Author: johnredwood

The Spectator are hosting a debate today at Church House Conference Centre, Great Smith Street, Westminster at 7 pm.

I shall be speaking for the motion; ‘Iraq and Syria are lost causes, western intervention can’t help’.

More details, including on other speakers, are available on http://events.spectator.co.uk/events/iraq-and-syria-are-lost-causes/

Yesterday’s figures for September 2014 and the first half of the 2014-15 fiscal year show spending and borrowing on the rise.

Social security benefits are up by 5.4% on September a year earlier, despite the good progress in getting more people into work. Other current public spending is up by 3.1%. Capital spending is up by 42%. As a result of this substantial increase in nominal and real public spending, total borrowing so far this fiscal year is £58 billion, £5.4 bn more than for the same period last year.

VAT revenues are up by 4%. Capital Gains Tax revenues remain very depressed, owing to the higher rate this government has introduced. It is running at around half the level of the pre crisis peak in the last decade. PAYE income tax revenues are up, but so are tax credit expenditures. Overall tax on income and wealth shows no gr0wth at all. The combination of a good policy of taking people out of Income tax at the lower end, and the self defeating policy of trying to hit people with higher rates at the upper end has meant no rises in receipts.

Taxes on alcohol and tobacco are also failing to produce extra revenues. Petroleum Revenue Tax effectively disappeared in the last quarter. The government raised just £18 m in three months as oil prices fell and North Sea output dropped.  Our EU contributions so far this year total £5.7 billion, and public sector pensions this September at £3.5bn were 28% higher than August or October  last year.

In the remaining months of the year government needs to get a grip on its spending, and revisit its approach to taxing so it gets more by charging rates people will pay.  A  20% Capital Gains tax should bring in more money, for example.

Labour’s lack of ambition in going for a core vote 35% strategy is matched by the dangers of making the NHS the centrepiece of that approach. So far the more they mention the NHS the more their vote stays in the low 30s.

The first idiocy of it is the General Election in 2015 will not be about the NHS in Scotland or Wales. Health is a devolved issue, so what UK Labour says about the NHS is irrelevant for how the health service is run in Scotland, as Mr Brown’s vow made clear. As Labour needs to win back support from the SNP in Scotland, they need a UK appeal on Union policy to win  in May 2015.

The second danger is that Labour runs the NHS in devolved Wales, so people can compare and contrast the Welsh NHS under Labour with the English NHS under the coalition. The comparison is far from helpful to Labour. In  the border areas Welsh patients come seeking healthcare in English facilities. The financial settlement in Wales from the Assembly has been less helpful than the English settlement from Whitehall. The Welsh NHS has worse problems with the quality of care and waiting times than the English.

The third error is in supposing that most voters will buy the lie that a Conservative government would privatise and damage the NHS. This is the same lie that Labour hurled against Conservatives during the period of their wins from 1979 to 1992. It did not stop Conservatives  winning then. Nor did that government privatise and destroy the  NHS as Labour claimed. The Conservatives just kept putting more money into the NHS, as the Coalition has done. Ironically it was Tony Blair who decided to privatise some treatments, in a bid to speed up patient care and cut waiting lists. All 3 parties have long accepted the use of private sector contractors and suppliers  in the property and hotel sides of the service, and for the purchase of drugs and medical equipment.

It will be interesting to see if Labour continue with this ill judged pathway to the Election. Every time the electorate want to talk about immigration, Labour  does another NHS story. Every time people want to talk about the impact of the EU on our borders or our energy bills or our criminal justice system, Labour says that is just a few Tories or UKIP  banging on about Europe. Labour says and offers nothing on the EU. Everytime people talk about  jobs, taxes and the deficit, Labour just talks about the minimum wage and attacks bankers.

They may discover that seeking to cut yourself off from much of the mainstream conversation by always visiting a hospital or finding some mistake with the English (but not the Welsh) NHS is not a good way to boost your vote. They also need to remember that most adults under  70 years of age are fortunately normally healthy and not therefore personally preoccupied day by day with the NHS. They want to know there is free treatment available should need arise, but no main party in the UK wishes to take away that insurance.

Mr Barroso says more UK politicians should speak out for UK’s  membership of the EU. They do not, because our current membership undermines  our democracy and damages  our economy. The EU burdens us with heavy costs, a high tax bill and dear energy. It is left to an  EU official  to lecture us on why we should stay in. The more they lecture us, the more UK voters will be suspicious of the EU and the large bills and instructions it imposes on us.

The so called case to stay in is based on three errors. The first is Germany and France would not sell us their goods any more if we left. Germany has of course confirmed they would want continuing access to our markets so we would keep access  to theirs. The second is western Europe would be fighting itself with no EU. It’s not even worth refuting that nonsense.  The third is the UK would have no influence in the world outside the EU, when we would be able to speak for ourselves again in the main world institutions  instead of having to depend on the EU to do it.

I read Owen’s speech and attended the dinner to discuss how we should carry work forward on new measures to give us cheaper energy in the UK.

He made some important points in his remarks. He did not doubt the science of greenhouse gases, but did ask why climate models have failed to predict recent temperature trends. He did not even propose that governments should ignore the impact of energy production on the environment. Instead he illustrated how EU/UK policy is neither delivering cheap energy nor getting carbon dioxide emissions down in the way the dash for gas in the USA is doing.

I am glad he has now decided to speak out. Some criticise him for not doing so when in government, and for voting for numerous EU measures which this coalition has been required to put through under the current terms of our membership of the EU. I do not share this view. I think we Eurosceptics and climate change sceptics do need representation in the cabinet and have to accept that to stay in a cabinet of a member state of the EU you do have to make compromises whilst arguing against the worse abuses of public policy as you see them.

I know from private conversations with Owen when he was a Minister that it was always difficult for him because he fought battles from within that needed fighting. The story of Owen’s tenure of the Environment office is the story of EU domination of parts of our government and the need for change in that relationship. We cannot now have a European Commissioner who is a long standing public Eurosceptic, and it is difficult to have an Energy or Environment Secretary who disagrees with the fundamentals of EU belief and policy in these important areas. That is why we either need a new relationship or need to leave the EU.

When the history of the EU comes to be written, after it has broken up, I suspect the disastrous energy policy will rank second after the economic and social damage wrought by the ERM/Euro to the jobs and living standards of western Europe. I stressed at the dinner my consistent belief that we need to have a policy based on competition and the drive for cheaper energy. The current policy is stripping much industry out of the EU, as aluminium, steel., ceramics, glass and other heavy energy using industries go elsewhere. It is also a cruel policy for people on low incomes, who have to spend a disproportionate part of their money on keeping warm and fuelling domestic appliances.
When the UK joined the EEC against the wishes of some of us we were told that it was about creating greater prosperity for all. It turns out to be a wealth and income destruction machine for many, especially for  those who have signed up to the Euro, and bad news for the many who now have to face such high energy bills.