Next week the Chancellor presents his Autumn Statement.
It is important he starts to cut taxes. The Conservative party must be the party of lower taxation. It needs to do that as well as say that. It has two main opportunities left before theĀ next General election. It should start now on the downward path of tax rates and numbers of taxes.
It is important he tells the Bank of England to stop selling so many bonds at big losses. The European central Bank who made the same inflationary mistake as the Bank of England in printing too much money and buying too many bonds, is not making the same mistake of selling them too soon at huge losses. Hold the bonds to redemption and the losses will be smaller. Selling bonds now gives us higher mortgage rates, as forcing the price of bonds down puts the rate of interest up. The bond portfolio is fully indemnified against loss by the Treasury whose permission is needed for it. Why do taxpayers have to pay those big losses?
It is important to cut taxes that boost output and or help bring down inflation faster. The tax cuts need to help the self employed, where we have lost 800,000 this decade. Remove the 2017 and 2021 IR 35 Income Tax changes. Boost output by raising the VAT threshold for small businesses so they can expand further. Cut taxes on energy and on petrol and diesel to push prices down.
The Treasury wrongly thinks tax cuts are inflationary. If youĀ pay for them by cutting the growth in public spending they are not inflationary. If you get enough revenue in from the extra growth they are not inflationary. If you borrow money through selling more bonds they are not inflationary. What was inflationary was to have a surge of public spending along with massive money creation and bond buying.
Indeed, helping creating more business capacity to supply more goods and services cuts inflation. Taking taxes off energy cuts inflation.
November 18, 2023
Good news for the Chancellor in the Telegraph today.
Researchers have underestimated the rate at which carbon is absorbed by plants. This means that the run away greenhouse effect wonāt happen. Global warming in their unconsciously biased models will not be catastrophic but rather pleasant.
Iām also sure many other assumptions have been made by the climate modellers who would in effect be turkeys voting for Christmas if it turned out their modelling was wrong.
Climate Scientists are now in a process of retreat as reality is dawning all those who have fallen for their scam. Perhaps the pandemic scam or buying up farmland scam has now attracted investors.
The Chancellor can now drop all the green taxes and focus on a clean environment for the wildlife which is what he should have been doing all the time.
November 18, 2023
Javelin, you must be joking. The climate scam is intended to bankrupt us small people.
Only yesterday the department on non energy policy announced another Ā£8 billion of subsidy for building more useless windmills.
Fishy and Hunt will do nothing to help the economy apart from Importing another million bodies each year.
They have no ideas and they are controlled by foreigners. They’re just marking time to hand over the baton to the next WEF gangsters.
November 18, 2023
Very nicely summed up.
After deliberately wrecking the economy they seem to think they can throw taxpayers a few crumbs and they’ll dutifully put their X to be CONNED again. Isn’t going to happen this time; their own long-standing voter-base has deserted them.
November 18, 2023
Why does this rotten Tory party want to give a foreign body OECD or similar the ability to set UK tax rates? Please explain JR. It is in most papers today. Why does your rotten party want to give away UK sovereignty to WHO for lock downs etc which will wreck our economy? We voted LEAVE the EU to regain control of our money, laws and borders. You claimed this many times. Your rotten party is still doing the opposite!! It has deliberately tried to stop Brexit at every move and tying UK to EU even now, ie Snakeās Windsor EU sell out. How does UK, including N.Ireland get out of VAT? Your rotten party tied N. Ireland to EU deliberately to shackle them and Great Britain to EU. Tell us if this is not the case.
November 18, 2023
The meaning of that saying about feeding the crocodile in the hope youāll be eaten last is becoming very clear.
Judging by the state of our streets and law enforcement The Last Supper isnāt far off.
And that kind of fits in with the vast betrayal we have all witnessed.
Except that we didnāt even get a kissā¦just a whole lot of blows.
November 18, 2023
Indeed.
A typical PPE graduate Hunt gets the cart before the horse.
āThe best way we can reduce the tax burden for everyone is to grow the economyā he says. No mate the best way we can grow the economy is to cut taxes (and ditch net zero, cut the vast government waste, have a bonfire or red tap, relax employments laws, relax planning, stop blocking the roads, get fair competition between state and private in education, transport, housing, healthcareā¦). Hunts and Sunak policies are hugely anti-growth.
We also want growth in purchasing power parity per capita. Open door immigration reduces this and makes people poorer. As does the governmentās idiotic deluded religious energy policy.
November 18, 2023
Indeed the climate scam is economic and scientific luancy.
Hunt seems to be indicating a tiny cut in the IHT tax rate from 40% to 30% this would be a damp squib. No if he is to cut it he really need to abolish it fully or at least bring in the Ā£1 million threshold Osborne promised then Osborne to Sunak and Hunt all ratted on and that Ā£1 million, in real terms, is now more like Ā£1.5 million. But the real priorities are to cut out the vast government waste, cut all taxes overall, ditch net zero & stop the low skilled and vastly expensive immigration.
Also stop all the soft loans for worthless degrees about 75% are not remotely worth the Ā£50k of debt and three+ years loss of earnings that they cost.
November 18, 2023
Cutting IHT rates from 40% to 30% might save a very few people 10-15% of their inheritance if they happen to be a beneficiary who dies in the few months before Labour reverse it. If doing anything Hunt needs to abolish it completely and kill the whole IHT avoidance industry. Let them do something more productive and useful instead.
November 18, 2023
I agree with almost everything you say, LL but to you and all those posting here calling for us to desert the Conservative party, that would be a drastic mistake.
Under our FPTP electoral system, it would take at least two parliamentary terms, and more likely three, to get a new party like Reform into a position where it could compete and displace the Conservatives. However, all that would achieve is to keep Labour in perpetual power because the right of centre vote would be split.
The only realistic solution is for all of us of a proper conservative mindset to join our local Conservative party and change it from within. In many cases, we would be kicking at an open door, after all, a majority of party members voted for Liz Truss, certainly not for Sunak and Hunt. It will be necessary to deselect all left of centre Conservative candidates and where there is a vacancy, ensure that a right of centre candidate is selected. We should be reading the Momentum Political Manual !
My MP is Christopher Chope so, other than supporting him, there is little I can do to further the cause.
But, I believe a significant change could be achieved in one term, as long as members choose a candidate for PM capable of real leadership, with right of centre credentials, and a determination to defeat the Left Wing-Remainer Civil Service’s stranglehold on policy.
November 18, 2023
The point is it may take only a handful of Reform seats to hold the other 2 parties to ransom.
They don’t need to get a majority.
November 18, 2023
I agree, with FPTP and the āalways have always will votersā then Reform will probably not win a single seat let alone any power. If Labour get in they will give votes to children to rig the voting system other rigging to perhaps. After Majorās ERM fiasco it took four terms before the Tories had a majority again. I am quite likely to be gone before they get back at that rate. UKIP came first in the EU elections ahead of Labour and the Conservatives (as these were on a PR basis) so then people could vote as they wished to vote & not as FPTP effectively forced them to vote.
November 19, 2023
Cameron made it clear local associations do not have the power that was taken away to given a choice of three socialist remainers!! Wake up Chris you are 14-15 years out of date.
You stupidly vote for Tory expect them to think you want more of the same from the last 14 years!! Read what Plebgate Mitchell, Cameronās No.2, said about immigration and feeding Africa. He is absolutely unfit for office in every way and nothing like a conservative. He is happy to give billions of our taxes to an African organisation to spend how it likes. Feeding Africa will magically stop immigration- utter dope. Oh, he throws in climate change as well for a totally good measure of stupidity. With a80 seat majority Snake could only find Cameron to appoint as foreign secretary! Cameron would only appoint former Labour. I is tears as advisers including nutty EU fanatic Odonis! You might have noticed the cabinet is full of extreme left wing EU remainers, united they are all saying at the moment! Keep banging your head your and you might find it still hurts in 14 years time.
November 18, 2023
I went to check the calendar – it isn’t April 1st today.
November 18, 2023
With Sunak it’s April 1st every day.
November 18, 2023
I’d love to think you’re right, Javelin. Unfortunately we know from the Neil Ferguson experience that for computer modellers getting forecasts wrong in no way damages their career prospects. This man wrote the report that British policy-makers relied on for their lockdown horror show. It hasn’t done him any harm.
November 19, 2023
They first tried to claim he left employ of govt. Handcock was astonished, yet he was doing the same as Ferguson acting in Stark contrast to their apocalyptic warnings and putting their own family in danger, if you believed what they were saying. Who does that?
November 18, 2023
Nature always acts to reach equilibrium. One of the first lessons in science is that increasing the concentration of a component in a reaction increases the overall rate of reaction. Nature adds to this by adapting itself; barring extinction, wildlife tends to regrow faster in adversity.
We can worry on the fringes of our environment. Clearly ridding our environment of airborne asbestos and other harmful particulates leads to better health, but most gas and water deviation from historic norms at ppm levels will self correct over time, and unless imminently harmful to life shouldn’t be of concern.
November 18, 2023
Live old horse and you will get grass!
The green brigade NEVER make mistakes!
November 18, 2023
Why are Climate Scientists in retreat? Is the money drying up? Will they have to find someone else to pay them to provide the ‘evidence’ they want they want to hear for their next money making scam? I doubt it. Too much big money already paid out to admit they were wrong. Too much big money still to be made from the scam.
November 18, 2023
Javelin :
NASA has for years shown satellite data of how the planet is greening resulting in increased crop yields.
The more important research is that by Happer & Wijngaarden showing that there is no global warming caused by increasing levels of CO2 (natural or anthropogenic) because of IR saturation. Happer & Wijngaardenās calculations on the real atmosphere, including water vapour (omitted in the IPCC models), fit perfectly with the measured data above the equator and at Mediterranean latitudes and fit so well that they even show correctly that CO2 COOLS rather than warms above Antarctica.
In this video Professor Happer explains how he and Professor Wijngaarden solved the transfer equation, originally an equation developed by astrophysics to solve how radiation in the centre of a star got out to the surface and then into space:
https://youtu.be/CA8elCE75ns
If climate science was based upon reason then this work of Happer & Wijngaarden would have seen the end of CAGW and the economy destroying Net Zero.
November 18, 2023
At times you are really funny OR. The classic book on āAtmospheric Radiationā was published in 1964 by Richard M. Goody. Most of the people who subsequently developed radiation parametrisations for computing the radiative fluxes at different levels in the atmosphere (up to 137 levels in some present weather forecast (WF) model) as required for example in WF and climate models have, at one stage in their education or professional life, worked with this book or one of its follow-ups in the following decades.
To pretend, as you seem to be doing, that Happer and Wijngaarden are the ones who āsolved the radiative transfer equationā (RTE) is simply risible. Particularly taking into account that the first weather forecast/climate models, including an explicit radiation transfer calculation, have been around since the end of the 1970s, as have been the temperature retrievals from various satellites also operational since the beginning of the 1980s (which require a so-called inversion of the RTE).
S.Manabe shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics with K.Hasselmann and G.Parisi for actual work on the physical modelling of climate and on climate variability. Manabeās original work with a general circulation model started at the end of the 1960s.
I am so sorry not to be able to be as deferential with the unpublished (sorry I should say: unrefereed) works of H&W.
November 18, 2023
The actual study (17/11/2023 Science Advances, 9, 46, doi:10.1126/sciady.adh9444, J.Knauer et al., āHigher global gross primary productivity under future climate with more advanced representations of photosynthesisā) is indeed quite interesting. Unfortunately it does not exactly say what the Telegraph (and Javelin) say.
For one, it is not a climate simulation (as the authors recognise in their āGlobal simulationsā paragraph āAll simulations were performed in offline mode, ie CABLE-POP was not coupled to an atmospheric modelā). The study is using the results of a climate model (in fact two, the IPSL and the HadGEM2 models) to force one so-called terrestrial biosphere model, TBM CABLE-POP, to look at the resulting atmospheric CO2 concentrations when three different biospheric processes are added to the original TBM. These are obviously very useful additions to the TBM making it more realistic.
What is more puzzling is that the authors, to be able to see, reductions in CO2 concentrations by up to 20% had to use the scenario with maximum Representative Concentration Pathway, the so-called RCP8.5) that a majority of atmospheric scientists consider to really be āover the topā.
The study might have had more scientific credibility if it had worked with the more sensible RCP2.6, RCP4.5. But obviously the results would likely have not produced a decrease of CO2 concentration by āup to 20%ā and The Telegraph and the GWPF might not have been able to write dithyrambic articles about such results.
November 19, 2023
Let’s always keep in mind that you and your fellow true believers are obsessing about something that forms just 0.04% of the atmosphere. Also, it didn’t decrease during the world-wide reduction in industrial and travel-based ’emissions’ during the Covid years. Why not, if CO2 concentration is manmade?
November 19, 2023
H2O, roughly 1% of the atmosphere, makes all the āweatherā. The CFCs in their time in the 1980s were at ppm and ppb (part per million, part per billion) and created havoc with the ozone layer (O3 at roughly 10 ppm globally).
Contrary to what you appear to be thinking, concentration is not the full story, radiative and photochemical effects are.
As for your CO2-pandemic point, see earth.jpl.nasa.gov, 20/04/2022 āDid the pandemic slow down climate change?ā including the jpl.nasa.gov āEmission reductions from pandemic had unexpected effects on atmosphereā (accessible from within the first text).
November 18, 2023
I don’t like heresy and guessing.The facts are that trees are being chopped down quicker than new ones are planted . Natural environments for animals are contracting.if there is enough natural vegetation then the O2/CO2 balance should remain intact and other man made factors taken into account.
To start shouting at those who have a different opinion is futile as we won’t be around long enough to see outcomes of the unrelenting expansion of cities and building.
November 18, 2023
āMore quicklyā surely? You are sounding rather like Sunak who even says ālessā for āfewerā, must be a public school Oxford thing? But then I am generally in favour or fewer rules and sensible evolution especially for the many bonkers English spellings.
November 19, 2023
and the ‘amount’ of things instead of the number.
November 18, 2023
The root cause is population. Reduce dramatically to save the planet.
Get the protesters and young people to stop making babies.
The biggest populated countries with the highest birthrate need convincing somehow.
November 18, 2023
Just get on with it for god’ sake. Like a bunch of bloody school children pissing around with your tinkering at the edges.
We need a full frontal assault on Labour’s fascist client state
November 18, 2023
If we have a “fascist client state”, it is nothing to do with Labour. The Conservatives have run this country for the last 13 years and for 31 of the last 44 years
November 18, 2023
WHOSE fascist client state?
November 18, 2023
+++
Yesā¦but lookā¦they canāt even get the police to police even-handedly.
Two tier policingā¦no overarching law.
Orā¦who directs the Met? Is it the HS?
November 18, 2023
I would like to see a large rise in the personal tax allowance. Keeping the lower paid away from the taxman after the parliament caused inflation which took more of the lower paid income is surely the right thing to do. But I wonāt hold my breath. Twisting the narrative to oust yet another who only told the truth and making a failed remainer a peer in order to bring another unelected element to govern us is the last straw for me.
November 18, 2023
If you think people will forgive and vote you back in, then raise the Personal tax and promise more the following year. It might be acceptable to claw some back from the much higher paid to reduce the overall cost.
Lift the VAT registration threshold significantly to assist growth ambitions.
November 18, 2023
Yes, 100% Agree. It’s socially responsible and shows care for the lowest paid. It reduces cost of tax collection, and encourages more people to work for themselves.
November 18, 2023
Tories are in free fall. A shit show with one disaster followed by another with an appalling record on economy, taxation, dire public services, historic debts, historic debt interest, rampant inflation caused by Sunak, mass immigration against public wish and repeated manifestos, contempt for public to thwart Brexit Cameron, May and a host of current MPs allowed to remain in place, foreign policy- bomb Lybia making it a failed state where mass immigration comes from, bomb Syria, cosy up to China, Tobias Elwood and others canāt stop their glee a remainer socialist is back cabinet forcing the direction of their party ever left. Not centralists as claimed, just no conservative at all.
The only good tax cut to date came from the Lib Demās in coalition taking the low paid out of taxation, Hunt and co dragged them back in and dragged ordinary earners into high tax band!! Stamp duty is a tax on an activity! There should be no stamp duty, capital gains deals with profit! There should be no inheritance tax on wealth already taxed! The Tories stopped conservative principles when Cameron came to power in 2010, they just lied and were not āserious in privateā.
November 18, 2023
Proposing cutting inheritence tax (and under the current rules abour 95% of estates pay zero anyway, so won’t benefit) while freezing income tax allowances year after year is very revealing about this government and its priorities.
November 18, 2023
proposing ‘stealth taxes’ should be classed as a criminal offence.
November 18, 2023
PP, what do you expect from a Conservative Government? Updating the tax thresholds with inflation? No, better cut the IHT paid by about 3.73% of UK estates (gov.uk, 26/07/2023, āInheritance tax statistics: Commentaryā).
And the often-used argument that it might impact passing a S(M)E to the next generation is obviously wrong as there exists a 100% IT relief on family business provided that the present owner makes sure (before dying obviously) that the business is structured such as to obtain the Business Property Relief.
November 19, 2023
Pure speculation from you hefner.
There haven’t been any cuts in Inheritance tax and yet already you are upright with pen in hand posting away.
November 18, 2023
yep I am aware of a few “Chatham house rules” presentations which were done to top business leaders before a number of recent elections, each time the Conservative front bench proudly said “dont worry about XYZ in the manifesto we dont really mean to do any of that” so exposing their straightforward lying. worse than that they assume nobody in those meetings talks about these realities.
immigration being the most obvious example of this. but there are others.
this style of lying in politics needs to stop.
November 18, 2023
Yep, that’s what I have been saying too – it will help the economy as poorer people will spend in the economy on their needs rather ‘investing’ in ballooning asset prices, which does no-one except the rich any good. People have been asking for ‘real Conservative policies’. Looks like we are about to get it – featherbedding the already wealthy whilst continuing to hammer the low and medium paid. Reverting to type, looking after their wealthy friends whilst they still can seems to be the agenda.
November 18, 2023
Have to agree, nothing will be delivered to help the low paid taxpayers. We are governed by rotten politicians who disrespect us. They are totally focused on robbing us to ensure their futures are wealthy & safe. The Tories & Labour have shown their hands. Neither are capable of running a bath, sadly. We need politicians who will protect us & our borders. Not pander to lobbyists, international canals & globalists. Seems who ever shouts loudest gets whatever they want. It is not acceptable!
November 18, 2023
I agree, but raising the threshold is not a vote winner and, therefore, won’t happen.
The recent (2022) raising of the NIC threshold to Ā£12,570 went completely unnoticed!
November 18, 2023
It is a very bad idea to exclude millions of people from paying tax as the Conservatives have been doing since they went into the coalition.
It should be a principle that everybody pays some income tax. There would then be an incentive for everyone to support a government that reduces taxes over the long term.
Personally, I would prefer a flat tax system which would eliminate thousands of unproductive jobs at the Inland Revenue and in accountancy firms everywhere. It would also reduce tax avoidance.
November 18, 2023
ChrisS :
I agree with you that everyone should pay some direct taxes or else the necessary democratic connection between a governmentās fiscal promises and policies and the way the electorate votes becomes broken.
For similar reasons I believe education and the NHS should not be entirely free to provide a healthy client/customer relationship and ensure people take some interest in their health and how the NHS or the school to which they send their children is functioning.
November 18, 2023
@BW; Raising the personal allowance is meaningless, many working for NMW jobs never exceed their PA as it is, if you want to help the low paid, those on fixed incomes such as pensioners, then cut indirect taxes, the VAT rate, Council Tax, fuel duties and green taxes etc.
November 18, 2023
crazy response. have you never considered all the ways taxation is levied? It is one thing to tax on your choice of expenditure, but quite another to be taxed before you get the income.
November 19, 2023
That’s not correct Jerry.
The minimum wage is about Ā£10 per hour.
Multiply by 35 hours and by 50 weeks and you get a gross wage higher than the current personal allowance.
So you have the strange situation where people earning what the government says is the absolute minimum one should be paid then have some of that taken off them in income tax.
November 19, 2023
I would agree with Jerry in that indirect taxes also need reducing.
They impact people on low incomes disproportionately.
November 18, 2023
The BoE is selling gilts to reduce the supply of money in the economy, and that will feed through to higher interest rates, at a time when the economy is slowing down, this will increase the value of Ā£. (the Fed is doing the same) The BoE needs to reduce the size of it’s balance sheet, in order to have the capacity to assist financial institutions in trouble. The BoE created the money in the first place to buy the gilts, eliminating the same amount of money it created, on sale of its holdings and loss make up from Treasury squares the books. No Problem.
Cutting tax; well cut spending at the same time and send the Foreign Secretary a note to say he can’t give away more money abroad or to transnational, corrupt bodies.
November 18, 2023
I’d also feel much more comfortable if the government cut spending. Slash the bloated state, or is it the plan to drive the UK into default under spiralling debt?
November 18, 2023
How does that work? Whoever buys them then receives interest and, at redemption, the BOE has to give the money back. It is mostly institutions that buy them – how does it actually affect the money in the economy if an institution buys up some bonds (not newly issued) instead of either sitting on the cash or buying shares with it?
Reply. The buyer of the bond surrenders cash for the purchase. The Bank of England shrinks its balance sheet. Bank reserves fall. The money supply is currently falling
November 18, 2023
@ Peter Wood – the problem is that the Bank is crystallizing book losses through its sales of the bonds it bought previously. It has no need to do that.
It does not want to be open and honest by raising interest rates to the higher levels it (likely wrongly) would like to see so it opts for the stealthy approach of divesting itself of bonds to, as you say, reduce the money supply.
It could achieve comparable ends but without the crystallization of losses by asking the Treasury to issue some newly-created bonds but it prefers to harm us all.
November 18, 2023
The BoE is not a normal Gilt investor. It CREATES money, (out of thin air) and also eliminates money, almost at will. When you accept that, the notion of profit and loss in Ā£, for the BoE, is immaterial. The BoE is only interested, in this context, in how much Ā£ there is in circulation. It’s job is to maintain sufficient Ā£ for the economy to function and develop. QE, as it is now called, created lots of new money very quickly for the government to go out and spend, via the Treasury issuing new Gilts. This is now being eliminated because there is too much money in the economy causing inflation. BoE sells Gilts into the market, receives Ā£ which it then eliminates, or removes from circulation.
Reply The Bank thinks its balance sheet strength matters which is why it insists on the Treasury bailing out all its losses. In the Euro area there is also much discussion about recapitalising Central banks if they lose too much. The ECB wisely keeps the losses down by not doing QT bond sales. Read more of the literature before implying expertise.
November 18, 2023
From the BoE
Bindseil, Manzanares
and Weller (2004) suggest that from a theoretical perspective
there is no reason that a central bank could not achieve its
monetary policy goals with a continually worsening capital
position. The crucial assumption underpinning this result is
that the central banks liabilities remain a liquid and trusted
method for settlement.
The BoE/UK Government has to maintain confidence in the Ā£, large accumulated losses look poor management.
November 18, 2023
So much government spending that could very easily could be cut, much of it even does net harm anyway. Like duff university degree soft āloansā, net zero, road blocking, restrictive planning, migrant hotels and the augmentation of policies, motorist mugging, the appallingly inefficient NHSā¦
November 18, 2023
Dear Sir John,
Thank you for writing the Reform Party’s policy statement for the next election. It’s a pity no-one in your government is interested in it. It isn’t a platform the Conservatives could stand on next year, after what they have actually done when in power.
November 18, 2023
We can but hope the budget will contain all the right things… it’s coming up to Christmas, the time for miracles! Anything’s possible! š¤š¤
November 18, 2023
You’d the Treasury had worked all this out by now, or is there some untested theory its economists are clinging to? It’s as if the Treeasury will try anything except what is known to work.
November 18, 2023
Your repetition of all the arguements most of us have been supporting for months on end. They have all the qualities of scolding a recalcitrant child that does not have it in its DNA to behave until its pocket money is cut off.
The Chancellor, however sensible and generous does not now have the power to reverse the fortunes of your dire government. We who contribute to this diary are by and large Conservatives, your government is not and carries the stigmata of socialist failure along with the real socialists who might replace them. Unless of course Nigel appears all conquering from his time in the jungle. Then even you will have a Conservative to vote for.
November 18, 2023
As chancellor Iād like to state
That weāve put up the interest rate
Weāre selling bonds and hiking taxes
In polls we wane whilst Labour waxes.
I THINK thatās what we were ordered to do?
November 18, 2023
Lots of things in politics are puzzling. The Tory Party is facing electoral oblivion due to losing a lot of its traditional vote. The Brexit supporting, conservative element of the voters are going to abstain. Some will vote Reform as a protest. Iād say all Tory voters believe in lower taxes, minimal immigration, the (apparently theoretical) supremacy of Parliament and a smaller state.
Faced with this, Sunak brings back Cameron! One can but laugh.
November 18, 2023
Ah! the smell of tax cuts in the air. A scent designed to distract the Plebs from the disaster that is the Conservative Government.
It won’t work, you’re doomed and what’s more you’ve opened the door to Labour.
November 18, 2023
stopping free prescriptions for people on long term benefits is a silly idea. indeed they may as well give everyone in england free prescriptions, bring some parity with scotland and wales.
a lot of people will be struggling to get a job precisely because of complex medical issues.
a lot of people are trapped in sink social housing beyond travelling distance to any realistic jobs market, extra motivations for them to find work are a complete waste of time. they need help to move out of the area completely (and leave such estates empty), or they need work done to encourage new employers to the area. penalising the claimants is silly.
not to mention the vast amounts of tax we are wasting funding benefits for new immigrants, both legal and illegal, which should be cut first.
cutting inheritance tax is obvious, and I am surprised at the conservative politicians being so bad at selling the idea to the public, cos the arguments from the left to keep it are hilarious and easily demolished.
IR35 needs to go. again I am really surprised how poorly the impact is understand by mainstream politicians across the spectrum. they have swallowed the nonsense from the treasury.
tax perks for immigrant workers need to go.
so many obvious things need doing, but we are stuck with a clueless ruling class.
November 18, 2023
Oh, after the Braverman sacking and subsequent revelations, Sunak and Hunt are now in full-on “try and prevent complete annihilation mode.”
So there’ll be some giveaways ….but that isn’t going to change the outcome.
They haven’t got a Conservative bone in their bodies and neither do most Conservative MPs, which is why the country is in the state it is. And the Blob is there anyway to ensure that no Conservative policies are ever implemented.
If Sunak and Co wanted to deliver Conservative policies, they’d have at the very least started dealing with the Blob AND the BBC …. and they haven’t. So the WEF will get their other puppet, the one in the red corner, to jerk around next year.
November 18, 2023
āComplete annihilationā is not envisaged by Sunak and co. They hope that a rump of Cameroon MPs will survive and rebuild the party with the same old policies that they have been dishing up for years.
Heseltine, Hague and co will cheer from the sidelines. David Gauke will write encouraging articles for both āConservative Homeā and the āNew Statesmanā. I think he sees himself as some sort of King Over The Water.
The best outcome would be that the Conservative Party goes the way of The Whigs and a new party emerges without the old partyās baggage.
Nobody can give a reliable prediction of the number of seats that will remain though.
November 18, 2023
fresh after Rishi gave India yet another 2 billion quid in supposed “aid” with no scrutiny whatsoever from parliament, and I bet no cabinet backing… I hear Cameron is determined to increase the “aid” budget by many billions.
Give me strength, the politicians cannot keep borrowing money (the national debt is always going up never down) to give away to countries, many of which are openly hostile to the UK, and squeeze the ordinary working people of the UK for dear life.
There is no support for the “aid” budgets, and if Cameron raises them then the Conservatives really are toast.
What does the target Conservative voter look like? cos there are not many woke lefty rich Chipping Norton residents in the rest of the country?
November 18, 2023
NISAR – the joint NASA – ISRO satellite passed tests this month on functioning in extreme temp and vacuum of space .
Launch 2024 .
( ISRO – Indian Space Research Organisation )
November 18, 2023
The major source countries of UK imports reduced their inflation rates well below ours. This has reduced our inflation rate. The PM claims it is HE who has succeeded in reducing UK inflation to half, enabling scope for tax cuts!
Even his so-called ‘half’ is more than double the Bank of England target. Worse still, prices are still inflating higher than they were as it is only that RATE of increase that has reduced.
The most efficient tax cut will be to dump the inept PM and Chancellor immediately.
November 18, 2023
JR: “It is important he starts to cut taxes”
An indication of just how stupid John Redwood thinks his commentators are. The administration he’s been supporting have raised the inflation tax, increased energy costs, increased food costs, and all those costs were created by the actions of Sunak ( while Chancellor ) and Hunt, only last April reduced the dividend and interest threshold and collectively, by the Parliamentary Conservative party.
I did not ask for lockdown, I did not ask for the vaccine, I certainly didn’t ask to be coerced into taking it. But I didn’t ask for my business to be subject to idiotic regulations ( eg: perspex screens that interfered with air flow – thus increasing the likely-hood of infection in a group, but imposing a stupid cost on businesses which they later had to write-off with a negative commercial impact ) nor did I ask for my business to be shut down or to get prosecuted because a sane business owner refused to shut his/her business. In short, I did not ask for the British economy to be nationalized!!
But, Redwood thinks his contributors have the memory span of a sparrow, and just dangle the ‘tax cut’ mantra a few months before the next general election, and you’ll all, just … ‘come to jesus’.
Throwing money around much of which has been lost to graft and fraud. And I’m not even talking about members of the Lords!
So why does the cost of all those, frankly deranged measures, fall on the tax payer ?
Did the tax payer vote for them ? Was the tax payer presented with those measures in the prior manifesto ?
November 18, 2023
The problem is that usually the Electorate is that thick and forgiving, often fearful of change when disaster happens at every turn, that they re-elect the shambles responsible.
November 18, 2023
I see the unelected Foreign Secretary is reported as wanting Ā£ BILLIONS MORE of taxpayer money to be spent on Foreign Aid after less than a week in the job.
One visit abroad and the circus continues, every time a senior Minister or Prime Minister goes abroad this happens Time, after Time, after Time.
Clueless as to the needs of our own people, and their ability to pay for the rest of the World, all because Ministers want to improve their own ego abroad.
Absolutely Pathetic, but he had form on this, so no surprise as I suggested in my post last week.
As for tax Cuts simply raise the Annual tax allowance to the level of the minimum wage for a 40 hour week, and stop all tax on savings/investments.
At a stroke you take millions out of the tax, millions who do not have to fill in a tax form, and thus massivelly reduce the work of HMRC (who at the moment are looking to recruit more people)
November 18, 2023
You should be the Commonsense Czar.
November 18, 2023
Some school or other that installed a huge number of heat pumps has been ordered to remove them.
They were TOO NOISY.
Well, wellā¦illustrates very nicely the calibre of those involved in education or admin.
No consideration.
Of course bl**dy useless heat pumps are too noisy.
Just like windmills.
November 18, 2023
Everhopeful: “Just like windmills”.
Which also decimate the wildlife.
November 18, 2023
++
Terrible things.
November 18, 2023
Yup. And they were installed without planning permission. So now they’ve got to be un-installed.
Double-bubble for the Council’s “engineers.”
November 18, 2023
++
Delicious! š
November 18, 2023
Will this be the start of the give-away budget designed to encourage us to vote Tory in the next GE?
Whatever the Chancellor offers will be far too late and far too little to make up for his past treachery.
With democracy in the UK broken beyond repair, we still have to try and do something with what we have, and that means there can be no more tory, labour or libdem governments – A parliament made up of independents would be much better than what we have now.
But yes, it will be interesting to see what little trinkets the Chancellor will offer – that will show how desperate he is for our votes.
November 18, 2023
It will become the hand that gives, but snatches back. Look out for the sleight of hand.
November 18, 2023
The “cash-strapped” NHS is now offering a Ā£100,000 contract for an anti-racism consultancy contract. I’m sure the millions of people waiting for treatment will be absolutely delighted to know this.
Of course, a Conservative Government which has wrecked the economy and caused misery for millions, would stop this nonsense. Shame we haven’t got one.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12734611/Anger-woke-NHS-offering-100-000-contract-anti-racism-consultancy-service.html
November 18, 2023
Donna :
Will we see the PM allowing his new Minister without Portfolio, Esther McVey, tasked by him “to lead the Government’s anti woke agenda” as a “minister for common sense” to cancel this ridiculous contract?
November 18, 2023
Raise personal tax allowances and make them noticeable – a few hundred won’t do. It’s simple. Will help people with bill paying and discretionary spending.
Put corp tax back to 19%. Raise Vat threshold to benefit small businesses.
Cut billions of government waste. It’s doable but gov is cowardly.
So I know what will be said.
November 18, 2023
“The Autumn Statement”. This Socialist cabal is to resign, and hopefully be replaced with a Conservative Government – the UK needs respite from this continued punishment by weak clueless egos
November 18, 2023
IanB: “continued punishment by weak clueless egos”
Excuse me Ian, I think their egos are far too big, it’s their intellect that is weak and clueless.
November 18, 2023
Hi sir John
what you are saying is good,
But we have a conservative government
More interested in giving millions to france
For their economy, and housing and feeding the world criminals, cut the vat on energy bills to lower inflation and help those paying their power bill help those that’s working and paying tax , stop throwing money at those that that don’t want to work,
Help those that need help .
Our business’s need help to create mor jobs
Stop our business being taken over by foreign companies and then moved out the country.
Thank you
November 18, 2023
Rishi took time off yesterday to visit a shopping centre in Worksop for a photo-op.
Clearly the demands of running the Country are not too arduous.
Maybe his plan is to do nothing?
Or he does not have a clue!
November 18, 2023
The not Conservative party is flying many kites about tax cuts, particularly Inheritance Tax.
There may be some tinkering but nothing of consequence will be done; the Tories never have or ever will.
It really is past time for this lot to go. It has indeed sat too long for any good it may do.
November 18, 2023
Who is the bank selling these cut price bonds to? Can we all buy them at knock down rates to make a bung off? Where do we put in our order for the roll up, roll up, get our bargain bonds here deal.
Reply There are retail ways of buying these bonds on the official website. You might like to take advice first as you can lose money on them owing to market fluctuations. If you hold them to repayment then you can work out as you buy what your return will be.
November 18, 2023
If you put āUK giltsā (ie, UK Treasury bonds) in a search engine, youāll get a number of investment platforms very keen on taking your money.
One of the platforms has an interesting āWhat you need to know about buying government bonds (gilts)ā.
November 18, 2023
How many people and how much money is being paid out to public sector works on sick or paid absence leave for more than two years? More than 18 months.
November 19, 2023
The reason I ask is redeployment of long term sick to wfh and other different duties would be where Iād start to reform.
Iād cut long term disciplinary disputes too and get them sorted quickly.
November 18, 2023
Hunt: “Jam Tomorrow” – as usual from a Government looking at defeat in the GE.
November 18, 2023
It is frightening that the treasury & BOE staff seem unaware of basic economics!
Today, a survey shows that more people think Labour is the party of lower taxation rather than the Conservatives!
That shows the damage the Government has done over the last few years.
I have written to my MP saying he should put his letter of no confidence in, but as always he replies supporting the PM & Cameron. Conservative MPs have one brief chance to oust this rotten top team & replace them with proper conservatives. My vote would be for Sir John as PM.
November 18, 2023
I don’t know what the chances are that Hunt/Sunak will listen to the advice that Sir John outlines today ; they would be certainly wise to do so because we badly need to implement his recommendations . It will now take a huge shift in public opinion to save the Conservatives – all of the recent opinion polls confirm this . There is a lot of turmoil in the world today and the economic situation is part of it . Some sunshine on the horizon would be a good thing .
November 18, 2023
Anything the Chancellor announces other than cancelling the economy trashing Net Zero will be like re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic.
There is no CAGW, if there was, governments since passing the CCA in 2008 would have been pursuing nuclear energy as this is the only low CO2 emitting energy source which is affordable, reliable, abundant and secure.
Instead they have pursued renewable energy without any economic means to deal with chaotic intermittency or the funds for the enormous upgrading of the National Grid.
AR4 (Auction Round 4) brought bids so low that the wind farms will never be built without additional subsidies. At AR5 the wind industry refused to make bids and consequently the Government has now doubled the CfD price of AR4 in order obtain any bids at all at the next auction, AR6.
The AR6 2023 price for offshore wind, Ā£105/MWhr, is double that the DESNZ expects for CCGT (gas) generated electricity when the Ā£60/MWhr carbon tax is removed :
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6556027d046ed400148b99fe/electricity-generation-costs-2023.pdf
Offshore wind building costs are double that for the RR SMRs per unit of realisable energy and use 1000 times more steel and concrete per unit of power. Together with intermittency and expensive grid upgrades there is no economic justification to continue with building more wind farms.
November 18, 2023
‘[The Chancellor should tell] the Bank of England to stop selling so many bonds at big losses’.
I see Deutsche Bank have caught up with you.āTheir recent report highlighted the Bank of England’s poor decision.āThey also said: ‘Internal estimates suggest the taxpayer will have to pay as much as Ā£170bn towards QE over the next decade.’ ā https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/16/jeremy-hunt-tax-cuts-autumn-statement-bank-england-bonds/
November 18, 2023
Sir John, why have your previous regular calls for a much lower rate of Corporation Tax disappeared in your recent articles on taxation from your list of recommended immediate tax changes?
Reply Because they are said by HMT to cost a lot and the current team have made clear their opposition. I still think going to 15% would increase revenue.
November 18, 2023
I am appalled you, Sir John, have to deal with Ministers and high officials of such very low calibre and such little practical knowledge that they can’t see and adjust to the big picture where Corporation Tax is not a tax in isolation.
Corporation Tax is a very visible to investors smallish revenue earner sitting at the very top of a pyramid of taxation. If extra investment or commercial activity is attracted by a competitively low rate of Corporation Tax it creates much more income from the big taxes, Income Tax, National Insurance and usually V.A.T. and reduces the out of work benefits bill. As no investor anticipates failure and almost every business investor has an exaggerated notion of how successful they will be, big investors and certainly international investors look at how much they they will be taxed when they succeed or at a convenient opportunity how they can relocate parts of their corporation to a low tax area. If attracted they will pay a lot of other taxes and benefit the public finances even if their venture fails and they pay little or no Corporation Tax.
So while reducing Corporation Tax from 25p to 15p in the Ā£ will incur lost revenue in Corporation Tax (at least in the short term until profits increase greatly, as in Ireland from the extra engendered business activity) that will be more than made up for from extra investment, extra economic activity and extra amounts of other taxes.
November 18, 2023
A truly shocking article in the Telegraph this morning :
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/17/eu-immigration-slingshot-wielding-migrants-storm-borders
If it is only 50% true that theTaliban is now organising illegal immigration from Serbia into Hungary, it is deeply alarming. In fact, it is the most frightening piece of news I can ever remember reading.
We can forget Human Rights Legislation from whatever source, illegal immigration by young men of an alien culture into Europe simply has to be stopped by whatever means necessary. We can be certain that at least some are Islamic terrorists being infiltrated into Europe to carry out future attrocities.
It is equally certaint that some of those trafficed into Hungary are going to end up on small boats crossing the channel within a couple of weeks. We have no choice, they simply have to be detained and removed by whatever means possible. Politicians and judges ignore this at our peril.
November 18, 2023
Oh look – renewable sources of electricity are providing 48% of Saturday electricity demand today at 15.5GW, which includes domestic heat pumps, EV’s and the electrified railways.
CCGT weigh in at a mere 14%, though thanks to lobbying from those the far right, we have a coal-fired station producing 3%.
As winter sets in we can expect renewables to save us from importing at least 50 tankers of LNG this year.
Reply Yes sometimes wind provides a lot of power. Please remember to tell us when next wind is back in single figure percentages. Good job we have fossil fuel back up.
November 18, 2023
You forgot to mention that the Government has just increased the already exorbitant price paid for windmill energy by over 50%. The government has lifted the amount it pays from Ā£44 per MWh to a price up to Ā£73. So that’s households clobbered again by the Eco Nutters’ windmill obsession.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67430888
I thought wind energy would be cheap?
November 18, 2023
some idiots told us it is ‘free’.
November 18, 2023
Well the average is about 26% of UK electricity but if you then adjust for the inefficiency to gas plant production (caused by providing back up) and then look at all energy production for transport, heating, industry, agriculture it is only about 5% average from wind. Also note that wind turbines need loads of fossil fuel energy to build them, connect them, back up and maintain them.
I am not against them, but certainly against subsidising them and market rigging for them when they compete fairly fine.
November 18, 2023
SG :
Yesterday, the 28GW of installed wind power provided at one point just 0.5GW of power.
Will you please explain to us how we will cope with such chaotic intermittency of our electrical power.
There is no plan for non-hydrocarbon electricity storage either for the decarbonisation date of 2035 (2030 promised by Labour) or even for Net Zero itself by 2050 because it is so horrendously expensive.
So, rather than scoff at hydrocarbon energy you should keep quiet realising that renewables can only exist at all because hydrocarbons provide the necessary grid stability and back-up for when the wind doesnāt blow. Renewables are parasitic energy and with the latest CfD increases twice the price of CCGT when the carbon tax is removed. You may also like to note the environmental damage caused by offshore wind requiring 2000 times more concrete and steel than CCGT plants per unit of power (100 times more than nuclear) as well as the 1000 times area coverage.
Anyway, the work of Happer & Wijngaarden has shown that increasing CO2 (natural or anthropogenic) produces no global warming, let alone CAGW, because of IR saturation.
November 18, 2023
1000 times more than nuclear, not 100.
November 18, 2023
āJeremy Hunt will outline further devolution plans for Englandās elected mayors in the Autumn Statement this week, which are likely to fall short of some of the regional leadersā more ambitious demands.
The UK chancellor is expected to publish more detail on how greater financial autonomy for the West Midlands and Greater Manchester regions will work in practice, after ātrailblazerā pilots were announced in the Budget in March.ā
Surely the existing devolution has down sufficient harm and wasted sufficient billions already. Various councils going bust and the disasters of Scotland, NI and Wales.
November 18, 2023
correct and we have had various arms of local government, the scottish govt and the west midlands mayor for example, taking over rail franchises, so nationalising large parts of the rail network through the back door. the whole concept of competition and free market being laughed at. the nutty SNP politicians doing this is one thing, but Conservative elected politicians doing it is madness.
November 18, 2023
What, a Labour MP asked, did the British prime minister consider to be the finest foreign policy achievement of his new foreign secretary, David Cameron? āThere are many, many to pick from,ā Sunak floundered.
Hardly surprising that he floundered I cannot think of any myself either. Libya was a total disaster, China, his EU thin gruelā¦ and he is hugely disliked by the remainers for ever granting a referendum and hated by the leavers for the lies and the vast pro remain lies & propaganda, issued at tax payers expense, to try to fix the referendum for remain. Then for abandoning the bridge like a petulant child after promising to deliver on either outcome. Also for the gross negligence of not preparing incase there was a leave outcome as was rather likely.
But Cameron was like Sunak a tax to death, borrow and piss down the drain merchant and a pro HS2, pro EU, pro Net Zero lunacy and for open door immigration despite his āto the tens of thousandsā lie.
Is he to be Lord Cameron of Greensill, China perhaps?
November 18, 2023
Lord Cameron of Pizzing Our Money Away on International Aid ….. vital aid projects like the Ethiopian Spice Girls.
November 18, 2023
Donna
He has already started to call for extra Ā£ Billions to be spent of foreign aid according to the news media today !
Took him less than a week to ask, thus in 7 years he has he learn’t absolutely nothing ?
Hug a hoodie, and Husky next, then we have the green crap plans now as well. ?
Clearly he does not mix or listen to the normal people who are in the majority and live outside of his bubble of friends.
November 18, 2023
LL :
+1
November 19, 2023
Lord Cameron of chipping Norton apparently.
Presumably designed to cheese off Jeremy Clarkson, which it will.
November 18, 2023
“Must”, “needs to”… won’t.
There is not a snowflake’s chance in hell that this woke excuse for a chancellor will repeal any part of IR35. If anything, they will make it worse.
Is an autumn statement needed for the BoE to be told to stop selling off bonds? I don’t think so. So that won’t happen either.
I only hope that your friends in the right of your party have realised that things cannot be any worse than they are under Sunak. Change leader before it’s too late – you don’t need another King’s Speech, you can implenet the 2019 manifesto and if Sunak can announce rowing back on nut zero nonsense, a new leader can actually *implement* it.
And a new leader could actually do something about small boats and legal migration slary level requirements being far too low.
People appreciate action, not words. The question is… who?
November 18, 2023
Tax cuts are not inflationary if paid for by cuts in public expenditure.
And here is the biggest problem we have with politicians and governments. They think they need to be ever more involved and spend more and more.
Oh foe a skeleton government that oversees law and order and defence and gets out of ghe way for everything else.
November 18, 2023
Hmm, were the anticipated tax cuts part of the original plan to now persuade the electorate to remain faithful to the Tories? Or forced upon them by public demands? Are they are now having to adopt the plans raised by Liz Truss who was ‘Brutusised’ from government in much the same as was Mrs Thatcher in 1990? I think so.
I also believe it will not work because Downing Street have already exposed themselves as untrustworthy for failing to abide by their own 2019 manifesto and the British public have already been conned by that so will not be suckered again. Exacerbated by the shocking details in Mrs Braverman’s letter of resignation.
The Conservatives only chance next year is a change of PM and a change of the Europhile Remainer Cabinet now assembled by a PM pretending to be a Brexiteer. And that sounds just like Mrs May, who was unceremoniously dumped from Downing Street. Will Mr Sunak now follow? ASAP please.
November 18, 2023
Dear Sir John,
I am very glad that you’re continuing to press home the issue of the extraordinary tax-payer funded (debt-funded would be more accurate) bond selloff and the role of the Treasury in permitting it.
It’s not for me to tell you what to write, but I would love to see an article on Conservativehome focusing solely on this issue, as I think it warrants a great deal more scrutiny than it gets within Tory Party circles.
Hunt has now said ‘it’s time for tax cuts’, which shows a healthy fear of the electorate – let’s hope his fear of the electorate now outweighs his fear of the Bank. If a clear message goes from the Treasury to the Bank telling them they must wind down this initiative or fund it themselves, the public finances will be transformed miraculously, and you will deserve a medal.
Best,
SR
November 19, 2023
‘Time for tax cuts’ to con the fools into thinking the economy is safe with us?
November 18, 2023
A few thoughts:
Would a reduction in the high VAT rate of 20% encourage more economic activity.
Also, VAT is regressive in that less well off individuals generally have to spend a greater proportion of their income.
We need more jobs and yet we penalise employers with high secondary National Contributions.
The combination of Income Tax rates and National Insurance rates for employees may be a disincentive for work.
Lower National Insurance rates for employees and employers may reduce the need for the IR35 rules?
I am not clear as to why some state benefits are tax free and some are taxable.
Who gets to decide on this ?
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits
Corporation Tax – should we be looking to make the UK more competitive on the world stage ?
I am not sure that the UK gets value for money for the Ā£6bn pa of charity tax reliefs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics/uk-charity-tax-relief-statistics-commentary#summary
etc
etc
November 18, 2023
Well Sir John at what stage will your party play ‘ spin the bottle’ to elect a new leader to fight the next election ?
I’d love to see the names on the hats thrown in the ring.
November 18, 2023
It would be wrong to cut benefits to cut inheritance tax. My family would benefit from an inheritance tax cut but I wouldn’t want that, it’s better to help the needy first and foremost.