the Blob have assumed the same level of complacency.

    Some one at sometime has to get a grip, its not looking like it will be this Conservative Government or the Conservative Party that just don’t give a 



    The Buck stops with those we elect

  18. The PrangWizard
    May 26, 2023

    Will you ask why the BoE chairman has not resigned? Of course not, far too risky and controversial and we can not have that now can we? Must remain friends and must not demand change to the members of the elite debating society.

  19. Christine
    May 26, 2023

    Answer – because they are following the WEF agenda to destroy Western countries. UK citizens took the first step to leave the EU, now they really must vote our current leaders out of power and do it quickly. Just look at what the Dutch government and EU are doing to their farmers. This isn’t democracy it’s tyranny. They are looking to control your money, food, travel, health, and life. Wake up before it’s too late.

    1. Donna
      May 26, 2023

      Many are waking up. If you don’t already do it, I suggest you check out Richard Vobes on YouTube.

      1. Christine
        May 26, 2023

        I like Neil McCoy-Ward on YouTube. He released an informative video the other day on the plight of the Dutch farmers and the plan by the WEF and EU to cut meat production by a third over the next few years. He’s great for information on what’s going on with the banking system.

    2. Gabe
      May 26, 2023

      +1

  20. XY
    May 26, 2023

    That’s a lot of asking.

    Perhaps a lecture should also have a lot of answers? Or at least some.

    1. Bloke
      May 27, 2023

      An effective lecture causes the audience to think.

  21. James Freeman
    May 26, 2023

    The problem, Sir John, is people need to admit they have made a mistake, and this human failing gets amplified by politicians and bureaucrats. Countless frightening forecasts have justified policies that did not materialise after the event.

    * Authoritarian Lockdowns in the UK vs Swedish public health approach.
    * The promised recession if we voted for Brexit.
    * Global warming estimates used to justify the 2008 Climate Change Act.
    * Minimal alcohol pricing in Scotland.
    * Change in tax rules for non-doms increasing tax revenue.

    To tackle this, we need a new, more scientific approach:
    1. Agree on the future measurements to support a policy upfront.
    2. Use this to monitor if it is a success or not.
    3. Have an automatic sunset clause if the policy does not meet its pre-defined success level.

  22. Richard1
    May 26, 2023

    In case anyone says it’s a European phenomenon you could also point out that the Swiss national bank did not make the errors the BoE and ECB did and Switzerland has not seen a big inflation problem.

    1. Gabe
      May 26, 2023

      +1

  23. glen cullen
    May 26, 2023

    Whats the BoE policy on NI ….as they seem to have a political opinion on everything else

  24. Bryan Harris
    May 26, 2023

    It’s always important to find the ‘WHY’ when something bad happens – but this one is easy to explain.

    I will ask why the 3 Banks that got it so wrong do not tell us why and remedy their mistakes.

    They are doing what they set out to do, to deeply ruin our economy, such that we should never recover.
    That surely has to be obvious to anyone who looks at what the banks have been doing, because nobody could be that useless and incompetent.

  25. Paul
    May 26, 2023

    Japan is a country with low growth and a very different culture (on immigration for example) and government price controls on food and energy. For a Conservative MP to present China as an example of appropriate economic strategy takes irony to a new high. Clearly quantitative easing and pandemic support played a large part in fuelling current inflation but that is easy to see now. I do not recall much criticism of these policies at the time or what the alternatives were.

  26. Know-Dice
    May 26, 2023

    Sir John – Off topic, I’m sorry…

    Who authorised a British warship commander to take on 50 migrants that were located in French waters whilst in the presence of a French Navy ship?

    The conversation between the French and British commanders goes something like this?

    French – We have 50 people in a rubber boat that say they want to go to the UK…
    British – Ok, just give them to us, we will transport them to England…

    Is this something that the British commander has decided off his own back…I don’t think so!!!

    This seems to be Government policy, heads should roll…

    1. glen cullen
      May 26, 2023

      We pay the French millions to stop these boat people ….however, here’s the kicker, that money is to stop the number going over 100,000, anything under & upto that number is okay

    2. beresford
      May 26, 2023

      The Sun reports that the overcrowded dinghy off the coast of Boulogne turned down the offer of assistance from the French and said they only wanted help from the UK. Whereupon, for no good reason, we despatched a ship to pick them up. It is only one step away from ferrying them directly from the beaches. When I had an accident in Germany I was expected to pay for the rescue team and hospital care. Why are these freeloaders not at least made responsible for the cost of their unnecessary ‘rescue’?

      1. a-tracy
        May 26, 2023

        Beresford, when they tried to house them in ex-barracks all the British do-good’ ers came out of the woodwork to condemn our government and us all for supporting them so they caved. When they came up with the Rwanda plan to make them think twice about boating across the channel it got stalled by lawyers and the do-good’ ers. Those very same people now condemn the government they stopped from taking draconian action by saying they’re doing nothing. We expect people like Priti Patel and Suella Braverman to take tough action, then they get condemned for doing anything, with the personal attacks way beyond anything I’d like to experience personally.

        Years ago I suggested they bought up these old cruise ships that were going for a song and not even let asylum seekers land on-shore take them straight to an offshore boat for processing, process them quickly then move them on, but I hadn’t realised how many were coming over, I saw a camp of tents in France yesterday with them waiting to come across, it is an absolute joke and our politicians haven’t realised most of us have stopped laughing now. If people are actually thinking Labour are going to do anything other than give them free passes and work permits they are fools.

        That young Mizzy said it all the other night “ When Morgan told him that what had really got his goat was the tiny fine handed down to him by the courts, the young miscreant replied: ‘The UK laws are weak, simple as, and that’s not my fault.” This is what many of these immigrants think too, we see them dealing their drugs with their empty ‘shops’ and cars and electric scooters whizzing around the local estates.

  27. Bert+Young
    May 26, 2023

    The truth is Sir John you can’t “bank” on anything nowadays !. I am sorry to miss your presentation at All Souls today ; I’m sure it will go down well .

  28. a-tracy
    May 26, 2023

    Rachel Reeves retweeted a James Murray MP’s tweet that claimed “Millions are paying more because of the Tory mortgage penalty and the sledgehammer they took to our economy”. He says that Sunak should “take responsibility for the 13 years of Tory economic failure the mini-budget accelerated”.

    Accompanying the tweet is an interview on C4 News Kathy and Kwarsi.
    I mean, the BoE governor said

    Ka: But a lot of people are looking forward to much higher mortgage rates, crippling high mortgage rates because of what you and Liz Truss did.

    Kw: No, that’s not true

    Ka: Really!

    Kw: The interest rates would have gone up anyway, okay. So interest rates globally have gone up anyway. And yes there was a lot of turbulence in the market at that time.

    Ka It was a Truss premium. A Truss-Kwarteng premium.

    Kw: But now today, if I have to fix a mortgage today, it’s higher not because of what happened in October, but because interest rates were going up.

    Ka: You can’t know that though. I mean the BoE governor said that..

    Kw: Of course I can say that

    Ka:…you’re still dealing with the hangover from your mini-budget.

    Kw: But there’s lots of hangover effects

  29. a-tracy
    May 26, 2023

    Former Chancellor Ken Clarke tells Preston: Brexit is “continuing to do damage to our economy” and has caused worse inflation to be worse in the UK than in European countries #Peston

    The latest claim is “Brexit trade barriers have contributed 8% points of the 25% rise in food prices between 2019 and March 2023”.

    What trade barriers, we haven’t applied any yet to the EU? We didn’t leave until Jan 2021. It’s all a crock and your government is in cahoots to allow these lies over and over again.

    1. Diane
      May 27, 2023

      a-tracy: The same gentleman I gather is reported as also stating that the PM needs to take the difficult & unpopular decision to build on our green belt. Yes, let’s just build, build, build. First though, for those that don’t get out much, book a fleet of large buses & fill with some carefully chosen individuals and send them around England on an observational tour. Have a closer look at Kent, Devon, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Cambs. and heavens knows where else. Set aside several days though as it will be slow going getting around the country on our roads and dodging the potholes and all those electric ! HGVs delivering our food and goods from beyond. Not forgetting to book any needed hotel accommodation very selectively and well in advance. Bon voyage.

      1. a-tracy
        May 27, 2023

        Diane, thats unbelievable if he has said that, where I live they have added 10,000 people up from 25000 to 35000 in a couple of decades and they are still building on green land now. However there is nothing for the people that moved here to do, NOTHING. A couple of traditional pubs, a couple of Indian restaurants, a McDonalds and several takeaways. No cinema, no professional theatre, no activities. We are rate paying mulch cows for the big towns nearby (with no transport links to them either! But who would want to go with the traffic problems that would cause because the roads are just insufficient).

    2. hefner
      June 3, 2023

      ®Forbes.com 25/05/2023 ‘Brexit food trade blocks have cost the UK over $8bn’.
      Trade impediments ‘work’ on both sides of any border and in both directions.

  30. Mike Wilson
    May 26, 2023

    and when the war’s impact on world energy prices did not cause the same problems in Japan and China.

    That’s an easy one. China burns its own coal and Japan has lots of nuclear.

    reply They both import lots of oil and need to reflect market prices domestically

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      May 26, 2023

      JR energy futures are now lower than they were in 2021. The price of energy in the U.K. has more to do with tax than the base costs. Time to stop playing this silly game, pushing up prices and calling it ‘inflation’. I see Hunt is ‘prepared to accept a recession to defeat inflation’. Recessions don’t defeat inflation or price rises. They just destroy businesses and jobs, but unfortunately not that of the Chancellor or the Governor of the BOE.

      1. Mark
        May 27, 2023

        Indeed so. The CPI fuel price indices (2010=100) now stand at 305.1 for electricity, 298.0 for gas, but only 141.2 (down from 223.8 in June) and 129.2 for motor fuels. Wholesale gas prices have now tumbled below ÂŁ20/MWh yet the OFGEM cap is 30p/kWh for electricity and 8p/kWh for gas. There are huge additional costs being added on: at ÂŁ20/MWh CCGT can produce power for ÂŁ40/MWh before green taxes, yet the average CFD pays close to ÂŁ175/MWh, and the overall average cost of wind at wholesale is about ÂŁ200/MWh.

  31. Derek
    May 26, 2023

    As they all got it wrong, it must be a common computer financial model programme that they all utilise. Ditto the OBR, the Treasury et al.
    Has no one checked the accuracy of these highly sophisticated algorithms?

  32. glen cullen
    May 26, 2023

    I do hope SirJ that you’ll touch upon the direct and indirect influence on the BoE by the UN World Economic Forum, UN International Monetary Fund and UN World Bank 
and for that matter their influence on our HM Treasury

    1. rose
      May 26, 2023

      Glen, the B of E and ECB are both starstruck by the Fed (see Mark B’s vignette of the reality); and our banks etc are starstruck by the august office of the Governor of the Bank of England (despite being often quite close up to the reality of the present incumbent whose nickname is Lullaby.)

  33. Original Richard
    May 26, 2023

    Sir John, whilst your lecture on the “mistakes” made by the 3 CBS is very needed and important you really need to start awakening those you can influence to the real reason for our economic mess. This is the entirely false narrative that anthropogenic CO2 is a pollutant gas that will destroy the earth when in fact increasing levels bring no increases in warming and increased food production, CAGW is a communist plot perpetrated by the same groups who promoted unilateral nuclear disarmament in the last century and are now promoting unilateral Net Zero which they know is impossible and will bring about the collapse of the West’s economies and democracies.

  34. Richard II
    May 26, 2023

    O/T but well done, Sir John, for standing up with other MPs led by Esther McVey, against the WHO’s insidious proposed changes to their International Health Regulations. And well done Andrew Mitchell for assuring the public in the DT that he would block any law that prevents the U.K. from setting its own health policy. Now it’s up to him to ensure that the Britsh representation at the World Health Assembly has got that message. Which appears to mean updating our Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Simon Manley, who in 2021 told the World Health Assembly: ‘We need a paradigm shift, with a strengthened WHO; new, legally-binding obligations for member states with the means to ensure compliance, including for the IHR.’ I hope Andrew Mitchell is up to the task aheaad of him.

    1. rose
      May 26, 2023

      That Ambassador to Spain who went against Raab is now back in the front line. These people are permanent; ministers are not.

    2. Mary M.
      May 27, 2023

      Richard II,

      Andrew Mitchell was the MP who appeared to instruct MPs to leave the Chamber on March 17, when Andrew Bridgen began speaking about possible deaths and disabilities from the ‘vaccine’.

      How far can we trust Andrew Mitchell to protect our sovereignty and our democracy, when he seemed to want to shut down debate?

      Good article today in the Daily Telegraph by Professor Karol Sikora, consultant oncologist, one-time director of the WHO cancer programme: ‘A WHO pandemic treaty would be a threat to our freedom’.

      Mary M.

    3. Diane
      May 27, 2023

      A Petition to Parliament last year – Number 614335 on the UKG Petitions website ( now closed ) attracted 156.087 ‘signatures’ with a request that it not be signed without referendum. The UKG’s response is there to read. It includes a statement saying that the UK would not ratify the treaty until domestic measures agreed by Parliament were put in place. It’s reported in the media any rules would be binding on member states, unilateral directives & a mention of an amount of 5% of annual health budget to prepare for the next global pandemic and that it would force states to fight “disinformation” Glad to see this is on the radar.

  35. glen cullen
    May 26, 2023

    Home Office – 25 May 2023
    Illegal Immigrants – 163
    Boats – 3
    
.four more hotels required pdq ?

  36. formula57
    May 26, 2023

    I note that the prospective interest rate increases that you tell us no doubt correctly are not needed are welcomed by Chancellor Hunt even should they push the U.K. into recession. I mark my disappointment that the Chancellor did not capture his thoughts with use of his sometime predecessor Lamont’s infamous phrase “that price is well-worth paying”.

    As a saver, I say 4 per cent. or so is welcome but not so much in the face of inflation of more than double that and very recently triple that. I rather selfishly hope that the Bank makes more mistakes.

  37. ChrisS
    May 27, 2023

    I could not come to the lecture but why could we not watch it on Zoom ?
    I asked well before time but got no reply.

  38. David
    May 27, 2023

    Belated comment … I agree with Richard1. Swiss inflation May 2022 to April 2023 was reportedly 2.6%. I’d settle for that, who wouldn’t?

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