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The UK has suffered from a largely nationalised railway for 23 years since Network Rail was brought into 100% public ownership in 2002. All the track, signals, power systems, stations and all the land are in government ownership and control. The result has been an expensive mess. Another Transport Minister has sat studying things for a year and has now announced £1.1bn for more studies to answer the same question how to improve Northern Rail.

For the last 14 years successive governments have announced their decision  to build a new high speed track from Manchester to Leeds but there is still little doing. Over this time period HS2 has seen costs quadruple and time delays lengthen, with both the previous and the present government accepting they cannot afford to press on with the two legs from the Midlands to Manchester and Leeds that were the original point of the scheme. HS2 has been completely nationalised throughout and given tens of billions of pounds more than budget. It will end up delivering half the railway for maybe three times the cost.

The government likes railways for environmental reasons, yet every new railway line is bitterly fought over by people who dislike the big impact rail tracks have on their landscape and for the noise and emissions from the trains. The Green lobby claim rail travel is greener than cars, as they assume it will be in an electric train and assume the power for the train will be all renewable. Both these assumptions are miles from the truth. Only 39% of the track is electrified so diesels are the dominant force on our railways. The power delivered to the system from the grid is only around 50% low CO2 and can be as little as 15% low CO2 on no wind and sun times. So overall only 20% of the trains meet their wishes.

Why given their views have governments failed to electrify the system and put in the renewable power they say it needs?

The Transport Department’s 2024-5 Accounts tell us the railways cost taxpayers £28bn in that year. £7bn went on a year’s spend on HS2 and £17.9bn on publicly owned Network Rail, with £3bn of other rail items of spending.  The Expenditure Review 2025 forecasts £30bn for the current year. Network Rail last year only managed to collect £3.3 bn in Access charges from the train companies running the services and needed as always to rely on large sums from the Treasury. Whilst rail was spending £30bn the Department only spent £7 bn on the much more extensively used national road network. Even with Council spending on other roads it means government spends 30 times as much per rail mile travelled on trains as it spends per mile travelled on roads.

The capacity and speed issues could be eased by accelerated spending on digital signalling. If every train knows where every other train is on the network in real time and if there is an override control by the system operator more trains can be run safely per hour on the same stretch of track. More fast trains could be combined with stopping trains by building more short sections of by pass or overtaking track along key routes. These are much cheaper and quicker solutions than a scheme like HS 2 which was meant to both raise capacity and average speeds starting from now, only to find we are years off a single train making it from London to Birmingham, let alone Leeds or Manchester.

I have long argued the UK ‘s net zero policies are too dear, are losing us our industry and jobs, are losing us tax revenues and increase world CO 2. The last argument cuts through with more of the politicians and officials than the prosperity, tax and job arguments. It helped me and a few others persuade the last government to allow further exploration wells in the UK and development of new oil and gas fields. Mr Miliband has imposed a complete ban. It got the last government to delay banning new petrol and diesel cars, only for Mr Miliband to speed up the ban.

I also argued in a couple of short books that the twin drivers of the planned electrical revolution for consumers were not popular and would not deliver the change the net zero advocates wanted. Heat pumps are too dear, disruptive to install where larger radiators and more insulation are needed and can be dearer to run than gas boilers. Battery cars are dear, often lack range, can be difficult to recharge on long journeys and will gradually lose subsidies as some more people adopt them.

The latest work suggests a £4.5 tn cost to the planned transition just in the UK. I used a figure  of $275 tn for the world plan in my “The $275 trillion Green Revolution” to show a very rough magnitude of the task, which appeared in various articles based on a McKinsey report.  It might well cost more to replace all those coal and gas power stations, most petrol and diesel vehicles and all that fossil fuel space heating.

Now the US has renounced net zero policy, China believes in it for others but keeps plenty of fossil fuel use herself, and India says net zero has to come later, the UK and EU remain locked  together with a disastrous dear energy policy. They then wonder as they blunder why they lose jobs, close factories and hardly grow.  Net Zero policy is both  self defeating and very destructive of prosperity.

 

Under our complex  constitution recorded in Acts of Parliament, conventions and Parliamentary rules a government with a majority can do as it wishes with laws, taxes and government decisions subject to public opinion and Parliamentary debates and votes. It cannot give our sovereignty away without a referendum vote or a clear mandate from a general election win where the surrender of power was a well highlighted issue.

This government is not offering a referendum on its so called EU re set yet it proposes to surrender major powers. In the election Labour promised  to respect Brexit, keep  us out of the single market and customs union, and seek minor improvements for food exporters and travelling musicians.

Instead it proposes to surrender our fish for 12 more  years, pay large sums to the EU and sign up to dynamic  alignment of our laws which is similar  to going back into the single market. Meanwhile there is no guarantee that we will be able to export more food, there is no reward for giving away so much fish, no benefit for  sending them so much cash and no easing of restrictions on musicians.

Dynamic alignment of laws will damage investment in the food industry, in digital and in healthcare in particular  where we are beginning to get advantages from avoiding their worst over the  top rules. Joining their dear  carbon tax scheme and locking further into their energy market will drive energy prices higher and speed de industrialisation.

This disastrous re set will damage growth and jobs, make the government even less popular, and is against our constitutional practice. The idea that the EU would seek to impose a big penalty on the next government tearing up any such Agreement should warn any decent government off signing it. It means the EU thinks the terms they are getting are so good they would deserve compensation for ending them. This government seems to see it as a necessary poison pill to try to lock us into a bad  deal. I assume the next government will want to end this likely rotten deal as soon as they  win the election to take office.

 

A government promising change has changed a lot. The problem is it is mainly change for the worse. People wanted more jobs not more unemployment. They  wanted more successful businesses not more failures. They wanted cheaper energy, not dearer, fewer illegal migrants not more and lower not higher taxes.

To get out of the mess the government needs to start with U turns in most policy areas. I list the crucial ones.

Restore the Rwanda scheme backed by ECHR proof UK law so we can deport illegals, creating a deterrent.

Remove the National Insurance tax on jobs

Remove the IHT attack on small businesses and larger farms

Accelerate plans to help people into jobs whilst limiting sick notes for life to just very disabled people

Dilute the damaging impact of the  Employment Rights Act which is hitting jobs

End the EU re set, taking back control of our fish to build a bigger fishing and  food processing industry

Keep the Chagos islands and save £30 bn over the longer term

Keep Turing and cancel Erasmus to help more UK students at less overall cost

Keep juries

End two tier justice

Restore free speech

End dear energy and extreme net zero policies that deindustrialise us

Restore drilling for oil and gas at home

 

 

In order to stay in the war against Germany 1939-41 and then to go on and make a major contribution to victory alongside the USA the UK had to produce huge quantities of industrial and agricultural product in these islands.

Peak production of aircraft was over 25,000 in a year, 250 major naval  ships in a year, with millions of tonnes of new merchant ships. UK yards built 58 aircraft carriers during the war. There were big technical breakthroughs including radar, jet engines, a wooden warplane, bouncing bombs, and  mulberry harbours.

The country got by with rationing of food combined with a dig for victory policy and the women’s land army.

Today a government who says we need to mend our defences delights in driving farmers out of business and in subsidising other uses for land than food growing. It runs down our industries, driving orders abroad by insisting on high energy prices and carbon taxes.

Where we had more than 50 aircraft carriers today we have just two, albeit much bigger and more sophisticated than many of the WW2 models. Where we could make 25,000 aircraft in a year today we would be hard pressed to build 25, and then only by relying on substantial imported components and raw materials. Our farmland has contracted  as we become ever more  dependent on imported food.

Before promising to deploy troops we do not have and to buy weapons we need the UK government needs to change its energy , business and industrial policies so we can make much for ourselves. It needs  to actively back  and  promote self sufficiency in energy and temperate foodstuffs.

Greenland is a vast country with a population of just 56,000. It  was a colony of Denmark, and has voted to be largely self governing with its own Parliament. The King of Denmark is the ceremonial Head of State, Denmark sends an annual grant to assist, and Denmark has some powers over foreign affairs and defence policy. In practice the defence of Greenland rests with the US base and US forces that could be assembled in the event of a hostile attack from a joint enemy of Greenland and the US as members of NATO.

The US should make clear it has no intention of invading and occupying Greenland by force, as it is a NATO member and allied democracy of the US.

During the Second World War the US sent troops to Greenland to prevent a German invasion and occupation, when  Denmark was forcefully integrated into the German Reich. The trend of Greenland politics has been to distance itself more from Danish influence and power, whilst showing  little  wish to become a state of the USA. An earlier attempt by the US to purchase Greenland as they had Alaska was rejected by Denmark.

The US position today seems to be based on worries about the threat to all that unsettled land and the adjacent sea routes from Russia and China which is seen as a threat to North America itself. It is also likely based on the possible exploitation of minerals, oil and gas that may lie below the ice and could be useful to the arsenal of democracy. President Trump probably wants a deal that the US offers more defence security to Greenland in return for good US access to minerals and economic development opportunities. Greenlanders may be reluctant to allow mineral and fossil fuel exploitation for environmental and sovereignty reasons.

As the US Secretary of State, the First Diplomat, has said, these matters need resolution by negotiations.  The defence of Greenland is an important issue for all NATO members, and Greenland though with a tiny population might find more ways to help. The US needs to remember the purpose of NATO is to defend democracies and the rights of people to govern themselves. Maybe Greenland should start with a referendum on whether it wishes to loosen its remaining  ties with Denmark as part of seeking a solution to its future.

My reading of British history taught me three big lessons.

1. The UK has fought far too many continental wars, costing us a huge price in lives and treasure. It was often a bad idea to get involved in struggles that did not affect our core interests as an island with global reach.
2. When we had to fight as against Nazi Germany we were on our own for crucial months and needed to have the military capacity for self protection and survival. Being able to make our own weapons and feed our own population were crucial.
3. The main threats to us in previous centuries always came from Europe with successful  invasions by Vikings, the French, and the Dutch, and unsuccessful by the Spanish, French and Germans in more recent times.

Recently  Ukraine has been invaded. That country wishes to become an EU state. Other small states to the east face possible Russian interference if they look to the EU and NATO. The EU and its leading member states with substantial militaries needs to decide on what relationship it plans with Russia and whether it is willing to give Ukraine sufficient financial and military support to give Ukraine a good chance of defeating the Russian invasion.

NATO remains an important pillar of our defence. Led by the dominant contribution of the US we can only rely on NATO for those purposes which the US will endorse. Under Presidents Biden and Trump it is clear the US does not regard NATO as the alliance to intervene against Russia to support Ukraine. As the UK cannot change this view it needs to respect it and base policies on the consequences. We do need the US to continue its offer of protection to NATO members, and therefore need to respond to the US direction .We and the other NATO members also need to do more to defend ourselves.

The UK needs to greatly bolster our own defences. Defence commitments need to be increased, starting with a more comprehensive anti missile and drone defence for our home islands. Our airforce and navy need expansion both for home defence and for possible overseas tasks in conjunction with the two aircraft carriers. The main interests the UK has abroad is to keep open the sealanes and air routes for international  trade and to protect UK overseas territories.  As a Security Council member of the UN we need to be able to commit to overseas interventions against terrorists, rogue states and threats to allied democracies and trade. As a NATO member we need to work to ensure the continued effectiveness of the NATO guarantee to its members, the continued presence of the US in NATO  and to ensure we can help the US defend NATO states.

The UK needs to invest much more in securing our own food and essential supplies at home, and in rebuilding our defence industrial capacity. We can only defend ourselves in an uncertain world if we can grow enough food, and make enough weapons here at home.

The USA regards oil and gas as central to its lifestyle and to its economic and military strength. China seeks to dominate the battery car and renewable energy markets but is busy buying up cheaper Russian gas and increasing its use of coal. It doubtless regards the EU and UK as stupid to be buying its green products made using fossil fuels to shift the use of the fuels from their economies to China’s. China has avoided firm targets to get its own CO 2 down and has spent the first decade since the Paris Treaty to cut CO 2 putting its own up.

Russia pays for its war of expansion by selling oil and gas discounted to countries willing to ignore western sanctions. India plans to grow fast buying more oil, gas and coal from any good value source. OPEC still earn a good living from fossil fuels.

Western consumers including Europeans remain wedded to gas and solid fuel heating given the high costs of electricity and in most countries  battery cars are a minority  taste.  Most  forecasters expect the  world to be needing 100 m barrels of oil a day in ten years time alongside at least as much gas as is burned today.

Europe and the UK government do not wish to accept this reality. As a result they are becoming more dependent on expensive renewables, needing back up ways of providing power for all the times when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. There was a good reason the Uk grew richer by dumping windmills and changing to coal based steam power.

Europe and the UK by backing extreme net zero policies and over regulating digital business are putting themselves into the slow lane whilst the US and China leap ahead. Worse still the EU approach will increase world CO 2 whilst damaging themselves by denying themselves cheaper fossil  fuel energy. The US grasps the need for both more electricity and more fossil fuel as the digital cloud needs huge quantities of power for its revolution.

When I was the UK’s Single Market Minister I was appalled by the excessive and bad laws and regulations the Commission drafted and tried to force through. I had to waste my time seeking to build qualified minority vote blocks to delay measures  or to try to get revisions or dilutions to the  harm the drafts would do.

The procedures were designed to concentrate power in the hands  of the Commission. As a participating Minister I could not move my own amendment to a law but had to get the Commission to adopt the change behind the scenes if they accepted I could mobilise a blocking minority against their bad proposal.

I kept the UK Parliament informed of the main proposals but Parliament had no official role. It just had to rubber stamp anything the Council of Ministers accepted from the Commission. Thousands of bad laws got through over our long years in the Single Market. Parliament had to watch and submit.

The EU Council legislates in private to avoid scrutiny by press and public. Ministers from various states could be persuaded to back something whatever their stated views on the issue safe in the knowledge they could not  be seen and heard shifting position away from  a national interest.There was an irrational wish to find a compromise to legislate when it would often have  been better not to  do so. There was no appetite for repeal of bad past measures that were  doing obvious harm,

The Commission just wanted to occupy as many areas of life and government activity as possible. To do so it usually asked leading French and German companies and their governments how they did things and then make that the only legal way to do things in their laws . It rarely thought of  the needs of small business, innovators and challengers.

It was also anti US. Wherever the US was pulling ahead through new ideas the EU sought to regulate and fine the US success stories.