The two main parties are locked in a budget battle.They are Ā dug into OBR Ā provided Ā trenches and fighting over the odd couple of billion here or there for a Non Dom tax and a Vat on private school fees tax.
Ā£2 bn is under 0.1% of our economy and around 0.2% of revenues. Even when they Ā get so far as to argue about a Ā£10 bn tax cut or spending increase they are still only talking about a sum under 0.5% of GDP. More to the point they are arguing over small rounding errors in the error strewn OBR forecasts of the deficit. The OBR regularly has to revise its deficit forecasts down by several tens of billions.
I Ā understand Ā the need for Ā parties to behave in a fiscally responsible way. They have to live down the huge spending rises necessitated by excessive lock downs as the preferred way of tackling covid. Labour was the bigger offender, always demanding the economy produced less Ā and was Ā subsidised more,always wanting longer and harder lockdown, Ā encouraging huge bills taxpayers could not afford. I do not understand why people think following the OBR will give us fiscal prudence, as they cheered on the covid excesses and now favour an economic austerity that will stifle growth and so depress revenues.
However, in resigned acceptance of the cross party and establishment’s wrong approach to necessary prudence I have set out before how there could be substantial cuts to public spending without damaging core services like the NHS and education. Within misleading OBR rules government Ā could find plenty of headroom to boost growth with tax cuts and or cash for investment for those who prefer that public sector led route.
We start with my old friend the heavily loss making Bank of England. They have lurched Ā from creating inflation by printing too much money and keeping rates too low, to causing a shallow recession by destroying too much money and by driving bond interest rates too high. They have lost us Ā£50 bn since 2022, all reimbursed by taxpayers. Stop the bond Ā sales and follow ECB policy over bank reserves to make a big reduction in the losses and taxpayer subsidies.
Abolish the expensive and useless UK Government Investments . Get Ministers to supervise their departmental monitoring Ā of the nationalised industries and state owned shareholdings that report to them. They already duplicate the UK Government Investments work. Ā Put in management that can stop the huge losses at the Post Office and Network Rail. Dispose of holdings as with Nat West to bring in cash and cut risks. Sell other assets. Mutualise the Post Office. Achieve Ā a substantial Ā reduction in the Ā£33 bn cash injection this year into a heavily loss making railway.
Get an accurate figure out of the Treasury/ OBR on early year capital Ā costs of providing a low wage migrant with a new social home, NHS capacity, school places for children and the rest. Identify the Ā top up benefits , tax credits and public service running costs to support a low paid new arrival. .Increase current targets to cut legal migration by 300,000 and reduce future spending accordingly.
Remove the Ā£20 bn carbon capture spend from future budgets. There is no need for this transitional spend which just makes existing electricity dearer. Press on with cheaper functioning low carbon alternatives. The UK may have good carbon storage facilities so make these available for neighbouring countries producing too much CO 2 financed as a future profit making private sector opportunity.
Speed up policies to get more of the millions of working age not in work back into the workforce. The DWS has some good ideas to reduce the numbers of working age people not in jobs by suitable support, more home Ā working and realistic pay.
Build on the announcement in the budget of a major public sector productivity drive. The 6% collapse in public service productivity since covid can be recaptured before embarking on an ambitious spend to save AI led programme of work. The immediate task should be to impose a recruitment ban on civil service and public sector admin posts to recover 2019 numbers and levels of productivity.These measures offer scope for up to Ā£100 bn of savings through recaptured productivity, lower losses by state concerns, more private green investment and fewer low wage migrants. These things warrant more debate. The odd Ā£2 bn is an OBR fiction that will be washed away in their forecasting errors.
97 Comments
Comments are closed.
March 21, 2024
Good morning.
Since 2010 the UK’s National Debt has more than doubled. Taxes are the highest since 1945. The size of the State has massively increased to the size that it is now half the economy. MASS IMMIGRATION affecting all aspects of life has run out of control. And inflation, despite what the official figures say, is running much higher. For example, the Standing Charge for my water bill has nearly doubled from three years ago. That is roughly a 30% increase year on year. My Council Tax is said to up even further and as a result of all this, I will have less to spend hitting the productive economy harder.
We would have been better off under, Corbyn. At least we would not be splashing billions on Ukraine.
March 21, 2024
Extremely good, Mark. Contrary to Mr Redwoodās misleading post, the problem here is not our two main political parties. The problem here is the Conservatives. We must not be fooled into supporting this current not-Conservative-at-all party. Vote Reform, and if we get a Labour government, so be it – it is the only way to impress on the Conservative party that if they want the support of Conservative voters, they better start offering conservative policies
March 21, 2024
Totally agree, this lifetime Try voter will be voting Reform. Theyāre our only hope and if that lets Labour in, so be it. Weāve already got Labour lite in Government anyway and yes the class warriors will be worse but how much worse can it get?
March 21, 2024
@Reform Now – Cabinet is a collective responsibility, anyone in the residue of the Boris Johnson government should not find themselves in the actual government – they are the problem we are forced to accept. The CCHQ is equally culpable, they have created and are seeking to perpetuate the problem, the GE has been made about support for Sunak and his cabinet not electing the best Conservatives to parliament. Or in other words a massive chunk of great Conservative MPs are to be sacrificed in the name of Socialism, Sunak and the CCHQ.
March 21, 2024
Good point about retail spending. It’s the same for me, and I see retail sales in 2023 were still well below their 2019 level. People aren’t spending, because they have less money to spend thanks to inflation and taxes, and that’s how it’s set to continue. No wonder the Tory party faces a wipe-out at the upcoming elections. Still. at least we can’t accuse them of pandering to the electorate with pre-election giveaways – they won’t be getting any votes for them in Kiev.
March 21, 2024
Sir J is re-arranging the deckchairs….. Tory MP’s jumping into the life-rafts like rats seeking the best shelter from the coming storm.
10 year Gilt yields are rising again, the market sees a tsunami of bond issues coming, under either Tory or Labour, and wonder who is going to buy them. And yet, we look for more ways to spend our national resources on waste and incompetence.
The rich are leaving, https://www.henleyglobal.com/newsroom/press-releases/henley-private-wealth-migration-report-2023#:~:text=This%20will%20make%20the%20UK,net%20exodus%20of%201%2C600%20millionaires.
It will take the coming disaster of a Starmer government, because the Tories can’t offer anything better, to bring the true state of our economy to the fore of public debate, and there will be Hard Times.
Report Gilt yields fell yesterday, 10 year below 4%. They would fall more if Bank of England stopped selling gilts.
March 21, 2024
“We would have been better off under, Corbyn. At least we would not be splashing billions on Ukraine”
But we would have been splashing billions helping Putin, instead.
March 21, 2024
Jeremy Corbyn gave a speech in the Commons a few years back in which he condemned Russian money interfering in British politics, Old Albion. Can I ask you to name a Tory MP who has done the same?
March 21, 2024
Mark,
Excellent.
Osborne stated no more funny money, Osborne, Hammond etc will have a structural deficit and start paying down debt by 2015,2017,2019, 2021 than abandoned. 90,000 civil service cuts stopped, big state high regs, high tax dire public services. Police no longer serve a purpose or know what their role is. In Scotland SNP agreed to 29,000 crimes just written off but introduce more hate speech rot! Westminster should step in.
Failed to take advantages of leaving EU and deliberately act in lock step by retaining and enacting current EU law, ensuring no escape by energy dependence, give away fishing linked to energy and giving away N.Ireland! No shots fired, no cross words just made our country a vassal state to EU. Still gives EU billions and gives billions more for projects like Horizon of little or no use to UK. Close national security manufacturing ie steel and pass jobs to China and India.
You are correct everyone thought Corbynās spending was beyond stupid but Sunak and Hunt have been worse!! You could not make it up.
Sunakās Ā£12 billion lost to school boy errors where Lord Agnew resigned should have seen Sunak also resign as well if he had any decency. Sunak failed to implement 2019 manifesto, deliberately failed to deliver Brexit. What was his role leading up to Truss taking over? What were his instructions and guidance to Treasury and BOE to ensure stability for change of leader/PM. Whatever it was failed. He let down his party and nation by failing to secure a proper stable handover.
Sunak wanted everyone to judge him after a year in office against his own 5 arbitrary tests, his plan,his plan,his plan,his plan- he failed.
March 21, 2024
BBC reporting that UK borrowing in February was Ā£8.4bn …..Ā£8.4 billion
March 21, 2024
Economists had predicted that borrowing would come in at Ā£6bn for the month.
Nearly 50% wrong!
March 21, 2024
These are sensible ideas and proposals. It is a measure of the incompetence of most MPs that they apparently cannot grasp the obvious need for such changes and remain in thrall to the OBR and BoE. There needs to be a major clear out replaced by those determined to get a grip on the bloated state.
March 21, 2024
I do not believe that most MPs can not grasp this – but the message to get re-elected is not we are going to give you less.
We need a new TINA message in that we can’t keep going on like this providing for everyone. It is not sustainable however much envy there is that some have much and some do not.
March 21, 2024
Dealing with the big numbers has most effect. Change to some relatively low cost areas cause magnified outcomes, so they also are worthy of much care and attention to get right.
Every saving helps, but big efforts intent on building large sums from tiny savings lack priority: Like trying to stop money being lost in a storm, and being busy picking up the 5p coins while the Ā£50 notes blow out of reach!
March 21, 2024
The article above seems to be different to the one posted on ‘Conservative Home’ yesterday.
March 21, 2024
Why is there no mention of eradicating the many quangos that are publicly funded in this country that not only cost the tax payer billions but also, in some instances, appear to be working actively to destroy british values? The additional benefit of the government enacting real redundancies, not just employment freezes, is that it will free up people to work in the private sector, as it is clear the UK state is now so big it is crowding out the private sector. Why is this not being discussed at all, especially by any Tory politicians, especially as at seems the state is very good at making most of its employees very left wing?
Reply This article proposes closing UK Government Investments as one example
March 21, 2024
Indeed. Supposedly there are now c. 500 quangos. One of the most baleful legacies of the Blair-brown Labour govt – against stiff competition – was the shift in power to a perpetual, faceless and unelected bureaucracy. Inevitably it is staffed mainly with statist / collectivist types to whom such work appeals.
The OBR is an example of another quango which could usefully be closed. All its work could be performed by treasury officials- or better still obtained (for free in many cases) from the private sector.
March 21, 2024
We are told quangos cost us the taxpayer Ā£78 billion!!
March 21, 2024
But we’ve already had a “bonfire of the quangos” – don’t you remember !?! They closed down 300 but almost entirely by merging them with other quangos. The usual Conservative promises where they do the exact opposite of what they say. They’re only 4pts ahead of Reform in the latest YouGov poll – looks like Project Fear about letting in Labour isn’t working John – we don’t care.
March 21, 2024
Ross Clark in the Spectator.
āGoveās āwar on landlordsā is not going to plan.ā
No his war on landlords is a disaster for both landlords and tenants – as anyone sensible could have told him it would be. Gove is a deluded socialist who takes climate instructions from school drop out Greta and who think he can buy the votes of tenants using money robbed off Landlords. Let us hope this deluded fool (who even, like Starmer, wants 20% VAT on school fees another moronic policy) is kicked out at the election if not before. But Socialist Sunak clearly supports his mad polices.
March 21, 2024
Ironic that he is free loading at taxpayers expense at Foreign Secretaries residence in London. He said security, tough, fund it himself. He imported unknown criminals or even terrorists tough!
March 21, 2024
@Simon Ramery – why are Quangos that after-all the Chancellor awards our taxpayer funds to somehow beyond accountability and responsibility to us the taxpayer. We empower the Chancellor and Sunak to manage these outfits on our behalf, ensure we see a return on our investment and take responsibility for their offerings – they just refuse. So what is this Government for, surely not just to raise taxes to a 70 year high to be squander.
March 21, 2024
If the Government spend, and largely waste, nearly 50% of GDP it is not really possible to be fiscally responsible as you will be strangling the tax base and economy to death.
What an idiot Jeremy Hunt is in his reply to James Dyson. Perhaps Dyson should stand for parliament he would certainly have my vote every time over about 90% of our Con-Socialist MPs and certainly over Hunt. Even if his vacuums are pricey and his jet engine hand dryers need safety ear plugs.
March 21, 2024
Western civilisation is being driven to oblivion by the false prophets of ādiversityā
The woke revolutionaries reject real equality in favour of a permanent revolution against fairness and merit
ALLISTER HEATH today.
The woke revolutionaries, the government, the BBC, the civil service, employment tribunals, much of big businessā¦
March 21, 2024
Excellent. Tory party have increased left wing quangos not set them on fire!
One nation nutters in Tory party need ousting to Lib Demās or labour.
More and more Tory MPs standing down and acting in resignation of defeat. Sunak cares not, he was to get UK in lock step with EU and whether he or Starmer carry this on is irrelevant to one nation remainers they conspired with Labour before. Our only hope is Reform.
March 21, 2024
Well done the Junior Doctors in voting 98% to continue the strike for a 35% rise. My relative working a very hard long hours job in Central London with Ā£7k of student loan interest PA after six years at Uni has negative free income after tax, NI, rent commuting, council tax, student loan interestā¦ his same aged flat mate with just a three year degree earns three times as much as him at a bank. A boat arrival (450 of them yesterday) gets Ā£5 a day free to spend after food and lodging plus free phones etc.
Even a 35% rise would only give him about Ā£60 a week free for food, drink and fun after essential bills.
So our Heath Sec. a lawyer with no medical qualifications at all who calls them ādoctors under trainingā on circa Ā£160K PA need to think again or get lost to put it politely!
March 21, 2024
MPs on over Ā£90,000 unqualified part time post! Atkins could at least buy a brush or is she copying Boris?
March 21, 2024
@lifelogic – instead of telling Dyson to suck it up he should have moved aside and let him show how its done.
March 21, 2024
The STEM-illiterate administrations of the West, virtue-signaling, outbidding each other with progressively more hair-shirt policies, have trapped themselves and us in an impossible situation. After decades of relentless propaganda there is almost universal acceptance of the idea that our only salvation is to rush to Net Zero, lemming-like, by cutting CO2 production.
The reality is that there is virtually no route to NZ from where we are with the major CO2 refusing to curb production of the demon gas. We could close down the USA, drown the EU and sequester the UK and Japan: it would make no difference. But pointing out this reality would be electoral suicide. We need a realistic to CO2 reduction that does not demand famine and economic collapse.
Accept the goal, target NZ but start, at once, spelling out the only realistic route. Aim for NZ by 2060.
The first step will be the most difficult. Educate the public in energy reality, a process that requires telling the hard truth of power cuts and fatalities from hypothermia. Then sell the solution: frack to increase the use of natural gas while cutting use of other, more carbon intensive fossil fuels. Use NG as a bridge fuel while going all out for SMRs, reducing, at least nominally, NG use as the nukes take up the load.
It’s a solution to the problem which will work without bankrupting us, and without killing the old, the poor and the sick. It will take a very hard sell. After all, population reduction is a large part of the Green agenda.
JF
March 21, 2024
CO2 is not a demon gas but harmless plant, crop and tree food that is vital for life. The World has had far higher levels of CO2 in the past. We are in a relative dearth of CO2 currently and a bit more CO2 will green the planet nicely. Even a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from the current levels would produce only very negligible warming (this if the other millions of variables like solar activity, orbits, volcanoesā¦remained the same – and they will not) and on balance this would be a positive thing for humanity anyway. Save the vast and pointless costs of net zero and adapt, as, if and when it is needed, to any climate changes that may come. Be they colder, hotter, wetter, dryer, calmerā¦ this is the rational way to go. The methods the government currently push do not even save sig. CO2. EV cars cause more not less.
March 21, 2024
LL, you make the mistake of using logic and science contra a mainstream NZ position that is purely emotional.
People have argued themselves into a corner entire MSM embraced the scientifically ignorant preaching of an emotionally retarded schoolgirl. Arguing the reality will not be welcomed, especially not by the grownups who realise they’ve been silly.
Meet the climate hysterics halfway, recruit the less rabid to a real solution that can be sold more easily.
JF
March 21, 2024
good idea – lets move the UK target to 2100.
March 21, 2024
+1
March 21, 2024
Reform are the only ones advocating to cull the insanity of nut stupid. Vote with your feet.
March 21, 2024
Just abolish it for heaven’s sake
Oxbridge types have become a barrier to national success across all levels. Like a bunch of screeching drama dames.
Please, please oh pretty please JUST TELL IT AS IT IS and two fingers to the woke, Keynesian grifters. We saw this from Lee Anderson yesterday when he exposed the robotic woke limpets at some useless Fire Authority. We can see what woke is, it’s reverse racism with a Stalinist, extremist intent. It stinks that the Tories sit in silence and watch this happen to our nation
This nation will not last another decade of woke.
March 21, 2024
+1
The fire brigade leaders are so daft that they sent people back to their flats at Grenfell Tower long after it was obvious to anyone with half a brain & from just a 30 second glance at the TV that the fire was out of control and this was their only hope. Trained into group think stupidity it seems.
March 21, 2024
British Transport Police say doing the bleep test is indirect discrimination for women! Fitness tests were always adjusted for men and women! They now have a new term Afriphobia that they must deal with! Apparently because a bad cop years ago dealt with a black person badly! Whoever is in charge of BTPolice needs to oust the chief constable.
HMRC wants to introduce 3 day working week! They still work from home- not.
March 21, 2024
Sorry by āthisā I meant ātrying to escape asap was there only chanceā.
March 21, 2024
Our neighbouring council put out pictures of their new rainbow pedestrian crossings yesterday. In the article, they explained that they had to spend the money on these crossings because it was ring-fenced by central government and couldnāt be spent on other urgent priorities like the potholes and the homeless. They didnāt need to virtue signal and annoy the council taxpayers. They could have returned the money to central government and eventually, it would have gone elsewhere, hopefully to something more worthwhile. We are being led by fools.
March 21, 2024
Crooks, fools and crony capitalists!
March 21, 2024
Spot on
March 21, 2024
All good thinking there Sir John with the exception of the Green energy nonsense.
WE do not need to waste our time and money on Carbon capture or storing CO2 in our off shore depleted oil and gas fields. Nature loves CO2 and consumes it far faster than we can capture and sequester it underground. Leave nature to get on with doing what it does so well.
The other point worth noting is your thoughts on reducing migration by 300,000? I presume that means 300,000/yr. if so you are on the right track but the number needs to be reduced by 600,000/yr. to even start to regain control of the chaos this administration has created.
The fastest and most positive policy we could adopt as a nation would be to cancel Net Zero which is what 83% of the world has done. If we did that simple thing and returned to energy independence resulting in low cost secure energy supply then we might start getting somewhere.
Reply The article said cancel government spending on carbon capture! It also said cut legal migration by more than the planned 300,000!
March 21, 2024
Honestly those anarchistic lefties must be screaming with laughter all the way to their Hobbit Huts.
Dig a hole in the ground, ācaptureā a gasā¦.CAPTURE!! I ask you!! And stick in said gas.
Itās as blatant as the permaculture hoax.
On this site there has so often been reference to āThe Emperorās New Clothesā.
Canāt anyone in govt. yet see the Emperorās naked, goosepimply flesh?
Or the skull beneath the skin come to that!
March 21, 2024
The moderator tries to correct my reading of the piece from John, re carbon capture. I don’t think I am wrong in my understanding of what was written.
The idea we might offer up our carbon capture facilities to other European countries suggests to me Sir Joh thinks carbon capture is a good idea and one we can make money out of?
The facts are clear. Carbon capture is a rain dance activity and there is no way anyone benefits from that crazy flight of fancy.
Please return to rational real science drop the voodoo Climate Change nonsense, please….
REply I did not say it was a good idea
March 21, 2024
reply to reply….300,001 would be a bigger cut! How about 1,000,000 cut?
March 21, 2024
No JR, your party imported 1.395 million plus illegals, that is about 1.5 million in a year. That means a cut of 1.3 million required to achieve your manifest promise to cut under 219,000! Is your party and govt just making up numbers as you go?
What it does show is that your party and govt want mass immigration to continue at a rate of over 1,000,0000 a year!
March 21, 2024
My Goodness, Sir John. Where does all this input from you come? All so clear-cut, to-the-point and relevant. Tis always a pity that – compared with yourself – the majority of politicians are thick, thick thick. (Not their fault they are, I’m certain. And not your fault you’ve been blessed?/cursed? with such insight and practical ways about most relevant matters [read ‘issues’…What a boring word it is] )….Btw, please try to stop using initials for organisations etc without giving the name upfront..mainly for ‘the regular person’ who wants to understand what you’re saying but is suddenly having to decipher what you are referring to. It’s that ‘trap’ we can – in all walks of life – fall into as we assume too much of our Readers. (Cheers). What you have to say is totally relevant to all nations everywhere..We’re all in ‘the same boat of similarity’..with the same type of needs of survival..with the notion in mind that common sense (along with self-knowledge as a people) solves much in life, providing a shorter distance from A to B on all matters. Oh, how I cringe at Bankers’ (Central Bankers’) tinkering mentality. Why are these people (everywhere) generally non-sackable for doing such a rotten job (something which is a failure and a mark of short-sightedness in all societies)? This has to change. Too many jobsworths causing unnecessary harm to the millions of a nation’s citizenry.
March 21, 2024
Where are these ‘loss-making’ railways? The three rolling stock companies Eversholt, Porterbrook and Angel Trains, all foreign-owned, announced their profit margins increased by 41% in 2022-23, up from 14% the previous year (Guardian 18-2-24). FirstRail, foreign-owned Govia and the other train operators all seem to have made very healthy dividend payouts to investors, using taxpayer subsidies and inflation-busting fare rises. The railways’ business model seems to be: ‘Government, keep paying us subsidies so we can declare big profit margins and enrich our shareholders’.
It looks to me like the railways are profit-making, but the taxpaying public are loss-making.
March 21, 2024
It would be reasonable to ask why such sensible policies are not being followed, and why they have not been followed for the past fourteen years. Oh yes, we have a so-called Conservative government in charge that is not Conservative. Such a disappointment, to say the least. An 80 seat majority and they failed to carry out what was promised in their manifesto. They have no one to blame but themselves. The time remaining is now too short for them to turn the ship around. A period out of office and reflection upon the error of their ways is impending.
March 21, 2024
JT,
Let us hope they are obliterated for their blatant dishonesty.
March 21, 2024
The Government is running a massive self censorship campaign about the negative aspects of mass migration. If they publish anything negative it is seen as being racist, so they hide it. Sweeping this all under carpet is basically like a bank sweeping risk and loss under the carpet.
How do I know this. A previous partner was a senior lawyer in the Government. They told me they were stopped from publishing negative aspects. For example. The rape statistics used to include the nationality of those who were charged and those who were convicted. About 10 years ago these figures were stopped being published because they were not āhelpfulā [to the narrative]. In fact the data is still captured but the Government refuses to hand the numbers out because it would cause a huge problem.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you look at Government stats on tax or benefits or housing you will see some broad figures published but no figures that say point out any problems. After 35 years in investment banking I know Everything has an upside and a downside. If people can explain the downside then they are hiding something.
My theory of society is that free flow of information, watchdogs protecting the public and regulators stopping the Government are all necessary to create a society where positive feedback creates improvements. When it comes to mass migration this whole process has gone into reverse.
March 21, 2024
yes I noticed that rape perps were not in an ethnic category. They have stopped counting . In local papers however….
March 21, 2024
Your Posting is as usual positive JR, but how sad a situation that you have to point the obvious out to all the others, who do not seem to have a clue !
We need simplicity of policies and taxes, not confusion and complication, which is expensive and time consuming for everyone.
March 21, 2024
I should think that Poland will need a new way of forming everything.
70,000 angry farmers blockading the country.
Sick to the back teeth of cheap imports and wokery.
Pushed too far already.
1789.
March 21, 2024
The BoE loss-making (for the taxpayer) bond sales are deliberate, it’s just a way of raising actual interest rates without raising the BoE interest rate – the latter gets negative publicity and the former doesn’t.
March 21, 2024
What you are describing Sir John is an attempt to raise GDP per head rather than just GDP.
We are all getting poorer and not just because we are taxed more. Even the fortunate benefits recipients who are protected against inflation by their successive increases and handouts are not better off so wither the rest of us.
Government policy must include a requirement to raise GDP per head. Thar means putting an end to low wage immigration and changing the benefit system so that the economically inactive can only choose to be so if they fund themselves or are truly incapacitated.
We are spending more and more to get less and less. That way communism and bankruptcy lies.
March 21, 2024
SJR, I defer to th much vreater knowledge you have of the working and thinking of both the BOE and the OBR. However even were they to produce accurate figures and forecasts they would be wasted on 80% of the present members of the Commons.
Until we get a government that looks upon reform, enterprise and expanding commercial activity as the means of creating wealth and well being for all, we will remain stuck in the rut we currently enjoy.
March 21, 2024
Keep talking Sir JR, even though no one is listening.
March 22, 2024
not quite true – many on here are certainly listening and being convinced this is now ‘no country for old men’.
Nor young men, kids growing up, and of course for women of all ages. I/we despair.
March 21, 2024
The Quangocracy is doing what it was intended to do – preventing a genuine democratic choice in how the country is run. As Starmer admitted a few months ago, the “real work” is done in Davos; Parliament is just a pantomime to pretend to the electorate that there is a choice on offer. There isn’t.
The 3 branches of the Westminster Uni-Party are trapped within a Policy Overton Window of their own making so it will make not a scrap of real difference whether you vote for the Not-a-Conservative-Party, the Fabian-Labour Party or the Illiberal-Anti-democrats. You will get the same policies regardless of the Party-in-Office-but-Not-in-Power.
So you might as well vote for Reform. It will, at the very least, help send a clear message that resistance is building. And it may just destroy one of the branches.
March 21, 2024
Donna,
Absolutely right. EU lock step is the name of the game and to ensure UK cannot escape or diverge. Hence energy dependence on EU. Those conspiring on behalf of the EU do not care if it is Tory or Labour, Sunak and Hunt are their men. No doubt about it.
March 22, 2024
So are Starmer and Reeves. And behind them the man Cameron and Osborne admired so much they called him “The Master” and copied him.
March 21, 2024
What was creepy Obama (America’s Blair) doing here? He’s here for a reason. I see no invite for Trump. Is this deliberate? That’s the modern day Tory party for you.
March 21, 2024
I suspect he was here to pass on a message about RoI after their visit to the White House moaning about UK needing to change to speed up a united Ireland. We need a clean Brexit and get N.Ireland back- no border down Irish Sea, no checks on goods and get our fishing waters back.
March 21, 2024
To Dom,
Possibly to co-ordinate the details of the Biden Administration’s betrayal of Israel and the West, which unelected Sunak and Cameron are following slavishly and which is reaching its climax now. It’s about ten days since the two of them welcomed a political opponent of the Israeli prime minister on his way back from Washington.
March 21, 2024
Labour’s proposal to charge V.A.T. on school fees is an example of the Conservatives being useless in political argument.
Labour claim – and I have never heard their claim challenged- that not charging V.A.T. on independent school fees is a loophole for the rich. That is plain untrue. V.A.T is subject to certain exemptions such as spending on health or education. Independent school fees is just part of the education category exemption. If Labour want to start abolishing that education exemption are they intending to charge V.A.T. on other examples of independent education such as on private nurseries and indeed Universities that are privately run rather than state run? Otherwise how can they redefine the V.A.T.category exemption to include compulsory school age education (while somehow exempting religious denominational schools) but exclude other independent education?
Why isn’t Labour being challenged over their absurd ‘loophole ‘ claim?
March 21, 2024
May sound good and will be helpful if ever adopted, but it is just tinkering made to sound better with big figures.
Why not call for the abolition of the OBR for example and other equally radical changes. That is what we need and it does no good falling back only to details.
March 21, 2024
If 2bn isn’t that much how come the Conservatives haven’t provided the people they work for with adequate dental services. This is only one of many reasons you will lose the election.
March 21, 2024
Sir John
I couldnāt agree with you more. However, you in the party that has a Conservative Government in power. Just going by what has been demonstrated by the Sunak/Hunt duo they are clearly working to a different agenda, an agenda that stifles the UK, that fights its people.
This Conservative Government has demonstrated it has no interest in the UK, and has proceeded to punish and control. Sure, it priorities sending UK taxpayer money abroad to support regimes and governments that now get to have the UK dance to their political whims. What they refuse to do is just allow the UK economy to grow, to create the wealth needed to fight an uncertain future.
Everything appears to play into the narrative of these main players will be off out of the Country enjoying their wealth in foreign climes as soon as the get kicked out or the feel they have achieved their destruction aims.
March 21, 2024
We need a new way of governing called democracy.
The unelected OBR and unelected officials at the Treasury run the finances ā taxation, spending etc.. Unelected corporate bosses and universities run the legal immigration system. Unelected officials at the Home Office, activist charities and judges āhere and abroad ā run illegal immigration. Our energy, and hence economy and national security, is run by the unelected CCC, the BBC and other climate activist groups and by our judges as Net Zero by 2050 is a legal requirement.
Our elected Parliament through indolence, incompetence, corruption or even choice is no longer governing and explains why it appears that we are run by a communist fifth column controlled by a foreign state.
A Parliament only has sovereignty for a few years, 5 maximum. It does not therefore have the mandate to make enormous changes that will affect many generations or the very existence of the country without at the very least a referendum.
It is time we had referendums on whether or not we wish to continue with mass immigration and Net Zero.
March 21, 2024
@Original Richard – Democracy I remember that concept, something to do with selecting and electing those that will represent us in Parliament, taking on accountability and responsibility for their actions. This shower in the HoC are still fighting that, the only reason the HoL even exists is so parliamentarians can waste more of our money by being installed there once they are rejected.
March 21, 2024
Jeremy Hunt wants to reduce NI even further. The bogus claim of double taxation is just that, he could just get rid of employer contributions and maintain the link between contribution and receipt for everyone else. What he refuses to say is how with no NI there would be any link to pension entitlement.
Then in another contribution he states that the link to triple lock link is dependent on the public sector costs being controlled and cut. The Public Sector gets taxpayer support for their luxuriant pensions for ever, so are not affected to the same amount as in the real World. So, he is only out to punish those that donāt work for the State and with no NI link all pensions would be subject to the personal whims of the Chancellor and government of the day.
What Jeremy Hunt has neglect to state is that as the Chancellor he controls public sector spending, he is the Public Sector senior manager, his spouting of cuts reflects on his inability to manager. With statements like this we are still reminded how he was as Health Secretary instrumental in destroying as somewhat stable system
March 21, 2024
From the MsM “The Government borrowed more than expected in February”. I guess that means the Chancellor is borrowing to keep his own Public Sector afloat. Until the Chancellor starts managing his own domain we will remain in the spiral of decline
Better still lets have a new government, not the best option but the only way left to replace this in-built incompetence that keeps blaming others for their own failure
March 21, 2024
This is what true conservatives and patriotic British working people with common sense want, they know it would work as Sir John has explained. Why can the chancellor see this and do something about it. Stop pandering to the left they will never vote Blue anyway.
March 21, 2024
These are all sensible suggestions, but if Mr Hunt had his ears open to common sense, he would surely have acted on some or all of them by now. Have you tried them on Ms Reeves? She does, after all, at least say she favours a ‘Growth’ agenda.
March 21, 2024
Ms Reeves could be more effective at growth than the current PM.
Putting elevator heels in his shoes still falls short of convincing anyone.
MPs like Iain Duncan Smith have clear integrity without need for a syrup or other ways to deceive.
Reply Reeves policy would mean lower growth
March 22, 2024
well we’ll find out in 2025/6.
March 22, 2024
As a high-performance chess player, Rachel Reeves thinks many moves ahead. People using that level of preparation and skill can take what may be tiny, apparently irrelevant or wrong moves to outmanoeuvre others and succeed to their own ultimate objective.
However, she does looky dodgy to me and I shanāt be voting for her party. SJRās opinions are consistently of far higher quality and value to our country and people. Regretfully, too many other āConservativesā are below standard, and the current PM is failing atrociously in so many ways. I have switched to funding, supporting and voting Reform to assist a tug toward a better direction.
March 21, 2024
It would be nice if HMG was working to improve the economy, but at every opportunity they throw more of our hard earned taxation away in a new direction with no hope it will help at all.
Let’s be practical – No government could be this ineffective, this incompetent!
Something is seriously askew and nobody is confronting the real reasons why we are sinking into a financial mire.
“YOU WILL OWN NOTHING – YOU WILL BE HAPPY“
March 21, 2024
Actions have always been more effective than words . There is not much hope of it from our present leadership and they don’t seem to listen to Sir John’s words , so , where are we ?. There seems to be no way out of the doldrums and I am sick and tired of the roles played by the BoE and the OBR . Making a mountain out of the miniscule drop in public expenditure mole hole is not the start of electioneering ; the Conservatives have to turn on an entirely different screw .
March 21, 2024
Getting an accurate figure out of the OBR is as extracting the proverbial, ‘blood from a stone’.
Given the very poor results from their detailed forecasts, made in order to set the future of economy, they should have been fired ages ago.
However, this is just another burden the taxpayers have to bear as those ‘jobs for the boys’ count more than the future direction of our country, regardless how inept they are.
Sadly there will be no change with a new Labour Government as the same people will be providing the same inaccuracies.
Our only chance is to have a clean sweep of all of the main Parties and bring in a new leader and a Cabinet with the strength to do what is necessary to cut down on the public sector and involve the Private Sector more and more. It’s clear, the Public Sector is not working and we’re paying the price.
We now have to view our country as a plc to achieve the growth required to fund the enormous array of projects which are required to get us back on our feet again but it’s going to be a hard slog forward because of the mess made over the past three decades.
March 21, 2024
The number of long-term sick has risen from 2.1 to 2.8 million since spring 2021. Thatās a rise of 700,000 people. Only Andrew Bridgen is raising this issue in parliament. I know many people who have developed chronic conditions since this time. What is the Government’s response to this – Itās to stop publishing the data and issue even more visas to foreign workers.
March 21, 2024
As a Conservative this from the MsM pains me..
āThe Conservative Party is now just four points ahead of Reform UK, according to a new YouGov poll,
The survey, conducted between March 19-20, put the Tories on 19 per cent of the vote and Reform on 15 per cent.ā
Then you absorb it is not the voters that are deserting the Conservatives, they are still Conservatives ā it is this Socialist all punishment joke of a so-called Conservative Government that has deserted their voters. As time goes on the whole Conservative Party must now shoulder the responsibility for not just deserting the middle ground and moving to somewhere strange, they had the gift to do something about it and refused. A vote for this āReformā crowd is not a vote for Labour, it is just not a vote for Sunak. CCHQ has made the election about retaining āSunak as a leaderā of these new Socialists, they have not just deserted the Conservative voter they have set them adrift. How many good Conservative MPs are to be sacrificed, destroyed on the altar of vanity?
March 21, 2024
Another day of huffing & puffing trying to grab electioneering headlines, and another day of failing to support the UK. Another day of issuing more threats and punishment. Another day of blaming others for personal ineptitude and failure.
Whatās not happening is a focus on a real UK economy, controlling expenditure, managing for results. It would appear there is a desire to drag out the pain to ensure the destruction of the UK and its ability to respond knowing full well those causing the problem have damaged those that could solve the situation beyond repair. While all the time those that have inflected the damage know they will be long gone while those that canāt escape will be paying for this malicious damage for the next generation.
March 21, 2024
The Tory Mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester, Dan Barker, has defected to Reform UK today
I actually wish we could disband city/regional mayors and revert to council leader ….city/regional mayors are just an extra level of government, admin & spend
March 21, 2024
The EU wants regionalisation of England. Pro EU Tory party giving it to them.
March 21, 2024
devolved government in North East England was rejected at the referendum ballot box, but the politicians have imposed it in the last few days regardless. there is no real democracy in the UK.
the sooner John moves to Reform the better.
March 21, 2024
hear hear
March 21, 2024
āA new way of forming budgets?ā Why. The real self-answering requirement is simply to have people in office that can control expenditure.
Tax should not be a get out of jail free card for ineptitude.
Governments that want to make promises, want to bribe people with their own money should be compelled to create the wealth through a strong economy to carry out the promise. What is needed is to define the real bare bone basics that tax will fund then stick to that. Then all additional political dreams should come from wealth creation not tax rises.
Then the obvious one, anything that can be done by the Private Sector either as a competitive service or a time limited contracted service with defined results should head that way. The State, Governments in general are rubbish at day to day running of anything, there should be a Law to stop them even thinking it.
The lock downs, even wars that tend to call on, create, addition costs would never be a problem for a well-run government, they always happen its part of life. Just as its part of the way things are for government to be prepared ā first duty of government is to keep the Nation safe and secure they canāt do that once they have burnt the ālife boatsā
March 21, 2024
Another excellent article, but who in government is listening? We seem to have no MPs, except yourself, with a business brain who actually know how to cut spending.
Net Zero is nonsense and will never be achieved.
Migration, legal and illegal, is out of control.
Taxation levels are squeezing the life out of people on ordinary incomes or pensions.
The OBR and Treasury are both a joke.
Andrew Bailey is a failure and should be sacked!
Hunt and Sunak are both lightweights who will lead the Conservative Party into oblivion!
We voted conservative in 2010, 2015 and 2019 and got a socialist government!
March 21, 2024
9 million quid in “aid” to China can be stopped for a start, aid to nuclear powers with a space programme and aircraft carriers is silly.
March 21, 2024
We send them money/aid and they point weapons at their neighnours, claim the whole china sea and we take their refugees from Hong Kong ….how can we justify giving them aid ?
March 22, 2024
and we let them have what is acclaimed to be the best education money can buy over here!
Stop all Chinese students coming to UK.
March 22, 2024
icai.independent.gov.uk 21/03/2024 āUK aid to China falls by up to 90% since 2019 but still lacks transparencyā.
So Ā£8.2 m for a country of 1.4 bn people (0.6 p per Chinese).
Then Ā£8.2 m is a bitty more than twice the average FTSE100 CEO annual pay. The BP CEO got Ā£8 m in 2023.
Finally most of this money was spent by the British Council and not Chinese authorities.
What a pleasant sight it is to see how innumerate people just ask āhow highā as soon as they are asked to jump.
March 22, 2024
8.2 million pounds is nothing claims hefner.
Tell that to poor people in the UK waiting for homes over their heads or using food banks
We are ” inumerate people” and its just a “bitty” says hefner.
Just a dreadful attitude.
March 22, 2024
The Chancellor who presided over this mess is now the PM. That must surely be significant.
March 27, 2024
The Conservative Party has one problem here: credibility.
In all the years in power, it has addressed almost net zero of the real issues, ignored others (such as expanding wokery) and implemented almost net zero of its own manifestos.
If they think pushing these matters into policy statements for the next GE will fly… it won’t. Because those questions will be asked again and again: if you think it’s such a good idea, why are you not doing it now, while you are in power with a majority?
The old excuse of needing time for “review” or to “consult” won’t fly, there’s still time to do that if necessary – and it isn’t really necessary; “review” just means “pretend we’ll do it, then decide not to”. People know that now.
The Tories are sunk at the next GE. I don’t think many of the MPs care – the speaking circuit beckons, non-exec directorships, Facebook vice presidencies etc. And perhaps green card entry to other countries.