The government has allowed a huge increase in public spending since 2019. Some of this was meant to be temporary relief or offsets for the grave economic damage lockdowns caused. Some of it has been further reliefs and subsidies to offset the inflationary effects of Ā the Ukraine war and the Bank of Englandās inflationary expansion of money and credit.
Both these special interventions now need to run down as energy prices retreat from the Ukraine invasion highs. Meanwhile we also need to examine the magnitude of the net zero costs. The government is using taxpayer money to intervene to deal with consequences of carbon taxes and windfall taxes, to back as yet uneconomic new technologies and to seek to pick winners. There is no need to do so, as markets are perfectly capable of backing good ideas and competing to Ā sort these things out. The public sector costs of carbon capture and storage and hydrogen development are too high.Trust the Ā private sector more and draw on the results of experiments Ā and developments worldwide.
We need more normal affordable levels of public spending, and need advances in public service productivity.
June 29, 2023
The now woke Neo-Marxist (ESG poison, woke employment practices and the evil of Stalinist style Stasi culture) State which serves the interests of progressive ideology will continue to consume ever greater levels of our nation’s wealth until that point that it’s taken ownership of our personal wealth, our lives, our sport, our culture, our TV, our media our freedoms and our souls.
John appears to think nothing has changed in British politics but he’s no idiot and he knows this nation even if he won’t admit it in public, the US and Europe is teetering on the abyss of something deeply sinister
June 29, 2023
@DOM +1 A Parliament trashing everything they try to make you believe they stand for. Personal ego and self gratification is paramount. Salami slicing the life from the People of the UK. Some one has to drain the swamp at sometime and put the People of the UK first and foremost
June 29, 2023
DOM, +++++
June 29, 2023
It’s not just about public spending waste, as we all know. The destruction of our social, cultural, economic, legal, and moral basis; and the national identity of England and its people, is being encouraged and allowed by the Tory party in government, and enabling the laws and encouraging promoters of the non-democratic revolution. Very few protest. Often those who do are severely attacked.
Nothing is being done to protect our society against imposition of alien beliefs and destructive politics; our leaders, particularly now, care nothing, and understand nothing about the basic people and our history. We are being destroyed and subjugated. We are new serfs.
June 29, 2023
+1. So the predictable result from the Rwanda policy from our lefty judges who think it’s our job to police the world and allow anyone asylum who comes from a “nasty” Country. The Government probably encouraged the result shedding crocodile tears. Still refusing to deport anyone. It’s time these judges, the left and ngo’s were made to pay for their support.
I am sick to death of being taxed to death for nothing that we agree with. If we cant get satisfaction from legal/democratic means its time for more positive action and starve the Government of our 46% taxes.
June 29, 2023
Just to add Sir John, you will as a loyal Tory and government supporter be delighted that your opponent has had his bank account removed from him. In case you need to know Nigel Farage.
We live in a state of sinister power – created and supported by your party – yours. You are part of the problem by pretending such matters need not be strongly opposed and resisted and can be justified. What’s your excuse?
June 29, 2023
Prangwizard,
Agreed and your post is couched in moderate language.
Many other posts show the mounting anger on here.
June 29, 2023
There has been far too much thoughtless and reckless overspending action by incompetents who should not be in office. Remove them to remedy!
June 29, 2023
As worrying as the total public spending is the real danger of your interventionist government’s action is that now intervention is expected. Taxpayer’s and borrowed money can cure all ills.
June 29, 2023
Indeed a vast increase and yet public services NHS, police, education, roads, social services, passports, driving licences, probate, land registry, HMRC, planningā¦ all far worse.
So much of what the state does is pointless or even negative. Net Zero perhaps the main lunacy.
Perhaps start by killing this sick joke of a Covid Inquiry – absurdly costing perhaps Ā£100+ million.
It is clear from the statistics that lockdowns did huge net harm and destroyed the economy, the ānot safe and not effective vaccinesā did huge net harm, the Covid fear agenda was evil. Dumping people into care homes untested was idiotic, the Nightingale hospitals were a PR exercise and went unused as did the confiscated private ones. The Gov, LABOUR, SNPā¦ got almost every thing wrong.
June 29, 2023
Look too at the appallingly misdirected and generally incompetent regulators of Water, Energy, Banking, Insurance, the incompetent FCA (who gave us 40%+ interest rates) and BoE and all the many health regulatory bodies, the prisons, the slow and inept courtsā¦
June 29, 2023
There was so-called ‘independent SAGE’. Maybe we need an independent Covid inquiry.
June 29, 2023
An independent independence party, such as Reform would be better. This āConservativeā Govt wastes money and effort on creating dependence. Now millions of UK citizens have become dependants, yet have to look after many others who depend on them.
June 29, 2023
Indeed, the more one hears from this āInquiryā the more of a sick joke it becomes. Allister Heath is spot on today on this issue.
June 29, 2023
Not sure why it has to continue as the KC for the enquiry made his conclusion clear from the start: all due to distraction of Brexit and not locking down fast enough. They donāt even bother considering why locking down was the right approach at all. Likewise they complain that the existing plan was based on flu which was āa mistakeā without specifying in what way Covid was so fundamentally different to flu that the plan was useless. Of course it isnāt much different at all but they just chose to ignore the plan entirely anyway.
June 29, 2023
+1 LL
All the guilty will consider the massive cost as money well spent if it gets them off the hook as it is set up to do and as the years go by their crimes will recede in memory. We need an independent inquiry, not this pre ordained white wash.
June 29, 2023
I read today, care homes were paid a Ā£1000 per person to take the elderly from hospitals.
June 29, 2023
The Not-a-Conservative-Party’s omni-shambles is just getting worse now “the adults” are back in charge, Sir John.
Next winter, we will have NO coal-fired power station on standby to provide system back-up for the days when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. The remaining three coal-fired power stations, which the Eco Nutters in Government didn’t blow up, are to be shut down before the winter.
It looks like a deliberate decision to freeze the old, poor and vulnerable; hike up the cost of energy and to make the UK even less energy independent, and therefore less secure, than we already are. Way to go Shapps!
And now it seems the Not-a-Conservative-Government is preparing to re-nationalise Thames Water, possibly taking on their Ā£14 billion of debt. If so, this would be yet another example of the Not-a-Conservative-Government Capitalising the Profits and Socialising the Debt.
There appears to still be one wheel on Sunak/Hunt’s wagon since they’re continuing to trundle along, deliberately causing chaos for their Masters.
I wonder when that one is going to fall off?
June 29, 2023
The obvious question that our kind host could put to the energy minister is “how many months storage of gas and oil for electricity generation and household heating will be available in September, assuming wind and solar between them can only produce sufficient to cover 10% of demand?”
June 29, 2023
Any re-nationalisation of water companies must be done with no compensation to the current owners.
June 29, 2023
MWB
I will guess you don’t have any money invested in legally held shares nor belong to any pension fund that has invested in Water companies.
Just steal it seems to be your idea.
June 30, 2023
You obviously have no clue about capitalism. Shareholders and creditors must lose their money. It is part of investing. I’ve invested in companies over many years and when some have gone bust I sucked it up. No-one can be guaranteed a profit at public expense. They invest to profit, if by bad management (which clearly this is) they lose, then that’s how it is. Water should never have been privatised in the first place, it just allowed the asset strippers free reign to take a company with no debt, but profitable, to load up debt to pay shareholders and directors.
June 29, 2023
I see that weāre still in the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights ECHR ā¦.its all starting to feel like the last days of the Blair/Brown Labour government
June 30, 2023
Brown only narrowly lost in 2007 …… Cameron and the LibCONs only managed to become the largest party so they could enter into a coalition with the LibDems.
This feels more like 1996 and Major’s wipeout …. only worse.
June 30, 2023
I meant the feeling that labour had run out of ideas …now the tories have ran out of ideas
June 29, 2023
+1 but they are happy to burn (imported on diesel ships) wood (young coal) at Drax despite this causing more CO2 per MWH than coal amd much more than gas. Then pretend this does not count.
June 29, 2023
Lots of pretending that exporting our manufacturing and some CO2 footprints is good, whilst importing the same goods at increased carbon footprint plus 1.2 million tax subsidised immigrants every year is also a bonus. How lucky we the 46% are to pay for these brilliant policies by the former conservative party. The Rwanda judgement was a surprise. Anyone would think this is not a National security issue and our Government welcomes the poor from everywhere. I wonder why our taxes are the highest…… ever!!! Wheres my free hotel, food and expenses? Well, I’m the forgotten 46 % English taxpayer. Do you think we’ll be voting for more of this?
June 29, 2023
And yet more joy.
Net Zero Food Tax.
Presumably on top of the Net Zero household tax?
June 29, 2023
+1 Donna
The disasters around this government increase in numbers, frequency and massive cost at a rate that would embarrass a banana republic.
June 29, 2023
Donna
++++++++
June 29, 2023
On carbon taxes it was encouraging to hear the monitoring committee announce the UK is no longer “world leading” on the yellow brick road journey towards net zero. For some reason they and the beeb viewed that as a problem.
June 29, 2023
Donāt get too encouraged because that statement is based on a very selective biased reading of the data. In fact we ARE still world leading. It just suits them to pretend we arenāt.
June 29, 2023
So really, seriouslyā¦
What is the govt., in our constrained financial situation, going to do when ordered to ā¦
LOCK DOWN again?
June 29, 2023
They wouldn’t hesitate. They will have signed up to the WHO Treaty, so they will say their hands are tied.
June 29, 2023
We need to have a proper conservative approach to things. Unfortunately, the current approach to pretty much everything is socialist. Even the poor people and their councils who have had a massive influx of illegal people to their town/village have been over-ruled by government.
‘The former cabinet minister’ (still don’t know who) who said the party needs to rebuild – out of office – is correct. Let’s pray that one of the new parties Reform, Reclaim, or Heritage make some headway in the next General Election . Labour would finish the destruction of the country, so we mustn’t have them in power.
June 29, 2023
Odds at Ladbrookes on who will be PM after the next election.
Keir Starmer 1/7
Rishi Sunak 4/1
Labour will definitely be in power after the next election.
The only risk in betting Ā£7 to win Ā£1 is Starmer not being leader of the party when the election happens. Otherwise itās about as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.
Duplicate comment detected?
June 29, 2023
Are all these strikes really about pay or are they to speed up Net Zero?
And why is govt. allowing them to continue and why would it be ok for someone in government to openly support Stop Oil? Especially if that person had vested interests in green cr*p.
All very puzzling especially since we, the paymasters are scarcely allowed an opinion on anything.
June 29, 2023
On the TV yesterday, some idiot politician bemoaning the fact we are no longer the leading country in reaching net zero. We can’t afford to be first whether you believe in the net zero religion, or not. Our carbon footprint can be safely ignored, forever!
June 29, 2023
Iām so looking forward to 2030 when weāve saved the planet
June 29, 2023
once weāve saved the planet in 2031 we can then stop all the ānet-zeroā nonsense
June 29, 2023
If the powers that be REALLY want to āsave the planetā
Why arenāt all the magic green bullets widely available?
I donāt remember the first automatic washing machines being difficult to source.
I am still waiting for my quick boil solar powered kettle.
Who would say no to one of those?
June 29, 2023
Youāre giving them ideaās, next on the list will be the ban of electric washing machines ā¦.youāll use a manual hand crank washing & wringer machine; and be happy
June 29, 2023
Yes indeed but the hand-crankers are incredibly difficult to source.
When I thought thereād be blackouts etc. I actually tried to find one!
The dreadful automatics we are just about allowed now have very little water in them and try to nudge you towards a slow spin speed.
And apparently in addition to being happy we will only be allowed to buy three new garments per year.
July 1, 2023
“Youāre giving them ideaās, next on the list will be the ban of electric washing machines ā¦.”
But of course: they need all that electricity freed up for electric cars.
Given the range of other green solutions for cars like biofuels, hydrogen, fuel cell technology, etc that are arguably in same cases greener than electricity, I do have to wonder why there is such a laser focus from our government on electric cars alone. If the goal is to lead in green technology surely we should be developing all of these, instead of putting all our eggs in one half-developed basket?
We have companies developing in these fields in the UK, but they’re getting virtually no support compared to that given to the purely electric car builders.
June 29, 2023
JR tweet. Re illegals and Lordsā support of it all.
Oh please JRā¦.
Call them out!
Let them welcome newcomers to their own houses and country estates!! Plenty of bedrooms and food.
And probably servants.
June 29, 2023
As Professor Dieter Helm presciently wrote in 2017 (Review of Energy) āGovernments are good at picking losers and losers are good at picking Governmentsā.
June 29, 2023
+1
June 29, 2023
Indeed if you are a Conservative. This government isnāt. It tacked left thinking that it could take the centre ground plus some. Unfortunately it has discovered as the Socialists always do, that the public sector will spend every penny it is given and then demand more with poor/declining returns of output.
It is now talking price controls despite the chaos caused by the energy cap, badgering the Banks on savings rates purely for political reasons desperately trying to shift being blamed (correctly) for inflation.
Re the Banks, even if rates increased by 5% a deposit of Ā£5 k would only yield another Ā£250 p.a (taxable) and few people have anything like that so purely a political stunt relying on peopleās ignorance or maybe there own as we saw with their attack on the supermarkets. Equally if savings rates (cost of money) goes up so will mortgages. Default rates will rise (HMG at fault again) and that is a cost that needs to be met. Take the hit, less money for other people/businesses to borrow reduce dividends, pension funds and peopleās incomes suffer. Finally it cause less profit means less tax for HMG to waste.
Just an example of what Sir JR has highlighted, a total failure to understand how markets work.
Add this to their other perceived incompetence, their total ignoring of their traditional core vote and Starmerās team looking more competent/pragmatic etc by the minute and your wipeout similar to that by Blair is inevitable
June 29, 2023
Wake up Nigl, ā Starmers team looking more competent / pragmatic by the minute ā
Your having a nightmare, his team are a bunch of incompetent loonies.
I think its time for a complete change- wake up Nigel!
June 29, 2023
How can public spending be cut when all the main areas are ringfenced against cuts in real terms ? The NHS, Education, Defence, Pensions etc. and of course the massive payments on government debt some of which is index-linked.
June 29, 2023
Sir John, I feel you are talking to a blank wall, Sunak has no intelligence and certainly has no idea of the value of moneyāhes not fit for the job. He has thrown our cash around like confetti, he needs a lesson that teaches him money does not grow on trees.
June 29, 2023
Public spending is like a harpoon.
June 29, 2023
+1
Boomerang?
Why harpoon? It kind of sinks its barbs in and wonāt let go?
Yesā¦like an arrowā¦very difficult to remove?
June 29, 2023
The Resolution Foundation have stated that stealth taxes are set to rise by Ā£4,200 per household in the next year or so. Why where this Conservative Government so reluctant to announce it as opposed to sliding them through the back-door?
It would also be interesting to know from the Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, exactly how much money his department will raise from the Energy Profit Levy? Then as a follow up how much will it cost the UK in additional import spending on energy and what will the increase in World Co2 level’s be because of this punishment tax.
Elsewhere they are already suggesting that UK own highly rewarding own energy supplies have seen a reduction of some 60% because of punishment taxes. In other words at best the 2 Chancellors will see just 40% of their predicted tax take. In the round that is a lot less than was being seen prior to the announcement, as producers have shut up shop, that would suggest they are not even getting the taxes they would have got if they had done nothing. All this Conservative Government has done is increase World Co2 emissions with a policy of import only
June 29, 2023
More of a follow up to yesterday Diary subject. The EU have announced a free trade arrangement with New Zeeland, this includes recognising equivalence on financial services.
Where does this Conservative Government stand, no-where. For all the talk the EU are playing a blinder, unless and until the UK accepts that it is a Colony of the EU it will get Punished. The Brexit agreement only permits the EU to trade freely into the UK, there is no reciprocal arrangement. The Windsor Agreement only suggests perhaps, maybe there could be talks on trade leading to something a couple of years down the line, when the UK has a New Government.
In this Conservative Government in their refusal to be Conservative have shown the World they can be pushed, shoved and backed into a corner of others choosing.
The Conservative Party, those that got to choose, who should lead ā no where to be seen, they have gone into hiding
June 29, 2023
How about this as a lay persons suggestion.
Ring fence the debt incurred through Covid. Look upon it as long term war type debt and aim to reduce it to zero over the next 75 years. At current rates of inflation it could evaporate even faster.
Next take on board that the limit of government spending is the tax take. Not a popular idea for politicians and their scribes because we outside their bubble do the paying, and Treasury and Channcellor have to present the accounts at least once a year. I would point out that this is the way individuals and companies have to run their lives and businesses. Why should government be any different. End money printing, quantative easing, and all the bond juggling to create money that has no value and devalues the money that people and companies have to operate with.
Finally, considerably reduce the tax take, people are better at making their own financial decisions than are government. Take a look at the UK infrastructure that politicians and scribes are responsible for, one unmitigated disaster. UK administration is genetically incapable of running anything.
June 29, 2023
You can ring fence it all you like – it doesnāt make it go away. All government debt is long term anyway. Mr. Redwood often suggests simply issuing more debt to repay debt as it becomes due. Debt is already infinite.
June 29, 2023
āControlling public spendingā there can be no control all the time there is no responsibility, accountability or expectation of return attached to whom this Conservative Government gives everyone’s hard earned tax money too.
This Conservative Government has shown they are prolific spenders, every time the media suggests something they respond by giving more and more of our money away.
There has been no bonfire of the Quango’s, there has been no decreases in the ever growing State, so on and so on. This Conservative Government just spends and demands more taxes.
June 29, 2023
The welfare budget in all its forms and the number of recipients from everywhere in the world just keeps growing. Is it time to leave?
June 29, 2023
Before you start to control public spending you need to get all the civil servants and local government workers back to work in the office ….issue new contracts to stop ‘woring from home’
June 29, 2023
Better still fire most of them. Many do positive harm.
June 29, 2023
@glen cullen – the amuzing one, Civil Servants working for London offices get a so-called London weigting, money for travelling in and out, cost extra hours etc. Then they still get it for not travelling, so they get more money than State Workers that do an equivalent job and working in the same locality that that they WFH from. Isn’t that some kind of fraud or is it the Conservative Goverment just doesn’t care and tax money can just go anywhere as long as its spent?
June 29, 2023
Yes
June 29, 2023
Sir John
The Ukraine situation is not behind UK energy prices, therefore cost inflation. This Conservative Government after 13 years has been in neglect of its duty to keep us safe and secure, is the sole cause. They have removed the means of UK access to cheap self-reliant and resilient home grown energy. In the 13 years it has been in their gift to do their duty to keep us safe and secure but they have pushed in the opposite direction, they have introduced an import only policy.
This import only policy, has exported UK jobs, UK earnings and punished us all by rasing World CO2 emissions.
Prior to the Conservative Government we had wars in Iraq, Afghanistan all committing UK Armed Forces loosing UK lives expending resources all at great cost. Running at the same time we had a Banking meltdown again a massive cost to the taxpayer. But not at a 70 year high of taxpayer cost.
The difference between then and now we had an economy, we retained UK production and we were self supporting in energy
June 29, 2023
And in other news the water industry is in trouble. Privatisation will be blamed politically and customers and their hosepipes plus weather, operationally.
The DT lays the true blame. Incompetent ministers, toothless regulators hapless agencies. Have we heard that before? Yes too many times. Politicians and Civil Servants āuselessā patently out of their depth.
Let them go the way of the industryās outfall pipes.
June 29, 2023
@Nigl Some of these Companies Public as well as Private were purchased by being highly leveraged. OK-ish while money was cheapish, but along came our 2 Chancellors in charge of everything money in the UK, they put taxes up exponentially, which in turn increased cost, which in turn increased inflation, then along comes high interest rates.
This Conservative Government squeezed the life out of these businesses with their clumsy handle ling of UK finances. Not suggesting these Companies were sound, probably not, but this Conservative Government is the root cause of their immediate failure, the donāt believe we need an economy.
June 29, 2023
Re your tweet about shareholders bearing the cost. As usual regulators/politicos/agencies responsible for looking after shareholders interests get off scot free.
George Orwell gets it right yet again.
June 29, 2023
Following the Grenfield Tower regulations a local 16 storey apartment block tower is set to be demolished with 68 flats/families having to find new accommodation, its run by a housing agency, who provided supported living, said that they canāt afford the Ā£20 million revamp ā¦so another burden on the already burdened local housing ā¦this Tory government never seeās further than a headline and doesnāt understand the implications of what it does
June 29, 2023
In the meantime – reports this morning that the Government has failed to persuade the owners of two (out of three) of our last coal power stations to retain them for next Winter and they are being de-commissioned (e.g demolished). So very limited UK power back-up going forward.
I would have no problem at all with this IF some reliable form of replacement power generation had been built, nuclear or gas-fired – but they haven’t been. Successive Governments have effectively had no long term energy strategy, just a complete muddle of Net Zero pledges that make we are more & more exposed to imported energy and market price fluctuations.
Maybe I will have to look at getting that log-burner again. If the Government can’t keep us warm this Winter then it’s time for the pragmatic to take care of themselves and look at the few alternatives still available to us.
June 29, 2023
Yes Ian T, All my 78 years we have been blighted by no long term planning coming from Westminster. One would think some so-called leader would have a look round the corner to see whats coming.
There is very little intelligence available, they are too busy pushing the scam to think for themselves!
June 29, 2023
Log burners banned by my local council due to air pollution concerns.
June 29, 2023
Do we rember Liz Truss!!!!
June 29, 2023
Ah the good old days with policies of growth, lower taxes and smaller government
June 29, 2023
Peers ‘wrecked’ small boats Bill by voting to allow asylum seekers to stay in UK
Lords inflicted three defeats on the Government over the Illegal Migration Bill
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/28/peers-accused-wrecking-small-boats-bill/
This Anti Democracy movement is being allowed by this Conservative Government. The House of Lords a bizarre entity that is not voted to have power, has no responsibility, no accountability and no democratic mandate from the UK Electorate, tells what little there is of a UK Democratic Legislator, the House of Commons to go and get lost.
It is time that this irresponsible shower are removed.
This Conservative Government is bring the whole concept of Democracy into disrepute, on that basics alone they should be removed
June 29, 2023
We see very little evidence of Parliament honouring democracy. The whole of Parliament is complicit in allowing others in Parliament to deny democracy and break constitutional laws, even if they may not be the direct cause..
June 29, 2023
+1 nor of even trying to.
June 29, 2023
Deep down Sunak and this Tory government don’t really want to stop the boats …its all smoke & mirrors
June 29, 2023
+1+1
June 29, 2023
The pantomime continues. We wanted to send them to Rwanda but the lawyers wouldnāt let us !
The excuses wonāt wash with most voters any more.
June 30, 2023
If the Not-a-Conservative-Government ever INTENDED to govern as a conservative party, it would have reformed the House of Frauds. It hasn’t: Cameron, May and Johnson have just put more bag carriers and SpAds in there, for a lifetime of leeching off taxpayers.
Their Fraudships are a very useful excuse for the Not-a-Conservative-Government failing to implement anything the “revolting peasants” want. Just like the EU was for 45 or so years and in many policy areas, still is.
June 29, 2023
I am alarmed that the Priviledges Committee should think its members and decisions are beyond criticism.
It was bad enough for it to use such partisan members as Harriet Harman to judge serious charges against the former PM proven, but for them to now suggest that other MPs should be considered for punishment for expressing free speech within the Chamber about their deliberations is completely unacceptable.
That really does put the Priviledges Committee firmly in Kangaroo Court territory.
The one place above all others where one should be able to express firmly-held personal views is the House Of Commons,
June 29, 2023
Cancel anybody who dares question or criticises us ….democracy be damned
June 29, 2023
Hee hee hee, Dorries, JR-M and the others are not criticised āfor free speech within the Chamberā but for writing on social media or speaking to the media:
Dorries, Twitter, 15/06 03/03, TalkTV 23/03, DM 01/09/2022
JR-M, GB News 29/03, BBC R4 22/03
Goldsmith, Twitter 09/06
Jehinson, Twitter 09/06
Fabricant, Twitter 09/06
Clarke-Smith, Twitter 09/06
Jenkyns Twitter 21/03
Patel, GB News 16/03
You know ChrisS, sometimes it pays to take two minutes to check the sources, it helps not feel foolish afterwards ā¦
HoC Committee of Privileges, HC1652, 29/06/2023, p.8-9.
June 29, 2023
Do you want to ban MPs from speaking on social media or speaking to the media Hefner?
You seem to like your freedom to make passive aggressive posts criticising others.
Seems to be a dual standard operating here.
June 29, 2023
@Martin in Bristol – off course he does, free speech is when you agree not when you ‘hear’ others
June 29, 2023
How trivial, Hefner. The substantive issue is whether the Parliamentary Priviliges committee can always legitimately expect to be above public criticism by MPs. Reasonably enough, Priti Patel complained about its ‘lack of transparencyāthe lack of accountability… I think there is a culture of collusion quite frankly involved here.’ I don’t make a habit of defending Tory MPs, but I think that is fair comment.
June 29, 2023
@Hat man – agreed. The left seem to believe that free speech is the telling others how to agree with them and the refusal to ‘hear’ let alone accept there might be an alternative view
June 29, 2023
If you want more affortable public spending, how about starting with the Ā£169,000 per individual that the Rwanda policy will us taxpayers. We can’t afford that.
June 29, 2023
We can because after the first hundred or so are sent there the boats will stop. Just as Australia found.
June 29, 2023
The government’s own impact assessment concludes that “there is little or no evidence that this policy will work”.
June 29, 2023
@Roy Grainger +1. Australia showed how the flow could be stopped. The UK prefers to award the people traffickers and punish the tax payer
June 29, 2023
I’d start with the Ā£6 million a day hotel bill for hotels for dinghy people Peter.
Predicted to rise to over Ā£30 million a day.
June 29, 2023
Processing of asylum claims used to be much faster. Why is the home office so inefficient under this government? Why have they failed so badly?
June 30, 2023
Because of the huge increase in recent numbers Peter, approx 90,000 in 2022, more than twice the number than in 2019 and the ridiculous appeals system being endlessly gamed by lawyers stringing out clients cases for years
June 29, 2023
Itās the cheap option. Keeping them is a whole different level of cost.
Why not send them to Poland which is begging for immigrants?
June 29, 2023
One way of controlling public spending is to FIRE those Civil Servants that refuse to do their jobs with political neutrality – a condition of their employment.
Today we see the Government defeated in the Court of Appeal over Rwanda, challenges were brought by one of the Civil Service unions.
Since when have the Civil Service been allowed to dictate what Government policies they will and won’t implement.
It would be cheaper for the country to FIRE such individuals that refuse to do their jobs as per the conditions of employment. The last time I checked for employment in the ‘real world’, individuals that refuse to do their jobs as per the terms of employment can be sacked without compensation, except for hours already worked. Why isn’t this happening in the Civil Service.
Billions could be saved from funding non jobs and unproductive workers holding up Government policy, not to mention the costs those individuals inflict on the nation due to their resistance.
I for one am sick and tired of the tail wagging the dog. High time this Government got a grip.
June 29, 2023
I see that the government has just lost its case in the court of appeal over Rwanda.
Can they not simply change the law rendering it lawful ? After all, they have a big majority and there is no doubt that there is strong public support for the policy.
June 29, 2023
The people running socialist policies should have the whip removed. That includes many ministers and includes the prime minister.
Let them stand as independants or let them join for form another political party.
June 29, 2023
Completely agree, but will Ministers listen ?
June 29, 2023
Sir John, we are nearly there. Once we accept that the ludicrous current route planned to Net Zero is not only too costly but is also impossible to navigate then a realistic solution can be found.
Using natural gas to power our industry and domedtic needs, replacing coal and higher hydrocarbons where possible, will lower the UK’s carbon emissions while keeping the lights on. Use the money saved to build SMRs while waiting for the CC hysteria to collapse.
As a sop, fund research into pollution caused warming as our seas are coated with oil, surfactant and farming run-off with sewage feeding oily plankton blooms.
Anthropogenic Pollution Warming has a nasty ring.
JF
June 29, 2023
We’ve always known labour as the tax and spend party, but the tories have gone even beyond that measure set by various labour governments over the years.
It’s not just that they are spending Ā£billions without proper recourse to responsibility or adequate accounting methods, they are are throwing our money in every direction except to where it would really help the people of the UK.
Then with the justification that the economy is broken, they tax us excessively, when tax cuts would stimulate the economy.
What we see happening is called ‘Wealth Transfer’ – the are siphoning off any resources the un-rich have to make the uber-rich even richer!
June 29, 2023
Dear Sir John, the public spending never mentioned is the cost to fuel the death and destruction in Ukraine and Russia. As you are fully aware the Government, and fully supported by Parliament, will not even consider/agree a ceasefire in order that some negotiation can take place between the waring parties. The public is feed a one sided view by all the media to reinforce this position in the public’s(tax payers) mind that the Kiev Government is completely innocent in provoking the war. Keep going until we run out of Ukrainian soldiers fighting on behalf of the UK, US and NATO against Russia.
We can all agree that the initial full on invasion by Russia was a grave miscalculation and illegal.
But for the UK to make no effort to try and put a halt to the war, and in fact to promote it is even more damming on our Politicians.
It is interesting that https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/632957 a petition to parliament for a ceasefire has not received one mention in the media. If this was a true Democracy should not the average citizen have a choice to vote on should we have gone to war with Russia ? Did Russia attack the UK ? In fact they were supplying gas to keep us warm. Not that I agree with this, as the UK should not be importing energy from friend nor foe. Again it is the Government’s lack of defending the security of it’s own people that has got us into this public spending mess on both counts.
June 29, 2023
Inspiration and opportunity seems to be lost causes as far as Sunak/Hunt are concerned . Curtailing those who have the means and initiative to grow the economy is a mistake . All communities rely on employment and if manufacturing and commerce are constrained the negative effect is immediate . The BoE have made bad judgements for several years and this record should not allow them to continue . A different sort of judgement should now be established if public confidence is to be restored .
June 29, 2023
āā removal of asylum-seekers to Rwanda will be unlawful.āā BBC today
āā Peers voted to amend the Illegal Migration Bill to prevent new deportationāā BBC today
Sunakās pledge ā āWe will stop the boatsā ā¦.howās that going Sunak ?
Estimate between Ā£6m – Ā£30m a day spent on immigrantion
June 29, 2023
NO,, big increases in public spending and low rates have been on going since 2002 by the government which has lead to high assets and house prices, while at the same time doing away with public services and next to no pay increase for low paid workers. The government has hollowed out the whole counrty into peoples pockets at the top and overseas investors. M2 money supply is now going down at a fast pace which will lead to a quicking in the on going depression which is a metal state of the mind which leads you to see more crime and bad behaviour, the reason politician mostly on the woke side of policy are behaviour badly is also because of the on going depression which is effecting them as well but they don’t know it. Its not just politician it also CEO and companies board rooms which are also hollowing out their companies instead of looking after their workers because what they see going on, better take as much as i can before the whole lot goes to hell in a hand basket that is the thinking, most know their companies will shut going forward that is the thinking all because of this on going government lead depression on the counrty and it poeople.
June 29, 2023
So. John Redwood’s ( and Thatcher’s ) much vaunted privatisation policy comes full circle.
Thames Water is bankrupt with Ā£14bn debt. Privatised in 1989 with next to none.
Question, was privatization just an pretext to let the asset strippers rip ?
As to ‘controlling public spending’, the Thames water gambit leaves the government with Ā£14bn hole. Meanwhile the ‘fatcats’ end up with absolutely no liability.
Reply The government has no liability. These rest with the shareholders.
June 29, 2023
What’s the likelihood that it’s us as monopoly customers of Thames Water who will end up being forced to pick up the tab?
June 29, 2023
What’s the liklihood that Ofwat will be fining the Government after nationalisation for leaks and untreated water entering rivers and seas and stopping the Government from increasing prices as they’ve done with some water companies Peter.
June 29, 2023
The shareholders wonāt pitch in more capital to save TW because OFWAT is restricting dividend payments so, as a result, the taxpayer will have to bail them out.
June 29, 2023
Shareholders will walk away scot free. The taxpayer will be fleeced AGAIN. I remember Rail Track (I think it was Rail track) where taxpayer money was used to COMPENSATE investors!
June 29, 2023
Why do so many peers think there should be no limits to immigration? Because they are unaffected. Start sequestrating their mansions and estates for migrant housing. Now two crackpot judges have struck down the Rwanda scheme, despite their precious EU already sending migrants to Rwanda. But the Rwanda scheme is nonsense anyway, we pay Rwanda to send us a mentally ill African in return for one migrant who will likely be headed out of Rwanda as soon as the plane has landed. Change the law to remove the oversight of unelected left wing judges and then send the migrants to any country we can bribe to take them. If the country is ‘unsafe’ then the simple remedy is not to get into a dinghy.
June 29, 2023
Because they are immigrants?
June 29, 2023
Spending cant be controlled all the while the wrong sort of people have made it into Parliament. MPās have for gotten what āto serveā means. Lead from above, this generation of MPās is about privileged, their personal privileged, personal self -gratification and ego. So all money grabbed from the taxpayer is to be at best just squandered on personal peccadilloās, stroking ego.
It says it all today when the Privileges Committee appears to suggest that it is its self(the Committee) beyond criticism. Their attitude comes over as meaning āFreeā speech should no longer be part of what is permitted in the UK. They personally are of a higher standing, than the mere mortals they get to judge
Sanctimonious privileged self gratified numpties at best, how did they even get to become MPās. Those that canāt hear some one else’s points of views are the enemies of Society and should be dismissed from all positions of authority.
The swamp needs to be drained and Democracy both in meaning and deed should be restored to the UK.
June 29, 2023
Morning John,
Hope you are well.
” The government is using taxpayer money ”
It isn’t, where do tax payers get their Ā£’s from ? That then allows them to pay their taxes ?
That is written in very simple English on the front of every bank note. Which is nothing more than a tax credit.
The tax payer money myth stops conservatives from cutting taxes because the public believe taxes fund things when quite clearly they don’t.
An analysis of the actual government balance sheets and assets and liabilities show quite clearly the government ISSUES ——> Then COLLECTS ——-> Then destroys what it has collected .
You can’t COLLECT anything that hasn’t been ISSUED first John.
So you CAN slash taxes and increase spending as long as we have enough skills and real resources and enough productive capacity in the economy. The tax payer money myth only harms what you are trying to achieve.
June 29, 2023
Derek, don’t the ‘taxpayers’ get their Ā£’s by/for their labour, ingenuity, skill, design, trade?
Before the introduction of banknotes, precious or semiprecious metals minted into coins to certify their substance were widely used as a medium of exchange. The value that people attributed to coins was initially based upon the value of the metal unless they were token issues or had been debased. Or bartering. Hard to collect tax from bartering.
July 1, 2023
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for your very thoughtful reply. I went all the way back to the 12th century and studied this. Your example has been tried many times and failed miserably.
Try it tomorrow take a bank note out of any business till in the country. Read it and within 5 secs you will know who put the note in the business till.
Banks apply for a banking licence to issue state money when they lend.
If a business gets paid by the state for providing goods and services to the state. Or takes a loan out at a bank.Both types of notes the business received would be identical from either choice. With both choices, taxes will take the notes out of the economy and destroy them. And the business will have to pay interest on the loan.
The tax creates the unemployment but the tax liability drives the currency. Because we need to get hold of the notes to pay
our taxes. The key being not to over tax or over spend the productive capacity of the economy. Make sure we have enough skills and real resources for what we are trying to achieve.
There’s no accounting within the government accounts that allows taxes to be respent back into the economy. That makes perfect common sense because if we didn’t destroy what we collected there would be too much demand created for too few goods and services on offer.
It’s a productivity story not a funding story. Saying taxes fund things time and time again stops us from getting tax cuts.
June 29, 2023
@Derek Henry – surely you are not suggesting that this Conservative Government should create a viable sustainable economy?
June 29, 2023
Is anyone considering doing something about the huge loss of democratic power ..handed over to The Lords and the judiciary?
Like quickly, soon while the tories still have a 70 odd majority?
June 29, 2023
āāWe will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current house of Lordsāā p78 Tory manifesto 2010
The Tories never do what they say theyāll do ! They should be renamed ‘Nothing-Will-Change’ party
June 29, 2023
Glen, ‘nothing would change’ would be preferable to the current policy of destroying our economy, society and culture.
June 29, 2023
@glen cullen – that’s UK politics for. You say lots of heroic things and mean it while facing the electorate. Once you gain access to Parliament you are told you can’t do that the ‘Blob’ rules not the elected Government. Or in this Conservative Governments case they refuse to manage anything in case it upsets the ‘Blob’
We need to re-establish Democracy with candidates pledging that the will do their duty – a modern Magna Carta
June 29, 2023
On the subject of underground storage of carbon dioxide, please realise that there is no profit in doing this, only vast expenses. And the only groups with the knowhow how to inject CO2 at pressure are the oil companies. They are lobbying Government to carry out this insane project of underground storage because they wil be paid for it, by the taxpayer.
June 29, 2023
It is indeed simply pouring money down a black hole where it will be destroyed.
June 29, 2023
The Home Secretary today gave a statement to the HoCs on UK-Rwanda Migration, she reiterated that this government āwill do whatever it takesā to stop the boats & illegal immigration ā apart from:-
Sending our military covertly to scupper the boats
Patrol mid-channel and tow boats back to France
Recue immigrants in sea and return to France
Lock and secure in ex-military camps any illegal that makes land in UK until returned to France
Not allow illegals representation
Not leaving the ECHR
Not leave the UN migration pact
Not do anything with a 75 seat majority ā¦apart from that this government is going to do everything !
June 29, 2023
In light of their recent negative decision regarding the Rwanda bill, perhaps the PM should now reduce the number of judges choosing to disable the Government and run down our country and now produce an order to have their position decided by the people during General Elections. It is never democratic to have an unelected body over ruling our elected Government.
They should be as civil servants should be, – ones who must advise but never decide. And if necessary, the Government proposals can be presented in a National Referendum to ensure democracy is always at work.
June 29, 2023
US GDP 2 per cent in the first quarter, when look into it was on exports, you may say what exports, arms to Ukraine to which they do not pay for, so the growth is falsehood apart from NG to Europe, growth more than likely 0 per cent, thats government for you, never tell the truth, everything is great keep borrowing and spending. When i look to see who was doing well it turn out to be Russia at 5,4 per cent GDP, when looking into this few months ago and now, it turn out that overseas investors pulling out of Russia was best thing that happen, instead of all money being pulled out of the counrty now all money stays in the counrty and sale grown because they sell better food and goods than the overseas companies, by getting the banks in Russia lend money to their own people for these businesses has lead to economic boom for them.
June 29, 2023
It seems that Nigel Farage has had his personal and business bank accounts closed and no other bank will give him an account. The banks claim that it is a ‘business decision’ and refuse to comment further. Apparently this has happened to others in the last few years, all on the conservative side of politics. This is similar to a Chinese-style social credit system. A future genuinely conservative government needs to track down the culprits and punish them.
June 29, 2023
Off topic, but wow! If the news is true, Farage has had his bank accounts closed and 7 banks have refused to accommodate him. There is NO PROOF of wrongdoing. I thought banks HAD to provide people with bank accounts.
We treat illegal aliens and murderers better than the indigenous. They get the benefit of the doubt. Banana republic is getting closer!
June 29, 2023
There are only nine banks that are obliged to accept to open an account for a potential customer: Barclays, Coop, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, Natwest, Santander, TSB and Virgin. All others are not. In particular so called private banks (Arbuthnot, Hoare&Co, Pictet, ā¦) can define what type of HNW customers they would accept. (High-Net-Worth).
Have you tried to open an account with Coutts?
gov.uk 24/02/2023 āBasic bank accountsā.
June 30, 2023
This looks like deliberate, politically-inspired, intimidation. The Establishment trying to silence and “cancel” a popular dissident …. UK-style.
Nigel hasn’t named the bank yet. He should.
June 29, 2023
One way of controlling spending is simply to cancel bank accounts. It seems that there already practice runs on this, as Mr Farage has found out. The trouble is that if it is the BoE or branches of government or quangoland or woke company boards that make the decisions (how better to do it than via a CBDC?) it will be the wrong accounts that get closed.
This is a fundamental attempt to undermine democracy and replace it with totalitarian control. It should be stopped.
June 29, 2023
I thought these remarks were interesting:
“The public sector costs of carbon capture and storage and hydrogen development are too high. Trust the private sector more and draw on the results of experiments and developments worldwide.”
[Full transparency: I have corrected the incorrect punctuation between the two sentences.]
Suggests that at some point Ministers are going to have to learn to ignore the pleas of the electorate to be seen to be doing something. It strikes me as a difficult position for a Minister to adopt, and of course entrepreneurs are going to be reluctant to show their hand in making investments if there’s even an inkling that government subsidies for a particular type of project might be available. I’m not convinced that today’s MPs – addicted as they are to the “super-councillor” model of constant attention and engagement to individuals in so-called ‘surgeries’ when they should be representing their constituents in Parliament – have the qualities needed to allow our host’s proposal to work.
June 29, 2023
What is happening to Farage, his family and others who chose to speak out against the establishment/woke/leftist ideas should concern us all. Its despicable and an attack on free speech and our democratic values. These banks should be named and shamed.
June 30, 2023
+1 FUS