The P{rime Minister this week has a great opportunity and a great platform to set out his vision of the future and tell us how Conservatives can make things better and help people improve their lives.
Today I ask what should Rishi Sunak tell the nation this week, from such a good platform?
After 5 years of a Coalition government and 8 years of a Conservative one he mustĀ not trash the past and canĀ be proud of some achievements. The transformation of school standards, the freedom from the large EU budget contributions and escaping from the running up of big new EU debts, the global reach of an independent UKĀ Ā strengthening our ties with Australia, New Zealand and the Trans Pacific Partnership are all to be welcomed. Nor must he spend much time on the past, but show he as a new PrimeĀ Minister is looking forward to the huge opportunities ahead for the UK now Brexit and the covid lockdowns are behind us.
He needs to reassure us that the high levels of taxation are temporary, brought on by covid and the Ukraine war. He should point the way to a slimmer, fitter and better public sector after several years of poor productivity and service interruptions from lockdowns and strikes. We need empowered users of public services, and well rewarded public servants with the machine power and data to be more productive. People wantĀ access to doctors and hospital appointments to be easier and quicker, for their children toĀ have a choice of good schools, for our public transport to be on time and affordable and for our roads to have fewer potholes.
He began the fight back over the last two weeks. Government should not be telling us whichĀ cars and heating systems to buy and then stopping us buying ones they doĀ not like. It should not be keeping our oil and gas in the ground and importing it from abroad. They should not be raising taxes on strivers, savers and small businesses.
TomorrowĀ will offer some ideas on what he can now deliver.
October 2, 2023
Good morning.
Suddenly they realize that there is an election next year and so must do something, anything, that makes them electable.
One can look at all the other things, but one thing I will mention, is that inflation has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine or Covid. It has everything to do with a Chancellor and PM who recklessly trashed the economy.
You’ve more than earned your time on the Opposition Benches.
October 3, 2023
+many.
I would add, While giving away billions without any regard to the people of this nation. Fleecing everyone from all walks of life to get any extra pennies to spaff against the wall. Disgraceful conduct in the extreme. What is there to show for the vast sums of taxes wasted- nothing. Public services an absolute mess.
October 2, 2023
He hasn’t got much time to act, even if he wanted to do some of the vote-catching things. And people will ask why the Tories are only now saying vaguely conservative things.
October 2, 2023
Given that Sunak has rolled back the Government’s net zero commitments and stopped further N Sea wind farm development, many are hoping that our energy security will be secured by approving nuclear SMR
Only now is an attempt being made to shortlist manufacturers of SMR technology and it is essential that of the six companies involved, the solution proposed by Rolls Royce is selected. RR have the experience and have manufactured all the nuclear reactors used in British nuclear submarines – over 30 – and there has never been a major incident with them.
Many councils that had previously hosted our Magnox and AGR nuclear power stations have approved new nuclear. We must capitalise on our experience with nucear power and rapidly approve the Rolls Royce solution
October 2, 2023
‘well rewarded public servants’. Code for union and Marxist woke appeasement. Your party’s job is not to appease but to confront and control Labour’s power base
We need an assault against a politicsed and weaponised public sector and indeed a total reformation and wholesale flushing out of these creeps from our world
I for one want to see freedom from woke crap that is strangling the private and public sector pushed by Labour’s Stasi woke warriors and sneeky Tories to fearful to confront it
October 2, 2023
Sir John, you have set out many times good lists of sensible policies and straegies. These are what Sunak should talk about. He won’t.
October 2, 2023
In the short time available to him, what he does as PM will matter more than what he says. Words are too cheap. Words from politicians, any politician, are a devalued currency.
October 2, 2023
āHe needs to reassure us that the high levels of taxation are temporary, brought on by covid and the Ukraine war.ā Well they clearly are not temporary as Sunak has made little or no attempt to cut out any of the vast government waste that he and Hunt have allowed or encouraged.
āfitter and better public sectorā better directed too as so much of what they do is actually pointless and damaging. Start with the duff degrees, HS2, migration, net zero, the diversity & woke insanityā¦
In an interview Sunak claimed the UK had done so much better in reducing our CO2 plant, crop & tree food emissions than China, USAā¦ Perhaps he should also have pointed out how much cheaper energy is in these countries (less than half) hence rather more growth and better living standards. Net zero is self inflicted & pointless economic vandalism rather like Majorās idiotic ERM fiasco. Major never even said sorry for his ERM lunacy so will Boris, May, Blair, Brown, Ed Milliband, Sunak, Lord Gummer and 90% of MPs ever say sorry for this damaging net zero lunacy?
October 2, 2023
It would be a much simpler speech far shorter and far more appealing to the tax payers of Britain if he just said.
“My speech is based on Conservative values. We will reduce the size of state interventions in all areas of British life. We will empower the entrepreneurial spirit that laid the foundations of this nation. We will once again, use the latent talents of our nation to deliver the spirit and the technology of a better future.
We will allow wealth creation to evolve without the brakes imposed by bureaucracy and stifling regulations.
We will return to a nation of conservative values under a ‘truly’ Conservative government.
We will return to, and apply the tried and tested principles of sovereignty.
‘Our shores, our laws’
Thank you all for your patience”
October 2, 2023
Sunak should tell the conference and nation: “I am profoundly sorry for my part in the government’s lockdown policies, which led to spending beyond our means, and then the high taxes we now have to pay for what the government did. I and my colleagues were very badly advised by people we took to be experts. I have learned from this experience, and will never in future allow the basic freedoms of British people to be overridden by unelected international bodies. Consequently, my government will not accept the revisions of the WHO’s international health regulations, nor a ‘pandemic treaty’, both of which would take public health powers away from sovereign national governments.”
That would be a good start.
October 2, 2023
So Andrew Bridgen has finally been give a date for a discussion of the vast numbers of excess deaths) mainly in the Covid Vaccinated it seems)cOctober 20th. So will our MPs (of both government and opposition) all abandon the house as they pathetically did last time?
The excess deaths and injured figures will not go away just by covering their eyes and singing la, la, la nothing to see here. It is all round the World in the heavily vaccinated countries far higher than the less vaccinated ones. See Dr John Campbellās video. Well done Bridgen.
October 3, 2023
I emailed my CONservative MP asking him to confirm that he would be attending this important debate and pointing out that the EXCESS deaths so far this year (over 36,300) are the equivalent of 104 Lockerbie plane crashes or 504 Grenfell Towers.
He hasn’t replied.
October 3, 2023
The government paid out less in state pension benefits following covid it must be around Ā£1bn now as it was Ā£0.6bn in Nov 2020, that combined with the savings from forcing people to retire at 66, including all those women who thought they were retiring at 60 when they started working at 16.
Is it basic state pension that is causing the problems on welfare or all those that we have taken into this country without a full NI record who now get full pension credits, housing benefits etc. We are being taken for mugs.
October 2, 2023
How do you empower users of public services? Almost without exception, meaning I cannot think of any exceptions, public services run on the principle of the supplier decides what you get and you can put your feedback on a form on the way out and nobody will take a blind bit of notice of what you write – and any facts aboutn the service uncomfortable for the suppliers will be made confidential so they are hidden from you – like teaching materials.
The best two ways to empower people is to give users (customers/ patients) ownership of the service interaction by 1) removing all rules about users’ choice of provider and giving them complete freedom of choice, and 2) allowing providers to charge and enabling less well off users to pay, eg., by vouchers or insurance, so that users determine the flow of funds within the service providers and to engender a marketing and service orientation among providers.
I cannot see any of that being acceptable to public service unions and therefore not an option for a weak government, which is all the Conservative Party can offer since it lacks at its core an accepted philosophy of conservative government on which the party can base policies in the national interest. So it is quite unable to stand up to vested interests from the unions to the woke to the EU. Its policies are designed to generate headlines and fool voters long enough to gain votes but they lack substance and are thus ineffective. I’d be very pleased to be proven wrong but I am not hopeful. We are now hearing of tax cuts not because the party believes in low taxes, pace Sir John and Jacob Rees-Mogg, but because a general election is expected in 2024, after which it will be back to big state and high taxes as it was when Sunak was Chancellor.
October 2, 2023
The trouble with Sunak is that he IS the past. He will indelibly be associated with the pandemic of lies that surround the last three years. School closures, business closures, lock downs, furlough, eat out to help out, billions in fraudulent business loans, money printing on an industrial scale and the resulting inflation, poorly tested ‘vaccines’, jab mandates, failure to recognise the harms from those same jabs.
Complete failure to stop illegal migration and allowing massive legal migration.
Failure to recognise that ACC, global warming and NZ are entirely fraudulent.
Highest taxation in seventy years!
October 2, 2023
He should pledge that Northern Ireland will be restored to its proper position within the United Kingdom, not left behind as a kind of buffer zone or condominium or vassal statelet or EU colony or protectorate.
I have a letter in the Belfast News Letter today, headed “The DUP is holding out for mythical assurances”:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/letter-rather-than-press-for-relevant-export-controls-jeffrey-donaldson-is-holding-out-for-mythical-assurances-on-the-constitutional-position-4355445
“The DUP MP Sammy Wilson is of course right to object to the Irish Sea border, but what is the alternative? Dublin and Brussels long ago rejected out of hand the idea of āmutual enforcementā espoused by his party.
In August last year I sent Sir Jeffrey Donaldson an outline scheme for the operation of UK export controls to apply necessary EU checks and controls just to the trickle of goods destined to cross the border into the Irish Republic. He never responded to explain why the DUP is not prepared to press for such a scheme, a practical solution which the UK could set up unilaterally, and so demonstrate that there is a feasible alternative to the protocol. Instead he is holding out for some mythical ālegislative assurancesā about the constitutional position of the province, which in fact could no more resist āsubjugationā by a future Act of Parliament than the Act of Union itself.
Now we have got to the point of small shopkeepers having to deal with complex EU rules which should only affect actors who intend to export goods to the Republic, could he not lend his weight to finding a better solution?”
October 3, 2023
It seems to me that Donaldson and Heaton -Harris have agreed to live in the same make-believe world.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-hopeful-deal-revive-northern-133921189.html
“Heaton-Harris said the government was closing in on a legislative fix that would strengthen Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
“Some legislation is going to be involved, I believe that is needed,” Heaton-Harris said in an interview at the governing Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester.
“There are a whole host of different things we can do where government has to take into account the position of Northern Ireland and indeed all the nations of the union,” he said, adding that when the government considered any piece of legislation, it should make sure “it enhances the union”.
“There are lots of different ways of doing it, so that’s why I want to make sure I get it completely right,” he said, declining to give an details of the measures the government was considering or a time frame for the talks.”
I know, we could call it the “Act of Union” … except according to this chap:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/letter-letter-unionism-has-made-itself-clear-its-either-the-protocol-or-power-sharing-not-both-4356149
“The proposals on the table by the Government are, to be brutally honest, a joke. A statutory instrument creating a vague duty not to further diminish the Acts of Union does nothing to cure the damage already done, and in any event would still be subject to the all conquering section 7A of the EUWA 2018 (the conduit pipe through which the Protocol Framework flows) and therefore if the new secondary legislation ran up against the Protocol Framework, it would have to give way.
It is therefore purely symbolic (and even symbolically itās nonsense) and utterly worthless.”
And whatever happens with this worthless “fix” Northern Ireland will still be partly ruled by the EU, all goods production being according to EU Single Market rules, and its place in the UK will not be fully restored.
October 4, 2023
Unbelievable.
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-meets-northern-ireland-tories-but-says-nothing-about-windsor-framework-4358658
“Mr Heaton-Harris said: āNow we are here because we are Conservatives and Unionists and this party is unionist to its core, it is British, and we recognise that this special place, Northern Ireland, is integral to the United Kingdom, as British as Finchley as one famous lady once said …”
Finchley has not been left behind still subject to swathes of EU laws.
October 2, 2023
5% + fall in house prices for the year I note such is economic confidence. But in real terms this is more like 12% down with inflation. Landlords and property owners are losing Ā£billions and yet, thanks to the dire George Osborne, they will still have to pay income tax on āprofitsā they have not even mad (as they cannot deduct all their interest costs). What are they to pay this tax with exactly more borrowings I assume? No wonder we have such a shortage of properties to rent.
October 3, 2023
+1
I’m now having to pay tax on rentals out of my already taxed salary as i don’t make enough profit to pay the tax…i.e. i’m having to subsidise my tenants….i’d love to sell but here in the NE some of the properties i purchased in 2002 are worth less than i paid…if i sold them then i’d still owe on them and have no income from them to pay off the balance…it’s madness
October 2, 2023
He could always quote Quintin Hogg? ( Chairman of Conservative Party 1959)
“Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself”.
Words like āfreeā and āhuman natureāsound very nice to me. Better than ālockdownā and everything for the sake of the blinking planet. In order to reach this point we were obliged to conquer the planet. It was never all that friendly to us! Better than .Mars I guess but still pretty hostile.
October 2, 2023
It will all depend on his WEF minders. I heard him evading questions on HS2 and tax cuts.
Whatever he promises it will only be to garner votes and then cancelled in the unlikely event of a win at the next election.
No one believes a word he says.
October 2, 2023
Your party can take no credit for Brexit. At every turn it has tried to reverse it or water it down. I cannot think of one benefit it has brought to the British people over the time it has been in power. Education has been taken over by the left wing nutters, cancel culture is rife, taxes are at an all time high, immigration is out of control and your net zero policies will be the death of our economy. Politicians should hang their heads in shame as they have managed to destroy our country in just one generation.
October 2, 2023
I would like him to announce that anyone who has not lived here for 5 years may not receive any form of government assistance including health and schooling.
I would like him to announce the rolling back of “hate speech” legislation.
I would like him to announce that X (formerly Twitter) is not life and his government will not pay heed to its trends.
I would like him to confirm that Child benefit is universal so given to all (for two children only) or to none.
I would like him to confirm that tax thresholds will rise in line with inflation while benefits will rise in line only with wages.
I would like him to announce that biology takes precedence.
October 2, 2023
From recent history I would suggest that all we will get in his conference speech is more theatre and more false hopes.
Will he mention how he bravely sold us to the WHO so that in future we will be forced to take vaccines we don’t need or want? Will he talk about how the UK is becoming ever more a dictatorship thanks to the treacherous legislation his government has put in place?
Not likely of course – he will mock us with a fairy story of what could be, to give us a little hope that things will get better, while all the time plotting our demise.
October 2, 2023
He could always refer to the memorable observation of JRM when in his first incarnation as a high profile backbencher, namely “politics should not be about making people’s lives difficult”, and – with a suitable degree of contrition – announce some tangible measures to put this into practice.
October 2, 2023
We need a prime minister who will tackle public sector waste to reduce the national debt, and to secure our borders by returning illegal migrants back to their home countries.
We need a prime minister who will inspire the nation. That’s not Rishi Sunak.
October 2, 2023
“He needs to reassure us that the high levels of taxation are temporary, brought on by covid and the Ukraine war.”
It wouldn’t be true though,would it? The high levels of taxation have been brought on by the cost of paying for our bloated public services. Until the civil service (together with it’s far too generous pensions) is cut down to size then it’s all futile.
October 2, 2023
The government should have set up a sovereign fund on Brexit and put in it each year the money we didn’t send to the EU. That way we could all see the benefit. But they didn’t. They just wanted to waste it.
Maybe however we still send money and they don’t want us to know.
October 2, 2023
The narrowing of the gap with Labour to -10% shows how effective just a few sensible Conservative policies can be. The public has no faith in the flip-flopping humbug of Starmer, whose only definitive policy seems to be to destroy the private education sector, the effect of which would be to harm a small but successful sector of the U.K. economy, to reduce overall educational standards and to load more demand and cost onto the state sector. All for reasons of class war. It is pathetic. Beyond that, Starmer has signalled he would (probably but itās quite vague) re-instate the un-achievable and harmful net zero target, hand control on immigration (and other areas?) back to the EU by allowing them to dump migrants at will, spend a bit more on more or less everything and not cut anything, so increasing taxes and borrowing even further, and remove the legal constraints on militant unionism.
If there really is to be a change of direction there is everything to play for. Starmer and his coalition of left-green zealots would be a disaster and the minor parties, the Lib Dems the Scottish and Welsh nationalists etc, are a bad joke.
October 2, 2023
Will he mention the war?
October 2, 2023
Oh good!!
He seems to have vetoed Schappsā plan!
Well done PM!
October 3, 2023
People have questioned why Schapps,with no relevant experience,was appointed Defence Secretary.He let slip a little detail about his family background during his speech on Sunday that suggests his candidature would have pleased the US neo-cons;perhaps they even promoted his candidature.
October 2, 2023
I will not be voting for any party that supports Net Zero.
There is no climate emergency/crisis/breakdown caused by emissions of either natural or anthropogenic CO2. The science of Happer & Wijngaarden, never refuted by the IPCC, simply ignored, shows that doubling our current level of atmospheric CO2 has a negligible warming effect. Even the IPCC WG1 cannot find any worsening weather. Only a benign increase in temperature, currently around 0.4 degrees C per decade and some melting of lake, river and sea ice. See table 12.12 on p1873.
Useful figures to be found in the Royal Societyās new publication āLarge scale Electricity Storageā where by 2050 the Net Zero Strategy will mean cutting our energy usage by 82% for heating and 80% for transport, despite an increase in population of at least 15-20 million. The report also says that the National Grid are looking to cut electrical energy by 56% of average demand as and when there is insufficient power from the unreliable and chaotically intermittent renewables.
As I write the 28 GW of installed wind capacity is producing just 3.3 GW of power.
Neither will I be voting for a party supporting mass immigration.
October 2, 2023
ā After 5 years of a Coalition government and 8 years of a Conservative one he must not trash the past and can be proud of some achievements.ā
Hmmm. It has been an increasingly disastrous spell in charge. Breakdown in many public services, failure to deliver a true Brexit, squandering of funds during lockdown, the rigid adoption of net zero, money and effort wasted on a war in Ukraine, etc.
The only consolation is that it was not all on Sunakās watch. Others were also guilty.
As for the future, nobody will believe any promises. All credibility is long gone.
October 2, 2023
When you say “He began the fight back over the last two weeks” you do not mean delaying the ban on ICE powered vehicles to exactly match the delay previously announced by the Evil Empire do you?
I was going to say we do not need or want another speech but perhaps we do, to offer an entertaining distraction amidst policy failure and inaction whilst much around us ceases to deliver as once it could be relied upon to do. Will Mr. Sunak delight us with echoing a succession of Home Secretaries in professing to be “absolutely determined” to stop the dinghy traffic?
October 3, 2023
The cost of insuring EVs has effectively scuppered them. Time to move on like the āheat pumpsā which are mentioned less and less. Houses with air-source heat pumps at a big disadvantage in the market because nobody wants luke warm water at best! Another big waste of money caused by the magical thinkers of Westminster.
October 2, 2023
Meanwhile Lord Cruddas and his Conservative Democratic Organisation ( CDO) is telling donors to withhold funds until power is returned to members and careerist chancers are not installed as MPs, ministers and PMs.
Good luck with that.
OCD because they have an odd behavioural quirk where they repeatedly elect people and parties who always let them down and fail to deliver on promises?
October 3, 2023
Thatās the way it always was done. This party-machine-cantered way of selecting the House has not been a success. Look at them ā¦
October 2, 2023
“Looking forward to the huge opportunities ahead” – is the part that get’s me.
October 3, 2023
And me.Russia and China are rapidly constructing a new world order based on an alternative financial and trading system.The UK is excluded from that-or rather has excluded itself from that.Putting your hopes on the likes of Australia and New Zealand is a joke.
October 2, 2023
The current PMās previous performance demonstrates he is not a suitable person to set this nationās future.
We need a competent Right First Time leader, not a repeated bungler correcting his own needless mistakes at our expense whom the Conservative membership never even supported to be leader in the first place.
October 2, 2023
The PM, a speech, another speech, an all to often phrase spun to hide failure. But guess what more years of inaction and costs to the Taxpayer. 13 years of squander opportunity, 13 years of increase punishment and costs on a Nation, 13 years of No Delivery. The Sunak/Hunt duo have trashed the economy, caused a massive rise in inflation and interest rate ā the best they can do is blame others. They need to look in the mirror
From today’s Telegraph – āWallace told Sunak to give Ā£2bn more to Ukraineā
Sunak has yet to give the Ukraine a single penny. He has however managed to steal our(Taxpayers) money and thrown here there and everywhere with out seeking a return.
October 2, 2023
Some Conservative Get It – the Socialist WEF in power has nothing to do with Countries Conservatives
Rishi Sunak was facing a full-scale revolt in his party last night after a gala dinner in Manchester saw a former party donor call on fellow millionaires to defund the party.
Lord Cruddas was speaking at the gala dinner of the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), a grassroots organisation set up to take back control of the party in the wake of the coup which saw Rishi Sunak installed as leader by MPs.
October 2, 2023
It would be fatal to offer jam tomorrow. Accepting that the timing of tangible improvement to the life of the man on the 39 bus is very hard to predict, that same man needs to see the trucks full of jam on the road and heading in his direction.
This means a tax regime that is geared to industrial expansion, that positively rewards investment. A parallel reduction in the Whitehall civil service with hire and fire control of the same, starting with all the diversity woke nonesense. Then deal with the individual tax situation. IHT must go in its entirety. Raise the none payment threshold to Ā£20,000 and pensions to Ā£20,000. Balance it by removing all or most of the dependency allowances and just as important the people who administer it. Remove the barriers to home ownership like stamp duty and revolutionise the mortgage industry by offering 50 year fixed interest loans. The sort government thrives on.
Depart the ECHR and organise flights followed by shiploads of illegals to Rwanda and places whence they came. Remove legal aid from the parasitic element of the legal profession. It needs to be at a level that destroys the business model of illegal trafficking.
Ensure that the Windsor framework is hassle free for the UK citizens of Northern Ireland. If the EU does not like it be very clear that retalliation can work in both directions.
Be rigorous in enforcing fishing limits.
In practise drop Nett Zero, an undemocratic pillow policy. Give guidance as to direction but leave the detail to the market.
Accept that SMRs and other atomic generation is ten years away. Maximise extraction of oil, gas, coal, but change the business model so that UK consumers are prioritised and get energy at cost plus distribution cost plus profit. Radically reduce the rapacious tax take.
Compensate for the reduced tax take by reducing state spending drastically starting with the top heavy administration of the NHS.. State spending has in effect put most of the people of the UK into Intensive care. Additionally what might have been spent on northern extensions of HS2, should be spent on electrification and modern signaling of existing northern railways. Investigate the cost of ending HS2 itself.
The above might give you a chance in 2024. Folkow the Hunt line and you are toast. Reform are waiting.
October 2, 2023
High levels of taxation were not brought on by covid but by deliberate government action to impose lockdowns and other authoritarian restrictions whilst borrowing massive amounts of money, despite the obvious consequences. Actions never seen before and which cannot be satisfactorily explained as a responsible response to a virus. We live in a time when we have elected representatives acting as puppets for a globalist cabal intent on controlling people and impoverishing them for their own benefit. This must be resisted.
October 2, 2023
It’s a sad reflection on the current state of the party that policies that you recommend were once mainstream party policy, and yet today, you seem to be regarded by many of your own MPs as an extremist, pushing dangerous
economic policies they will not support. The jury is still out on Sunak, but it’s worrying that Hunt is viewed as the best choice for Chancellor. Bring on a Nigel Lawson, I say.
We desperately need a clear out and for Constituency parties to select many more candidates with views similar to your own ( and most of us posting here ! ).
October 2, 2023
General query, are comments ever shown to the wider audience or are they simply retained out of interest?
I seem unable to access any comments from any of the readers? Maybe there are none, or maybe I am missing something?
October 2, 2023
It will take some reassuring from the PM that the highest level of tax since WWII is solely(or the major factors) due to Covid and the Ukraine war, but not the Conservative Government’s management of the economy. How the Government managed and responded to the above two events can be questioned in terms of cost to the tax payer ( if one can ignore the death and destruction in Ukraine which is now a re-run of WW1 trench warfare and loss on the Ukraine side with no gain).
So high Tax burden Nothing to do with HS2, Net-zero, immigration, poor Brexit deal with the EU, NHS, the Bank of England losses, etc. etc ?
October 2, 2023
We are putting the personal allowance on the tax code up to Ā£13,300.
Figure out a way to allow a higher earning man or woman to transfer over the amount of their earnings over Ā£50,000 to his legal partner before tax and ni if she has children under 16 and she then pays tax and ni if it goes over her allowance on self-assessment this account would be set up automatically for ease of processing.
I have decided that those fraudulently applying for grants during covid are going to be outsourced for collection to x agency they will keep 50% of what they collect. I am going to increase community service punishment orders based on the new living wage to reflect the cost of the crimes that people are committing. These people will be attached to voluntary organisations and charity projects as well as council teams to pay back in the community where the crimes are committed.
October 2, 2023
All sensible stuff JR, but it will not happen.
Simple fact is there are now far too many people living in our Country for any of the services you mention to cope, so unless a real grip is gained on population growth, then taxes will continue to rise, and services and congestion will get worse.
Just come back from 3 weeks in France, and whilst they have a similar sized population, their land mass is very considerably larger, and it shows as the main arterial roads are less congested, and the road surfaces on all main roads are miles better than in the Uk.
Arrived back in the UK last Night to be welcomed by miles of cones, roadworks, and tailbacks on the M20, M25 jammed up as a Junction was Closed, after a free running congestion free 900 mile drive on the French Motorways and main roads for 2 days. Less fuel and emissions used in France per mile, as the car ran more efficiently due to a constant speed being maintained with the lack of congestion.
October 2, 2023
all I have heard so far is more of the usual political bubble nonsense
more powers to the state to take money from men and give it to females, without any due process, and you want me to vote for Conservatives?
the winning policies are obvious but they do not include more dumbing down of the justice system with rubbish like the financial ombudsman service rolled out to other parts of our life
neither does it include more dumbing down of medicine with PA’s allowed to carry out surgical procedures, how exactly do they expect to motivate potential surgeons with nonsense like this?
mad, bad, poor quality ruling class there for all to see
October 2, 2023
It is still doom and gloom from Manchester . There is little hope that anything will be said or promised that the months ahead will change the economic scene . Hunt has already announced that taxation cannot and will not be loosened and Sunak is sticking to his plot . Citizens are being badly let down by those presently in charge and I cannot see any possibility of change . Starmer must be rubbing his hands in glee at this and the EU laughing their socks off .
October 2, 2023
Oh dear me!
No mobile phone?
We used to go to the secretaryās office and USE THE LANDLINE!
October 2, 2023
It is being reported that our Armed Forces are being told to use transgender pronouns and indoctrinated about ‘white privilege’. Who is driving this? If the Government are not in favour then why are the senior officers responsible not being cashiered?
October 2, 2023
So we are paying higher taxes to further Tory warmongering in Ukraine instituted by the US State department . As for Covid, it has now been alleged that this was a bio-weapon designed to slow China’s rate of growth; it certainly worked not only in China but everywhere in the West. The US Defense Intelligence Agency became ‘aware’ of the viral outbreak in Wuhan a month before China itself became aware that it had a unique respiratory disease outbreak. Other explanations are bats. The only upside is for the pharmaceutical manufacturers who have made a killing out of ‘vaccines’ for which they have demanded and been given blanket immunity by the Tory Party for the sudden deaths and grievous side-effects experienced by some otherwise in the prime of life.
October 2, 2023
Cur K Stammerās New race equality proposal! Despite the subject being covered by the Equalities Act.
Is the left stirring the race pot?
October 2, 2023
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you actually wrote the PM’s speech?
However, I fear that will never come to pass as Downing Street plans are etched in stone and SJ’s new propoals to get this country back into growth and prosperity would become “unrealistic”, thus another Downing Street untruth.
Surely, this multi-millionaire PM must have the intelligence to realise his current policies will not help this country out of the mire of huge debts, costing us taxpayers near Ā£100 Billion per year in interest payments (around the combined budgets for the MoD and Education) at the same time suffering inflation and a rise in the cost of living as well as enormous increases in taxation? The maths do not add up, do they?
October 2, 2023
Letās see whether he mentions that economic growth depends on small businesses being freed from the huge tax and regulatory burdens which his government has imposed on them.
October 3, 2023
Yes, but if those small businesses were still in the EU and they run a transit-size vehicle they’d all need an O licence with qualifications to drive and operate it.
If small businesses create a product that could be sold worldwide and they don’t seek out those opportunities, whose fault if that now that channels have been opened for them?
October 2, 2023
Even if he did talk in the terms you suggest… why would anyone believe him?
His nut zero announcements have not become actual change e.g. the sales targets for ICE cars are still in place – unless the planned fines on manufacturers are removed, the situation stays the same.
His record in power is awful (including as Chancellor), no sensible person is going to believe a word he says.
October 3, 2023
This is Sunak’s most significant problem ‘trust’ when you stab someone in the back, how can anyone else trust you?
Starmer’s got the same problem with his Corbyn fanatics.
October 2, 2023
Indonesia high-speed railway Ā£5.9bn
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66979810
UK high-speed two Ā£106bn
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/hs2-timeline-issues-delays-costs-history-government-b1064523.html
Need I say more ?
October 3, 2023
Effectively built by China.Indonesia will most probably join BRICS+ next year during Russia’s Presidency when up to a further 10 countries will be added to the original five – plus the six that are joining at the end of this year.Watch for more announcements at next month’s Belt and Road summit.
Also,there are intergovernmental meetings underway,currently, in Moscow between Russia and North Korea.The resulting deals will be announced when Mr Putin visits Pyongyang at a date to be decided;Foreign Minister Lavrov will visit there shortly to lay the groundwork and I’m sure the event will be a spectacular piece of theatre(Trump will be green with envy!).I wonder if Mr Putin will arrive by armoured train-perhaps using Stalin’s(if it still exists)-that would be making an entrance!
October 3, 2023
Still Ā£103bn cheaper than hs2
October 2, 2023
or ā¦.
tell us how, after making things worse for people for years, we now miraculously want to make things better.
October 3, 2023
If you focus on the top three things, you feel the conservatives have made worse specifically for you, what are they?
What could they do to overturn them? Is another party offering to do it?
October 2, 2023
The first thing the PM’s conference speech should say is that he has sacked Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor. Whenever JH says there is no room for tax cuts, he loses a few hundred thousand votes. It is surely his job to make room for tax cuts by cutting the massive waste in Government spending. Having sacked this negative Chancellor, he should appoint Sir John with a brief to find at least 200 billion of savings, of which half will be used to cut taxes for private citizens and businesses and the other half used to reduce our national debt. The second thing the PM should say is with immediate effect, the UK will pursue energy and food security relentlessly. The third thing he should say is he is removing the legal requirement for the UK to achieve Net Zero and all legislation relating to it. He should state that when China, India and the US put a Net Zero target into their law, the UK will do
the same. I could list a few things to save that Ā£200 billion, but you want short comments so I will leave it there.
October 3, 2023
The Navy is busy organising pronoun and micro aggressive training when not sailing sitting duck aircraft less aircraft carriers when their propellers are working. Let’s sack the MOD and chief officers. There are more of them than ships.
October 2, 2023
It would appear that our privatised water companies would like to increase their consumer prices to get enough money for help them invest and meet the āfutureā challenges of water shortages and sewage leaks.
One can wonder why that had not started after 1989.
October 3, 2023
hefner
Water bills rose by 40% above inflation between 1989 and 2015.
Source National Audit Office.
Most of that increase was in the early years after privatisation.
Since 1989 the water industry has invested over Ā£130 billion in better services.
Industry regulator OFWAT has capped recent prices ruling that bills should fall by 5% in real terms between 2014/15 and 2019/20.
The chair of the National Infrastructure Commission said the water companies request for increased prices in their business plans for 2025/30 were ” probably not unrealistic”.
October 3, 2023
Why don’t you write to them hefner?
October 2, 2023
Whilst you have the opportunity this week can you please highlight to your colleagues the dangers that the changes to the WHO declaration poses. Are you all asleep at the wheel? Don’t you understand that if Sunak doesn’t send his letter to opt out of this before December then we will lose a massive amount of sovereignty to this corrupt, unelected cabal that is controlled by the Chinese and the big corporations? People voted for a debate on this, where is it? Have you politicians not learned your lesson about giving away control and our money to these mad greedy people? You did the same with climate change that gave us COP and net zero. Please wake up.
October 3, 2023
WHO: The Petition to Parliament 635904 closes today & is still gathering signatures. Thousands added just in the last few days. Still waiting for a date for debate – if there ever is one. 115961 signed – last time I looked -as of this evening. Please don’t let this be another thing just shoved under the carpet.
October 2, 2023
Sir John
āHe needs to reassure us that the high levels of taxation are temporary, brought on by Covidā that’s a bit of a stretch and wouldn’t be true.
From the ONS & OBR
UK general government gross debt was Ā£2,365.4 billion at the end of Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2022, equivalent to 99.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).
In addition in 2022/23, UK government raised over Ā£1,017 billion in receipts again a 44% – ish increase since achieving office.
UK debt has risen every year since the Conservatives took office, it is now 50% greater than under Labour ā this is just the debt. Most of the debt was incurred before Covid. No attempt to balance the books before or after the Covid situation.
Our 2 Chancellors(Sunak/Hunt) have caused the greatest upsurge in cost and inflation, they have wreaked the economy instead of growing it to fund a future. This of course is backed up by a reckless wayward BoE that caused exponential interest rate rises. Between them they have punished the Nation more than has been seen in at least 2 generations. They have also spent(actual just given away) more in peacetime than of their predecessors. Even more galling the return on spend, the service offered and what has been delivered has been less than any of their predecessors have achieved.
The State just keep growing and failing to deliver- that is all down to Conservative Governments refusal to manage.
They are prolific spenders and bad managers.
October 2, 2023
The easiest way to pay down debt, is to increase income. The easiest way to reduce the need for debt is to manage the books.
Basic school pupil economics
The Sunak/Hunt way is to just blame others, and spend money they don’t have and have no way of causing it to be earned.
There could be another pandemic around the corner, but if you have no economy you automatically fail.
As it is famously said time and time again ‘Its the economy stupid’
October 3, 2023
IanB oh for goodness sake, this government with its 80 majority hasn’t used that majority to seek the changes we want; they have delays and given in to the left time after time. But lets remember the state of the Country in 2008 when the Banks nearly took us and all our savings, homes and businesses down in a worldwide bust, aided by Brown copying other Countries specifically America in open season borrowing without the previous debt-to-earning ratios being maintained.
you don’t just recover from that in a couple of years, just as recovering from a lockdown of the Country won’t take anyone just a couple of years. I didn’t want lockdown the majority did. We are where we are.
October 2, 2023
I have much more faith in your analysis than in the Prime Ministerās willingness to deliver it. I think he has been bought off by the enemies of our country. I will not vote Conservative again while he is PM.
Most of Liz Trussās critics are āconservativeā in name only. They should do the decent thing and join the LibDems or some other equally socialist party, of which there seem to be a number around. Her economics make sense, even if the way she tried to implement her policies was crass – but that was predictable.
John Redwood for Prime Minister!
October 2, 2023
Unless the Tories focus on the following, the Tory Conference is pretty much a waste of time:
1) How to attract higher quality MPs, with proper business experience, into the party and government.
2) How to increase healthy, traditional Conservative values (of work ethic, sense of responsibility for self, family values, patriotism and so on) in society in general including in Education, Health, the Arts and Media (saving the country billions and billions in terms of Productivity and better Health – both mental and physical and more – and reducing immigration as far more people able to work and work well).
3) How to encourage more people to eat more healthily and take more exercise (saving the country billions in terms of Productivity and better Health – both mental and physical and more – and reducing immigration as far more people able to work and work well).
October 2, 2023
And how to help turn Cambridge area into Europe’s Silicon Valley.
October 3, 2023
24 Aug 2022 ā Calls for a halt on any further developments in Cambridgeshire.
I don’t think the locals would like it. Infrastructure only comes after the homes and businesses bring in the money. Some places up North don’t complain about these expansions and good work opportunities.
October 4, 2023
‘Some places up North donāt complain about these expansions and good work opportunities’ – but that’s not going to work / not how it works.
High Tech companies only go to places that’s a DESTINATION. A destination that is: 1) A COOL place to live and work (with plenty of good housing and roads and transport already there (which government has to help in) 2) High quality university nearby.
Sorry, but there is NO destination up north that is nearly as good as Cambridge as a destination for High Tech companies to go to. Plus Cambridge is relatively close to London.
‘Infrastructure only comes after the homes and businesses bring in the money’ – NO! It’s NOT that black and white! Sure, what you say is true to a degree. But it’s a gradual growth of government investment in improving local infrastructure, which makes the area a bit more attractive to high tech companies, then more high tech companies come and invest, then more houses are built, then government invests more in local infrastructure and so on …
Lastly, a fast-speed, underground (for a lot of the way – and the tech for cheap underground building and construction is now becoming more and more a reality) train from London to Cambridge, bringing the cost down to Chinese rates (as low as Ā£5 Billion – in reality that’s not possible but already it’s going to be way cheaper, anyway, than HS2). And an iconic, red double-decker train as well with an interesting platform in London to greet travellers from London to Cambridge. And you could then get from London to Cambridge, by train, with 15 minutes.
That’s a plan (not perfect – needs a lot of work to be more precise). At least far more interesting and precise and a lot cheaper than the HS2 to Birmingham …
(And locals would benefit – house prices would rocket / shoot up, plus better jobs for all).
October 5, 2023
Durham
October 5, 2023
Cool places to live up North. Tricky ācause Southerners keep all the spoils, the cultural activities often with highest subsidies, arts, museums, transport.
Hale Barns, Bowdon, Prestbury, Alderley Edge near Manchester are cool. Manchester University is a Russell Group.
Chester and York have some cool places.
October 2, 2023
BBC Politics Live today a Tory MP actually said that they werenāt forcing people to buy Heat Pumps or EVs, its only that after 2035 youāll have to buy one, if you want a new one ā¦..what communist planet are the tories on !
October 2, 2023
The best thing for him to say is that heās going to resign but as I expect he wonāt and he and Hunt will go into the election with the same economic policies as Labour, except slightly less growth-oriented, I might as well vote for them instead as a means of removing the two of them and hopefully replacing them with some Conservatives.
Bizarre logic from Hunt today – he wonāt cut taxes because weād just spend the money and fuel inflation so the best way of giving us more money is to cut inflation. Leaving aside the fact that itās the BoE who manage inflation not Hunt why wonāt that approach lead to us āspending moreā too ?
October 3, 2023
I see the generous announcement of an increased minimum wage paid for by the small businesses who are overtaxed to the point of destruction.
Any more of this governments generosity and we will all call it quits.
John Bull – I pay for all!
October 3, 2023
I’m hearing people saying, why bother carrying on, our business estate is full of empty properties. Thatcher’s entrepreneurs, with a Tory government giving them higher dividend taxes, reduced dividend allowance, higher corporation tax, and when Labour get in, higher sick pay, higher rates, longer holidays to cover, no employment flexibility at all, a bring back of tribunal rights from day 1, if you think things are bad now (and all of these extra costs are biting now, a slow down of work, bigger wage bills), listen to the other side and everyone will think great but who is going to create these perfect jobs for them more State = more taxes.
October 3, 2023
Hunt’s claim that tax cuts fuel inflation is wrong – he is either disingenuous or he does not understand the basics. Either is good reason for him to be replaced with someone who does know what they’re doing.
The fact is that the government doesn’t want to cut spending, because they will be accused by Labour of the usual “nasty Tory” stuff. And with an election coming up, they don’t want that – also, if Labour win it, as seems likely, they want to saddle Labour with a position where they have no sensible way to spend more (not that that would stop them).
In the past, Labour has inherited a healthy position and proceeded to spend wildly to leave an unhealthy position for the next Tory govt, who are then unpopular by doing what’s necessary to fix it. This time… they may inherit a mess and have a tough time doin anything very socialist – or even looking competent.
The trouble is, we’re all paying for this. Our lives are being trashed while dim people play politics.