The government announced £63 bn of investment following a one day event at the Guildhall. Much of it was familiar projects that companies have been working on for some time. Almost 40% of it was Scottish Power plans for more grid and a power cable link from Scotland to Yorkshire. Almost two thirds of it was investment in renewables and grid in pursuit of net zero.
Scottish Power is down for £24 bn over four years. Last year it invested £1.8 bn, well up on the previous year. To do so and to pay a £1.25 bn dividend to its Spanish owner it added to its net borrowings. We are invited to believe it can treble its investment rate over the following year and sustain that for four years. How does it pay for that?
The problem with this heavy investment in green transition including £8 bn in carbon capture and storage is it will not add much to GDP after the build activity, as the extra power is needed to replace closing nuclear and gas stations. Renewables need extra grid and storage but as the government tells us they will be cheaper than gas or nuclear that would reduce GDP.
The government looked very unprepared for this Investment Summit though it was an idea the previous government started and the new government has been talking about it for months.If you want a growth strategy you should as a government have drawn up a bigger list of key infrastructure items we need where government plays a big role. Where were the road schemes, the new reservoirs, the new and larger water and sewer pipes, the broadband capacity, the new rail capacity, the flood schemes , the advanced all weather fruit and vegetable schemes and the rebuilt U.K. fishing fleets? Where is all the extra housing and infrastructure needed to provide for hundreds of thousands of new arrivals every year?
There are so many more opportunities to grow where government is needed to offer planning permissions, licences and in some cases part of the investment finance. The £64 bn is a very limited list, with a few good private,y financed data centres as a welcome addition.
October 16, 2024
Good morning.
Spanish jobs for Spanish workers.
Tow tier crime and punishment. Sleeze scandals. Removal of OAP Winter Fuel Allowance. Giving away British Sovereign Territory, and then making an agreement to lease them and pay a foreign country that has never owned them. And now the above.
As someone said to me yesterday about a client company – “They are a real s***show !”
October 16, 2024
“If you want a growth strategy you should as a government have drawn up a bigger list…”
They don’t want growth, other than in the size and power of government and the public sector/NGOcracy. It’s difficult to see this as very different from our governments in the last few decades or so. They’ve been burning through taxpayers’ money and interfering in people’s lives at an increasing rate and have lost sight of light touch, “don’t mend it if it ain’t broke” rule.
The summit was there to get some headlines and sound bites. Meanwhile what’s left of Britain looks and feels ever more like a third world country. Such is the legacy of PPE, and the long march through the institutions.
October 16, 2024
Indeed, if they want a growth strategy they should ditch net zero, frack, drill and mine, cut taxes, ditch VAT on school fees, not abolish Non Dom status, cut the size of Government by 50%, ditch the war on landlords, motorists, businesses, hard working people, the wealth, the self employed… ditch soft loans for useless degrees 75% of them, stop low skilled immigration… not a single one of their policies – other than relaxing planning makes any sense whatsoever. Rather like the Tories for the last 14 years but even worse.
October 16, 2024
Here are a few taxes on working people.
Employer’s NICs, VAT on School Fees, CGT increases, Net Zero, the war on landlords, abolition of Non Dom Status… even the worker rights bill will decrease wages and increase employer’s admin and legal costs.
The only growth we will see is in the numbers Lawyers and other similar largely parasitic jobs in the state and private sectors. With another huge fall in productivity.
October 16, 2024
+1
October 16, 2024
+1
October 16, 2024
It was as convincing as Zelensky’s Plan for Victory.
btw a tweet yesterday from Tymofiy Mylovanov,Ukraine’s former Minister of Economy and currently President of the Kyiv School of Economics:”I’m back in Ukraine and the mood is pitch black.Ukraine feels betrayed……Russia is advancing with no signs of willingness to negotiate.In this context,talks of peace,ceasefires or deals feel completely detached from reality.”
He links to an article from RUSI,14/10/24(The Impending Betrayal of Ukraine) and says the situation is worse than that portrayed-I wouldn’t normally consider RUSI a reliable,objective source but if even they are saying that……
October 16, 2024
“Russia is advancing with no signs of willingness to negotiate.”
Is Zelensky willing to negotiate?
October 16, 2024
Zelensky passed legislation forbidding anybody negotiating on behalf of Ukraine.
However all eyes are in Kazan. International trade by BRICS in USD is less than 40%.
We need more than growth, and we stand as much chance of getting growth as Zelensky has of imposing his ‘Peace Plan.’
October 17, 2024
‘China’s yuan is nowhere close to displacing the greenback’, 14/10/2024, economist.com
Between 2004 and 2024Q1 , the Over-the-counter foreign exchanges have remained the same (88%), the cross-borders banking liabilities have grown from 62 to 66%, the foreign currency debt issuance grown from 54 to 70%. Only the foreign exchange reserves have decreased from 67 to 59%.
So announcements of the demise of King Dollar are exagerated.
And funnily a portfolio of US tech ETF has grown from £150 in 2014 to £500 in 2024, one of US mixed ETF from £50 to £380 over the same period. In comparison a China ETF has lost from £6.25 to £5 between 2019 and 2024.
October 16, 2024
14 years in opposition and they don’t seem to have made any plans for anything. They said they had a fully costed programme which is obviously a lie as they are going from pillar to post being blown in all directions. If they had a fully costed and planned programme why have we waited 4 months for their budget, it could have been produced i a fraction of the time. Clueless amateurs again, and we will have to pick up the bill for their hare-brained ideas, especially the Milliband bankrupting the UK ones.
October 16, 2024
14 years of Labour’s lying and saying very little other than the Tories are dire (which was true) the Ming Vase/do no frighten the horses strategy – in order to get elected by default. That and we will be far, far better which was a patently a lie they are even idiotic and supported all the appalling tory policies Net Zero, lockdowns, net harm vaccines, the wars on cars, landlords, small business…. They push same misguided insanities like Net Zero, high taxes and more regulation but it is far, far worse still.
October 16, 2024
Why would you think ex-leaders like Ed.M, Corbyn and acting Harriet had a duty to plan the actions of a Government. The reality was that with the likes of (union) Crow, Lynch, McDonnell, Graham, Ward, Roach, Cullen…
there was little point in claiming what they would do when faced with the threats likely.
October 16, 2024
Surely you’re aware John that Net Zero is the only game in town. This is designed ti bankrupt us and the money pledged will ultimately do just that. Carbon Capture and storage will add about 2o% onto our electricity bills. The standing charge will be increased to pay for the unsightly pylons.
We have lunatics incharge and we are about to see the biggest transformation in history when the government of regions is implemented. Very similar to the EUs idea of carving up the country to lose our identity.
It’s sheer vandalism perpetrated by a minority government enabled by the stupid tory government of the past 14 years.
October 16, 2024
+1
October 16, 2024
+1
England is to be broken up into regions which are very similar to the kingdoms of Alfred the Great’s time: the latest “application” for devolution is to be called The Heart of Wessex and will cover Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.
Of course the citizens of those counties haven’t been consulted or given their agreement …. in case they say no, like Northumberland did under the Blair/Brown regime.
Labour wants to federalise the UK and England is “too big” ….. so it must be broken up.
October 16, 2024
@ I Wraggg
Sadly, you are right! The council of Nations and Regions have already had their first meeting, last Friday!
October 16, 2024
On The Conservative Woman yesterday, Mat Brown (writer and former investment banker) wrote about a document quietly produced. It describes the Nations and Regions set up; the Citizens assemblies that can bypass Whitehall. He says it’s unclear who would be in charge of the country. There’s too much to easily précis here, so I have copied the link.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-future-is-gray-brown-and-anti-democracy/
October 16, 2024
Sharon, that was very helpful. On Citizens’ Assemblies, Sue Gray gave it away by saying, according to the Times report, that they would “help to overcome” opposition to government policies, such as massively increased house building. In other words, their role would be to tell voters how it’s going to be, not to listen to what they want.
October 16, 2024
Strange how this all fits in so well with the EU model.
How long before Westminster becomes a museum piece?
The irony is that regionalisation is all being done under the name of democracy and accountability – when in fact, just like within the EU, nobody will ever be held responsible for incompetent or corrupt decisions!
October 17, 2024
Citizens Assemblies, stuffed with left-wing activists who will know that their path to political preference will depend on them doing and supporting what they are “advised” to do/support.
How very communist.
October 16, 2024
Actually enabled by a corrupt voting system designed to keep two parties in power and now we are seeing how wretched it is.
October 16, 2024
RUBBISH!
October 16, 2024
+1 Two, almost identical, tax to death, socialist, Net Zero pushing parties 80% of whom are blatant liars and many are clearly corrupt too.
October 16, 2024
You have your doubts about its effect on GDP, I question what it will do for personal GDP.
Where is the investment in SMRs from UK sources. Reliable power that puts money in the pockets of UK workers, wheras windmillls serve the chinese economy.
I think we all suspect that our future should be with lower taxes and much less government spending, but I await the budget wirh little expectation.
October 16, 2024
Nuclear is not very good for renewable back up you need a power source that can be ramped up and down which means gas, coal, oil, wood at drax (though wood (young coal) at Drax is far worse in CO2, for the environment and in cost to burning old coal. For renewable you need gas or coal backup. Batteries are far too expensive.
October 16, 2024
Expensive and hugely energy wasteful too.
From Matt Ridley in the spectator:- Electricity prices have doubled in Britain since 2019. They are 46 per cent above the International Energy Agency’s median for industrial and 80 per cent above the median for domestic electricity. As the independent energy analyst David Turver points out, British business pays almost four times as much as American business for each unit of power and British consumers pay almost three times as much as Americans.
Almost the most expensive energy in the world and yet they expect growth!
October 16, 2024
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-ed-miliband-plans-to-conjure-electricity-out-of-nothing/
October 16, 2024
Ll. Not so, modern PWRs are quite flexible. By letting the secondary steam pressure modulate and if necessary dump steam, they are as nimble as coal and almost as gas. I know, I’ve operated them.
October 16, 2024
To a degree, but they are quite a lot less efficient if run intermittently like that. Letting of steam is obviously rather wasteful. Also you end up wasting much of the capital investment that way.
October 16, 2024
Nuclear should not be viewed as a backup, it should be say, a basic dependable 20% of our routine needs, round the clock…
October 16, 2024
Nuclear should replace renewables not back them up! Nuclear is not only more reliable than chaotically intermittent renewables but their electricity is cheaper and in addition the enormous grid upgrades and grid stability necessary for intermittency is not required. France with 70% of its electricity coming from nuclear manage to cope with a fluctuating demand. It just means some nuclear reactors require more maintenance. RR say their SMRs can load follow and the advantage of the coming SMRs is that in a cluster of SMRs only 1 or 2 may need to load follow.
October 16, 2024
Not as backup LL, but as base load power. Use the windmills to produce hydrogen,
initially for road transport. 15 SMRs should surfice and if you put them where electricity is needed you don’t need an army of pylons.
October 16, 2024
I’m sure I read somewhere that rolls Royce had sold its buildings that they were going to use for developing SMR’s because they were fed up of government dithering on the subject.
October 16, 2024
One or two large Nuclear generators makes more sense (or rather they should do if the legal and planning objections are overcome by government quickly and cheaply). Cheaper to build per MWH delivered, cheaper to protect, cheaper to connect, cheaper to run and maintain and more energy efficient too…
Thought Gas and Fracking makes even more sense then wait until we have better Nuclear or Fusion. We have plenty of Gas and Coal for well over 100 years and a bit more atmospheric CO2 is a new good in reality too.
October 16, 2024
ft.com 26/09/2024 ‘Rolls Royce and US rivals enter final stretch to build Britain’s first mini nuclear reactors’.
Not sure this is consistent with the ‘I read somewhere’ comment above.
October 16, 2024
And for an history and prospects of the UK nuclear industry, see scienceinparliament.org.uk 20/02/2024 ‘Britain’s nuclear power industry and the prospect of its revival’, V.Hanworth, 34 pp.
October 16, 2024
Swden , Finland, and Poland have expressed interest in RR, SMRs.
October 16, 2024
There was much talk of “growth”. The only “growth” on offer appears to be more national debt and more taxation “invested” in net zero returns and worse.
October 16, 2024
Growth is heading for growing depression. Lack of motivation to work, invest, plan. More sitting back and watching the disaster unfold.
October 16, 2024
Define investment. Define hate. Define racism. Words are now weapons of ideological power and have lost all meaning.
October 16, 2024
Yes.
Migrant capital of Europe – a few years after leaving the EU. Towns being taken over by mafioso with their fake shop fronts where restaurants and boutiques used to be.
Brexit = Disaster.
October 16, 2024
amazing how many hand over £thousands and risk lives to make to it to ‘disaster’ England!
October 16, 2024
The migrant problem was pre-Brexit. Brexit would have fixed it.
October 16, 2024
Well for this government:-
Investment = piss down the drain
Hate = any criticism of their mad policies or supporters
Racism (or Misogyny) = mean shut up just abuse for anyone who has criticisms of their mad policies or supporters.
Climate Change Denier = person who understands the science and is a climate realist.
Needless to say no one sensible “denies” that the climate changes it always has done – or even that humans have some effect (the urban heat island effect for a start).
October 16, 2024
LL ;
The BBC are climate deniers because they deny there was any climate change until the Industrial Revolution.
October 16, 2024
Agreed, Sir
October 16, 2024
You ask ‘Where is all the extra housing and infrastructure?’, Sir John. A lot of the housing will be in your former constituency. As for the infrastructure, that will lag a long way behind as usual, because the developers will be allowed by local authorities to do as they please, also as usual.
October 16, 2024
Mine and Sir John’s constituency is already filling so fast as to be unrecognisable from the green and pleasant land of a decade and several more ago. Expansion will have to be demolishing the few out of town business areas to build more rabbit hutches on.
October 16, 2024
Apartment complexes will be coming near you soon.
October 16, 2024
They have been built already..flats in my language. Some developers have also been shrewd and built these blocks for retiring into, thus freeing up their former homes – sometimes for redevelopment too!
October 17, 2024
I like retirement flats for people holding onto three-bedroom social homes once their children have grown and they are supported by housing benefits. All my aunts downsized into retirement flats from private houses (the problems selling them and the big bills at the end are a problem, though).
Social housing retirement flats are better than private retirement complexes because they don’t charge massive management fees, redecoration fees, or social care watch fees for the tenants.
We have a row of shops in very poor condition; they get vandalised because they’re not overlooked. In London, they would be rebuilt with flats over the top of them with balconies and parking spaces for shoppers and residents. Mixed use developments seem to be much more successful than shops that aren’t overlooked or have offices nearby or homes nearby.
October 16, 2024
There’s plenty of housing being built, (no infrastructure to go with it though), just not the sort people on the waiting lists want or can afford. Just huge profits for the builders.
October 16, 2024
and the desperation of young people to get a mortgage rather than be at the mercy of landlords choice.
October 16, 2024
The simple solution is to cut personal and business taxation, then the investment and personal effort to increase productivity will follow.
People and companies work for themselves, their shareholders, and their own families NOT the Government.
Two Big decisions are needed by the Government, scrap net Zero, and stop immigration, no need to hold a conference and try to bribe businesses with promises which can then be undone.
October 16, 2024
Alan it all sounds so simple. If only that obvious path was to be followed by the new Government, but productivity will be replaced by destruction.
October 16, 2024
“Renewables need extra grid and storage but as the government tells us they will be cheaper than gas or nuclear that would reduce GDP” – which points to what a doubtful measure is GDP but energy expense overall may easily increase to then boost GDP and give the government an illusory triumph.
October 16, 2024
The Eco Zealots are firmly in charge and Intermittent Energy is the only “investment” the Government is interested in.
The WEF’s Great Reset is about rationing, restrictions and reducing demand. Why would they invest in infrastructure which might damage the WEF’s objectives?
October 16, 2024
And at a practical level on flood preventon, where is the river dredging? It is not difficult, and essential. It was done years ago until ‘environmental’ extremists in management stopped it. A lot is now needed, urgently. The water can no longer get away but climate politicians are blaming extreme climate change. It suits their cases.
I live in a small village. We are at the foot of a hill and the start of a big river. Silt in the small water route through was causing flooding on a road and close to some houses. It was on private land further on but was cleared and the problem was solved.
Just get on with it in the rivers, dammit.
When are common sense people going to take over again?
October 16, 2024
answer – the next GE.
October 16, 2024
Each item you list Sir John is needed as a consequence of grown or growing population.
Perhaps Ms Reeves idea to raise Employers’ NI is a way to make business pay for their addiction to cheap imported labour. Shame that as with everything government touches the little people ultimately pay.
October 16, 2024
The cheap imported labour generally doesn’t pay employers NI. The casual gig economy will continue regardless.
Even in my tiny village we have a Turkish Barbers opened up. The guy sits on the step smoking as there’s obviously not enough business for him. Someone should be investigating this sudden urge as with car washes.
October 16, 2024
A much bigger problem for those who use lone subcontractors is on the rise. The unions call them ‘workers’ even if they work for several companies, invoice for their services, don’t have a company or contract provider, substitute if they’re off work, and want to apply for retrospective holidays and pensions. If successful, the revenue will get on board.
This government hates self-employment, people choosing for themselves where they work and what hours they choose to do. They hate full-time workers taking second jobs; they want to level down.
October 16, 2024
Hmmm. So we are allowed nothing cheaper because it will reduce the holy grail of GDP. No wonder everything in this country is so expensive. As well as making nothing, we all charge each other high prices so we have high GDP. Sounds like lunacy to me. Where is the fabled ‘GDP per head’ in this madness?
Reply I was using irony. The power will not be cheaper but to grow you need to do more than replace
October 16, 2024
Expensive energy is hugely anti-growth they are killing the steel industry and many others. We have energy 3-4 times the cost of the USA and 46% above the International Energy Agency’s median (for industrial) and they expect growth!
October 16, 2024
Agree with that Sir John, in other words the far left are telling lies
October 16, 2024
£64bn sounds a lot but if it all over a 4 year period it is £16bn per annum. This is peanuts in a £3 trillion economy.
October 16, 2024
HS2 is spending that every year now. At least the Thames Tideway (sewer) will make dramatic improvement for London (the bedrock of the economy) and boosted jobs and materials for 10 years…all at the cost of just over one usually docked aircraft carrier, £5bn.
More infrastructure projects that boost jobs and area improvements, please!
October 16, 2024
Any nuclear energy projects in there ? Thought not. I see Amazon are planning on using small SMR nuclear reactors to power new data centres (in USA) – they’ll be using them at least a decade before there are any in UK (2039 the projected date) and more probably a decade before the UK planning approvals for them have been completed.
If we had a proper nuclear power strategy we wouldn’t need ANY windmills at all.
October 16, 2024
both Parties are guilty.
October 16, 2024
It would appear that the main purpose of this investment summit was to channel ever more cash towards netzero projects that will never make a profit or even safeguard our energy supply.
(Words left out re Scottish Power)
Strange how the green people are so keen on sustainable ventures, but when it comes to money they ignore the realities of economics and just plough ahead with projects that will finally, accumulatively, bankrupt the country.
It is not possible to believe that this rush towards economic armageddon is just foolhardy, for we can see through the hype. We are on an express train to financial ruin and deindustrialisation, decay and depression. And it is all very intentional.
October 16, 2024
Everywhere socialism is practised it brings a levelling down, the antithesis of economic growth. Having recently travelled in South America I vividly saw the UK’s future – the first European version of Venezuela and Bolivia, two nations all but destroyed by government interference borne of socialist ideals. But there is nothing we can do. Both Tory leadership candidates favour Net Zero, the overarching mechanism of economic destruction. Just think how a bold Tory candidate could benefit from the inevitable energy rationing / blackouts to come, providing a glorious optimistic alternative vision of the future. Some would say that vision belongs to Reform but they are hardly a government in waiting.
October 16, 2024
EDF has confirmed that the older nuclear stations, due to close over the next few years, cannot be kept going. They have extended the life of many of their PWRs in France but British nukes are different designs. By 2028 the only nuclear generation will be Sizewell PWR.
The remaining gas stations will be coming to the end of service unless major rebuilding is started soon. All we have is investment in carbon dioxide capture, which is unproven and expensive.
The incompetence in the ministry and politicians is difficult to believe.
October 16, 2024
EDF has confirmed that the older nuclear stations, due to close over the next few years, cannot be kept going. They have extended the life of many of their PWRs in France but British nukes are different designs. By 2028 the only nuclear generation will be Sizewell PWR.
The remaining gas stations will be coming to the end of service unless major rebuilding is started soon. All we have is investment in carbon dioxide capture, which is unproven and expensive, using much more gas.
The incompetence in the ministry and politicians is difficult to believe.
October 16, 2024
Britain is finished, Sir John. Properly finished.
It’s no good trying to think, say, do anything sensible anymore.
Nothing makes sense here anymore.
October 16, 2024
Is it a Government inspired investment in a way that we can make sense of it, when the primary source of the money is coming from subsides and levies(tax and more tax) loaded on to customers energy bills, which are already the highest of our competitor Nations.
In essence the Government is handing our Money to Scottish Power and then they and the Government call it their own investment – not ours
October 16, 2024
Sir John – Or as you alluded to the UK Government is sending UK Taxpayer money to prop up The Spanish Government while the UK Government talks of a £22billion black hole. Sending UK wealth abroad by diktat is to punish the UK People – when it is all gone what then?
Wealth creation therefore the tax that is contributed to the pool only works/happens when the money circulates the economy, circulating in someone else’s economy is destruction of the economy. Look to the US and the IRA(Inflation Reduction Act) they use it to feed their economy with taxpayer funding because what goes around comes around. The UK just exports the economy, its wealth, its jobs, then wonders where to get more taxes from to continue the lunacy,
October 16, 2024
“Almost two thirds of it was investment in renewables and grid in pursuit of net zero.”
Making our electricity more expensive with weather dependent intermittent renewables is not an investment but economic vandalism. Not only will the supply of intermittent electricity cause economic insecurity but the low energy density of renewables resulting in the need for thousands of wind turbines spread out over hundreds of thousands of square miles together with the thousands of miles of undersea cabling makes our energy infrastructure totally exposed to hostile attack.
Even from a purely economic viewpoint the more we spend on obtaining energy the poorer we all become.
October 16, 2024
176 illegal criminal economic immigrants arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France
October 16, 2024
GC – And if I may, just as a reminder to self & anyone else who cares to note, that this gives us a total within the last 15 days Oct 01 to 15 inclusive : 2265 people in 40 boats plus the 15 days before that – Sep 15 to 30 inclusive: 2003 people in 37 boats. ( UKG official figures ) 4 week total 4268 / 77 boats despite some days of bl…. awful weather. No chance of stopping the hotels; a full time procurement job maybe for someone or many ….
October 16, 2024
Investment ; UK vs. Norway
”While we are busy shutting down North Sea oil as soon as possible, Norway want to keep pumping for decades:
A Norwegian appeals court said on Monday it had ruled in favour of the government in a case brought by environmental activists who sought to halt the development of three oil and gas fields.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
I believe that we’re the only country continuing with net-zero ….and losing investment ….if only we had an opposition against net-zero
October 17, 2024
glen
Norway did not spend all of the oil income as soon as it arrived on shore either, put much of it away for the future to fund many more important projects, which made life a little better and more efficient for everyone in the Country.
October 16, 2024
“The £64 bn is a very limited list, with a few good private,y financed data centres as a welcome addition.”
There will not be any large data centres running in the UK. The tech giants have woken up to the fact that they cannot run their energy hungry data centres on expensive, intermittent renewables and are now starting to buy into nuclear, both large and SMRs.
Amazon has acquired Talen Energie’s data centre campus connected to the Susquehanna nuclear power station. Microsoft has made a deal with Constellation Energy to re-start the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Google is said to be looking for energy utility partnerships in the US and elsewhere to run dedicated nuclear plants for their AI data centres etc.
Nuclear is not only reliable and doesn’t require enormous grid expansion and stabilisation and storage costs but is now cheaper than the latest round, AR6, of renewables whose prices have risen by 58% since the last auction, AR4. There were no auction bids at all for AR5.
October 16, 2024
Investment is where a return is received, a reinvestment return, a tangible self-sustaining future. The UK and its shabby Governments are quite bad at understanding that. Even in History it has shown a disregard to the purpose of investment, investment for a future. After WW2 the US came up with a Marshal Plan to create money for Europe to rebuild. Germany used it to create an Investment Bank, that earn’t to provide a future – it is still running now. The UK(Labour) did what drunks do ‘p…. their money up against the wall’ threw it all away on Socialist Ideological projects, then when it ran out scratched their heads and said what now? Germany still has it intact.
All money extracted from the taxpayer should have it focus on building sound resilient, self-sustaining UK. If the Companies that wish to benefit from the UK Taxpayer are not UK based, paying UK Taxes without the funny foreign administration fees and investors fees, they should be excluded. The focus as with the US (as it has shown, companies relocated to take advantage) is to force the situation that taxpayer money circulates and causes the economy to flourish – not to diminish it.
Exporting wealth, jobs and industry is to diminish the available taxes therefore all future funding. As with the Faux Conservatives this crowd don’t even comprehend the damage, the long-term damage they are perpetuating. They still have the mentality that destroyed the purpose of the Marshall Plan.
October 16, 2024
“To do so and to pay a £1.25 bn dividend to its Spanish owner it added to its net borrowings”
Is this to be a repeat of the Thames Water fiasco and will the British taxpsye be on the hook when the chickens come home to roost while the dividend receivers are safely back in their homeland?
October 16, 2024
Perhaps we’d all be better off if Sir John became leader of the Tories. Whether he wants to or how he could become leader I don’t know.
October 16, 2024
What do you mean PERHAPS we’d all be better off ! Any doubters out there, I think not.
October 16, 2024
Perhaps whomever is chosen as the next Tory leader will get him into the Lords and make him shadow Chancellor – but I rather doubt it.
October 16, 2024
From the Media
“Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly having to face down cabinet members who are demanding she loosen the public purse strings and make greater spending commitments in her upcoming budget.”
“However, at a meeting of cabinet, she reportedly told ministers that this year’s £22bn financial black-hole would be recurring over the next five years – meaning there is actually a £100bn chasm in the UK’s public finances.”
This and all future imagined ‘Black Holes’ will keep appearing all the time Governments don’t control their ‘own’ spending actually have a budget based on reality(What the Country earns) and they keep ensuring more and more taxes (that is everything taken by government from the UK Citizen by force of Law) is then sent abroad to prop up foreign domains. How much of Red Ed’s bottomless pit of money is being sent abroad? A UK assembly plant by a foreign taxpaying entity is not UK Manufacture, it is not UK earnings, it is not creating a resilient, sustainable future in the UK. When the NetZero Zealots talk of sustainability or renewables they ensure it excludes the UK or its People, they are the terrorist that want the downfall of the UK by exporting its furture
October 16, 2024
It was like inviting you to believe this leopard has changed its spots or the lion has given up eating meat or wanting its pound of flesh (HMRC) and Labour is now your friend.
More like keep your friends close but your enemies closer, because we love your wallets. It’s two -tier, favouring an EU company with a Scottish name instead of UK interests while no invitation for Elon Musk because he backs Trump.
October 16, 2024
“Renewables need extra grid and storage but as the government tells us they will be cheaper than gas or nuclear that would reduce GDP.”
The 2024 AR6 strike prices are for fixed offshore wind £82/MWhr, for onshore wind £71/MWhr, for solar £70/MWhr and for floating offshore wind (the PM’s favourite) £195/MWhr.
These prices are all well above the weighted by generation Intermittent Market Reference Price (IMRP) used for CfD calculations which was about £51/MWhr in August 2024 and includes gas generation with its carbon taxes.
So at these prices the renewables will not bring down the cost of electricity generation and it is a mystery as to why the government persists with CfD contracts if it really believes that renewable electricity is the cheapest form of low carbon (CO2) generation. If that were to be the case then surely the wind generators should be buying their North Sea operating licences from the government instead of obtaining subsidies?
And since when is it considered by economists that providing cheaper energy leads to a reduction in a country’s GDP?
reply Indeed! Hence my wry comment.
October 16, 2024
Off Topic. from the Evening Standard.
A pensioner battling fading eyesight and declining mental health has received a criminal conviction over £20 of unpaid car tax while he was struggling to cope with the loss of his wife to cancer. The 79-year-old man from Portsmouth was taken to court last month by the DVLA, in a prosecution brought through the controversial Single Justice Procedure. Court papers obtained by The Standard show the pensioner’s son set out details of his father’s struggles in a letter to the court.
But the letter was not shared with DVLA prosecutors due to the fast-track nature of the court process, the pensioner was then convicted and ordered by a magistrate to pay £105.
The last Conservative government failed to deliver reforms to the Single Justice Procedure in spite of a growing bank of evidence that vulnerable people across England and Wales are being harshly treated and in some cases wrongly convicted in the secretive courts process.
The new Labour government says the system is currently “under review”, but has refused to share details of possible reforms.
In the letter to the court, the pensioner’s son set out: “My father recently this year had cataracts removed from his eyes and since has not been able to see to drive. He also suffers with macular degeneration. This severely impedes his ability to see.
“My father was living alone at the time of the alleged offence, following the death of my mother to cancer whom he had been the sole carer. “Since that time, my father’s mental health has rapidly deteriorated and he has become withdrawn from society. “As such, he has been unable to read or respond to mail and cannot remember what he has done and not done.”
He said he has moved from London to Portsmouth to care for his father, who will soon celebrate his 80th birthday, and told the court the Ford car was “off the road on a private car park at a nearby shop, as my father was no longer driving it”.
The tax ran out on February 29, and the vehicle was re-taxed on April 1, while the insurance was in place throughout.