Author: johnredwood

The government wrongly says an EU re set will give us more economic growth. They think they can get non tariff barriers to trade in goods eased to promote more activity. Let’s look at the basic arithmetic.

In 2024 the UK imported 1.7 times as much as it exported in goods to the EU, running a large deficit. If they could get barriers eased so that they could expand trade by 10% both ways, our goods exports would go up by £17.7 bn and our goods imports by ££30 bn . GDP figures add in exports as that is activity and value added created in the UK. Imports subtract where we close UK production to buy from activity abroad. So with a symmetric 10% increase in goods trade GDP would be reduced . The UK would need to find ways of creating or keeping barriers against imports to help growth from the EU trade route.

To keep GDP constant the UK would need to increase its goods exports by 70% more than its imports, given the much lower base of exports in our trade. So if imports rose 5% we would need to grow exports by 8.5% just to stand still.

In practice it is difficult to see how the UK will get non tariff barriers or  border bureaucracy so reduced that it will achieve a measurable increase in trade. A few easings for meat and dairy helps a tiny sector of our exports. Meanwhile our past leading   exports to the EU  include diesel and petrol cars, about to be banned in UK, oil and gas, put into accelerated rundown by Mr Miliband, and refined oil products where we have just shut one third of our refineries.

Exporting more goods to the EU is not going to be a source of more growth for the economy on current government policies.

If the relatively small admin costs of exports to the EU are such a big worry the government could give every exporting company a subsidy to cover them. The cost  would be less than 10 % of the money the UK is likely to give the EU each year for this alleged benefit.

UK government policies have  put up youth unemployment and made it more difficult to buy a first home. EU re set would make that worse.,

Their Jobs tax and extra employment regulations  have  destroyed job  opportunities for many young people and pushed up Youth unemployment

Their over spending and  over borrowing have put up longer term interest rates hitting housebuying.

Their failure to curb illegal migration and to build more homes makes it difficult for young people to get even a rented home of their own.

Their new Renting laws are reducing rented housing supply more, pushing up rents

Now they want to make this all worse by inviting in many more  young from the EU needing jobs, grants, homes and public services when these are all in short supply . Why? The UK is not short of unemployed young people  looking for a first home they can afford.

They are also taking away the opportunity through Turing for young Brits to study in non EU universities in the US, Australia etc.Going back into Erasmus will land  taxpayers with an extra £700 m of cost mainly to help EU students get places  at UK universities!

The government seems to forget there are six times as many people  in the EU as the UK so any EU/UK scheme is bound to help many more  Europeans than Brits, at our expense.

Doing nothing is not an option. People are angry about the current situation. Doubling down on current policy of higher public spending, higher taxes and a faster drive to net zero will make everything worse and hasten the  demise of the PM to be followed by his party.

Labour needs to try to be the party of the workers again, not the Benefits  party. It needs to reach out to the UK settled population and put  an end to illegal migration and excessive legal  migration. It needs to rebuild our defences instead of running them down.

It should be scandalised by the way net zero policy is rapidly de industrialising the UK. It should lift its bans on domestic oil, gas and car manufacture. It should drastically change energy policy, reducing taxes and high prices of energy  for business and homes.

It should reform welfare to get many more people back into work, cutting the big bill.It should stop giving away money and islands to foreign governments. It should cancel the ill conceived and damaging EU re set.

Those  who debate whether Labour should turn  right to confront Reform or turn left to tackle the Greens do not get it. The public want results on clear problems. They want the promised economic  growth. They want the end to illegal migration.  They want the pledged  lower energy prices. They want more  jobs not more unemployment. They are not asking for more politics, more  spin, a choice between two wrongly categorised other parties. They just want the government to govern well. They want them to solve problems, not make them worse as they have been doing with the wrong changes.

I have just spent a lot of time researching and editing contributions because they were inaccurate. I do not normally have time or inclination to do this, and will delete serious lies . I allow people to use some lies to develop their antagonistic views as long as they are not libels about people.

The first type were submissions alleging fraud or crime in Councils without evidence or based on a mis reading of a news story. You should not make allegations of criminal conduct without evidence, and if you have good evidence you should send it to the prosecuting authorities. I do not have any evidence of crimes, but if I did I would refer the evidence in private and not publish it here.

The second type were spin, hype or lies about Reform Councils cutting spending. I will be delighted by any Council under any political management that does cut spending and taxes without damaging services, which is quite possible. There are no current examples to share. As soon as there are I will write about them, and will be happy to publish comments about them. Conservative Councils have in recent years delivered the lowest average tax rises and I look forward to seeing how Reform does.

Too many people accept Council lies when they say government grants have been cut as they usually go up, and when they say they have to spend all the money under government orders. Councils have wide ranging discretion over spending in many areas, and usually overextend their remits and spending to indulge themselves, employ too many staff and seek to compete with private sector leisure and sport facilities with subsidised offers. They are keen to draw down grants for spending items they do not have to do just because there is a grant available. They are often wanton with capital as they have access to plenty of subsidised borrowing.

If you want to make your Councillor more accountable, ask them a simple question. What is the total spend of your Council this year? Most will confess they have no idea. A few will venture a figure. The figures given are usually well below the true total. They often miss out all the capital spend and borrowing. They often miss out the Education budget as it is usually covered by a full government grant. They sometimes offer a figure that is net of all government grants. They rarely know if you ask a supplementary what the actual definition of the spending figure they have been given is.

The officers often produce extremely complex figures making it difficult for Councillors to see just how much spending they are in practice approving. Years ago when I was a County Councillor I needed to insist on simple total cash spend figures, as the officers in inflationary times always wanted to show us inflation adjusted so called real figures to disguise the large increase in cash outgoings. Looking at  Council websites on finance today there are a variety of ways of netting off grants, trading  income, and borrowings to give the impression of a lower total.

Councils are usually desperate to spend more. They grab any grant going, however undesirable the purpose of the spending as it does not directly bear on the Council tax. They are desperate to get up their trading income by milking motorists with high car park charges.  They ignore the fact that their Council tax payers are also national taxpayers having to pay for the grant, and ignore the way the grant may buy a capital asset or put in a service which then comes to impose costs directly on Council taxpayers in later years.

I did persuade the last government to get some control over wanton buying of commercial property as “investments” just before a likely collapse in shop values from the growth in on line retail. There need to be stronger controls on municipalisation, on buying up property in the Council area, and on “investing” in green technologies which should be done by the private sector under a market test.

NB Government grants, business rates, Council tax and schools grant for English  local government was £77bn in 2019 and £145 bn 2026. What cuts?

The media are not good at local elections. They want to turn them into referendums on the state of the government, and spend most of their time discussing national issues and following national party leaders. Much of this campaign  has been about the chronic unpopularity of this let down government and its leader Keir Starmer.

There are important local issues to discuss which do often dominate the doorstep conversations and some of the candidate literature. Meanwhile national political debate and national media usually infantilises Councils, seeing them as victims of government requirements hindered by “ underfunding”.

The truth is very different. Every  year government grants go up and Council taxes are jacked up more than inflation  in most places. Every year Councils add to their huge debt piles, burdening  future taxpayers. As I drive around the country I see many Councils spending on closing roads, installing  cycle lanes, putting in 20 mph zones, narrowing carriageways and imposing congestion charges, reducing car parking and putting up the charges. Motorists are ripped off and pilloried. People who need vans and cars to get to work and to serve the local community are treated as villains and greatly inconvenienced.

I read about Councils who waste money on buying properties at high prices, then lose money on them. The dire Lib Dem misled Wokingham Borough wants to spend £20 m on a solar farm. It has recently spent £5.5 m on wrecking a local road junction  and painting leaves on the roundabout against local wishes. It leaves Council property empty and draws up an expensive plan  for new offices. Then it claims poverty when it comes to social care provision.

Councils spend huge sums, waste far too much and blame the government.Kent County spends billions yet the Reform Council could not find overall cuts and so it put the tax up by more than inflation. In Worcestershire Reform put the tax up by 9%.

These results did show how unpopular the PM and Labour are. The usual abstention of far more  than half the voters shows many people do not think councillors make a difference. The trouble is when it comes to Lib/ Lab Councillors you know you will get ever higher bills and more potholes.

Government pretends to offer more  devolved power but instead propose a new higher layer of bureaucracy and cost. This government is determined to prevent local people saying No to migrant camps, to building on greenfields or to solar arrays destroying food growing farms.

The first big saving should be to scrap their  costly reorganisation with all the extra bodies and Mayors they want to grandstand over us. Far from devolving power they will thwart our wish to  have less, cheaper and better government.

 

 

They are about to stop us buying the kind of tumble dryer we want. They will tell us if we must have one it has to be a heat pump based type, entailing longer drying times especially in winter if you keep your machine in a cold place. They are dearer and may be costly to run in cold times.

They will ban new petrol and diesel cars as soon as 2030, forcing us to buy nearly new ones imported from abroad or to buy battery cars , many of the cheaper ones from   the Chinese.

They are hovering over banning gas boilers more generally and have already banned them for new homes and want them out of rented property.

The government works to close roads, narrow carriageways, introduce more traffic lights, more low speed controls and other devices to try to get us out of our cars. Instead of cutting CO2 these measures greatly increase congestion, increasing fuel burn and low gear movement.

The government imposes big fuel taxes, windfall and additional rate profits taxes on oil and gas companies, VAT on fuels, carbon taxes and emissions trading costs. These all make us worse off and to destroy many UK industrial jobs.

There is a rout going on in many industries from ceramics to glass, from  steel to petrochemicals, from plastics to ICE vehicle manufacture. None of this will reduce world CO2. It will just ensure the CO2  created by manufacture is made somewhere else, with additional CO2 from shipping the products and goods to us as imports, travelling many more delivery miles.

Please government put a stop to it. End all the special taxes, levies and rules. Let customers decide. We will choose more  wisely than government. We will ensure many more industrial jobs stay in the UK making things we are proud to buy.

The PM spent our money and his time flying to Yerevan to attend the European Political Community meeting, without a thought for all the extra CO2 he could have saved by joining on line. After the meetings there we can read a full statement of the parallel EU-Armenia Summit  which also took place set out by the Commission. This is a  report of a very detailed meeting setting out how Armenia can conform more with EU rules and participate in more EU programmes in preparation for eventual membership.  It is set in the context of the EU wanting Armenia to complete a Peace Treaty with neighbouring Azerbaijan, and improve relations with Turkey. The EU has a political vision of the future of Caucasus region which it wishes to enforce.

The President of Azerbaijan attended the European Political Community on line and is reported to have been critical of the EU for taking a pro Armenia stance and for taking provocative actions as he sees them  with one sided intervention in the  disputes between his country and Armenia. The Turkish President was invited, but instead Turkey’s Vice President joined on line. Two of the key themes of the meeting were ” Regional stability in the south Caucasus” and ” Building the future: Unity and Resilience”

The Ukraine President  attended and made a plea for more military and financial help in resisting Russian aggression. The meeting favoured a negotiated solution for the Middle East, whilst  continuing with the war against Russia in Ukraine.

So what was the UK’s view on these important issues? Did the PM support the conclusions on how to bring peace to the Caucasus? What does he think about the further extension of the EU eastwards and the impact that will have on the region?  What is the proposed UK defence and Co-operation Agreement with Poland going to include?  Why can’t we see a draft text? Co-operation on weapons procurement is fine as long as it helps both sides.

The UK government needs to understand it is not in any position to take on any more defence obligations or responsibilities. This government is running down our defence forces all too quickly, standing down and decommissioning four of our frigates and withdrawing military capabilities from the Middle East and  the Falklands and failing to give timely support to Cyprus. The PM needs to be at home finding ways to afford a stronger defence. The priorities for more spending must be a proper anti missile and drone defence for our home islands, a naval capability which can better protect our overseas territories and trade routes, and an updated independent  nuclear deterrent.

Labour 2024: “Defending our security also means protecting the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, including the Falklands and Gibraltar. “

“Labour will always defend their sovereignty and right to self-determination.”

So what happened to that pledge?

Chagos  Attempted give away with absurd £30 bn plus dowry to Mauritius.

Falklands Withdrew crucial refuelling plane from Falklands airport. Failing to reinforce defences with naval commitment despite new Argentine claims

Gibraltar Sell out Treaty with EU to make Gibraltar a colony of EU, taking rules and tax/ charges imposition from EU, allowing Spanish officials intervene in border control and making Gibraltar pay money to EU.

Cyprus base Failed to send naval cover and to provide full defence to Middle Eastern threats.Aroused Cyprus discussion of asking UK to leave.

Bermuda and Cayman islands  Stated wish to change their locally determined tax policies to drive business away from them.

 

 

 

 

At last government Ministers agree there could  be shortages of jet fuel in the summer holiday season. They should know, because their high taxes,  high energy prices and carbon tax policies have closed two refineries leaving us only 4. Both Lindsey and Grangemouth were important suppliers of jet fuel to UK airports. The government in its mad net zero way wanted to stop that and import it instead, taking its production out of our CO 2 figures to put into another country. Now it is getting difficult to get hold of imports that doesn’t look so smart.

Ministers say they are talking to remaining refiners to see if they can get more jet fuel fractions out of the oil they are processing. They should open negotiations with the new owners of Lindsey and the owners of Grangemouth to see what changes to carbon taxes and general taxes would get them to restart their works before they set about demolishing or re purposing. The UK needs these refineries. It would  add employment, some extra tax revenue and some more reliable fuel supplies if they did a deal. They also need to lighten the tax and price load on the remaining  4 refineries as they could close as well if they get into heavy losses.

It would also be a good idea to add to our oil production at the same time and encourage UK supply contracts to UK refineries to add further to security of supply.

How many more times  do we have to warn them of the huge damage they are doing to UK industry and to UK national security?