Category: Uncategorized

The latest sad twists in the story of Mr Windsor have re opened the question of  what should  he do, where should he live and what should he be called. It was a long time ago he gave up all royal functions . It has raised constitutional issues and now involves Parliament.

The King has rightly agreed Mr Windsor should lose the titles and honours bestowed upon him. He and the PM have decided to accept the offer not to use the titles rather than removing them. Removal requires an Act of Parliament.  This would likely pass quickly  and not be opposed. It would be possible to get Opposition agreement to safe passage if it was the wish of  both King and PM. It should include taking Mr  Windsor out of the line of succession, unlikely though that is.

It appears Mr Windsor paid a substantial sum for what is now a rent free lease on the large Crown property. It appears Mr Windsor can continue to live there as long as he carries out the costly maintenance provisions. The total costs of staff, heating, maintenance and other running costs will require a substantial income which will need to come from personal effort or inherited investments.

It seems likely a Select Committee will now enquire into the Crown estates and the leases it offers. Clearly any property leased to a member of the royal family not wholly engaged in royal  duties for the state should be a commercial lease at market prices. The Committee may wish not just to  check the commercial terms of key leases but to consider how much state property should be available for the royal family, its relation to the sovereign grant, and on what terms. It needs to take account of the role of the royals in maintaining and improving state property, ensuring continuity of use for main properties and acting as hosts for many state occasions in those properties.

It would be much better if Mr Windsor moved somewhere else for a new more private life. Living abroad like Prince Harry would work better. Any royal family member who wishes to earn a living from commerce and contacts should not be a part time active royal receiving taxpayer support.A Minister of the Crown has to give up all remunerated and private sector activities the day they take office to avoid all conflicts and vulnerabilities to showing unfair favouritism to people and companies that pay them  .

Yesterday an illegal migrant the UK had sent back to France returned on another illegal boat. The UK has to accept another migrant for his original deportation. The government say they will send him back to France again, so presumably the UK has to accept yet another migrant.  There was no limit placed on how many times  you could deport the same person and no limit on how many extra migrants we need take for any yo yo migrant that hops across the Channel several times.

Yesterday we passed the  total of illegal arrivals by boat for the whole of last year. So smashing the gangs hasn’t worked. Only 42 have been sent back to France under one in one out, so thats no kind of deterrent to the thousands coming.

The number coming had been falling under the previous government with the deport to Rwanda scheme beginning to be a deterrent. Cancelling that was stupid as it could well have worked. It was delayed because the government wrongly turned down law changes some of us proposed in Parliament to prevent lawyers and foreign courts delaying it further. The latest Opposition proposals for law change voted down by this government would work. Pity the government won’t  do that.

The government uses the problem as a reason to cosy up more to France and the EU. After more than a year of doing this it should be obvious even to the government that France is not going to turn the boats back or puncture them in shallow water as they could easily do to stop them. So why are we still sending them money? Why do we not complain about the way France escorts these boats safely out of their waters instead of discouraging them leaving? Why can’t France detect and prosecute more of the boat organisers in North France who are openly advertising and collecting money for passage?

This is all a disgrace, a tragi comedy, a set of absurd policies never likely to smash the gangs and stop the illegals.

On January 1 next year the EU introduces new high tariffs on many imports. Called a carbon border adjustment mechanism, an importer next year will have to pay around Euro 80 per ton of carbon embedded in products including iron, steel, aluminium and cement, with the range of high energy using goods being expanded over time  to cover most of the things that generate plenty of CO 2 in their production and shipping. The idea is the EU wants to deter people from buying imports of things that incur a carbon tax when produced in the EU itself. It also wants a new source of revenue and a new barrier to trade.

The good news is the UK will not be introducing this tax on 1 January 2026, sparing UK consumers and importers the extra burden and dearer prices it would bring. We have no need to do this, no need to inflame trading partners around the world with a new tariff like tax.

The bad news is the UK does plan to introduce a look alike tax or tariff on 1 January 2027. The current UK carbon tax rate is £42 a ton of embedded carbon or Euro 49, lower than the EU level of Euro 79. However, the UK is also saying it wants to join the EU  carbon trading system or align with it, so this year the UK carbon price has risen 58% and the EU price just 5%. If the UK perseveres with its self harming policy there will be more larger rises in the UK carbon price ahead until it reaches the EU levels. These rises make domestic production much dearer as well as imports under cbam.

The UK carbon tax will cover aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen, iron and steel but not glass and ceramics. Doubtless the aim will be to expand its coverage and up its rate as time passes. The government wants the revenue and this is a new excuse to tax the consumer and the businesses involved.  The things covered are basics, and will hit the costs of construction hard at a time when the government says it wants cheaper homes and more affordable infrastructure.

The importers have to buy and surrender certificates or pardons for the associated carbon in their imports. The UK will gradually force the carbon price higher by reducing the amount of free certificates it releases to UK producers of these products, who will then need to compete with the importers more intensely to acquire certificates. More de industrialisation to come as a result of this anti jobs policy.

The last government set up T levels. Equivalent to 3 A levels they provide a good education and training in a specific area equipping someone for a job. The current system also requires young people who fail at GCSE maths and English to retake when commencing further study.

This government says it wishes to simplify the BTec work based training certificates and wants to introduce a V Level. Equivalent to one A level, this would provide a general  background to careers like engineering, digital or electrical but would require the individual to then undertake an apprenticeship or other vocational training before being ready for the job. They also wish to introduce some different test for English and maths to avoid the need for a resit of GCSE.

I am glad the government wants to improve the chances of young people to get the new jobs emerging in digital, in construction, in energy and the other areas attracting substantial public and private investment. The issue is will these particular changes achieve that progress? The government argument for the V level rather than the T level is many young people at 16 do not know what they want to to do so they do not wish to commit to a vocational course geared directly to a particular skilled job. Maybe they should. Their own careers would advance more quickly if they did, get them into decent pay earlier. If they had made a mistake they can change at a later date.

The issue of a different qualification for Maths and English is also complex. To do many of the skilled jobs that follow people will need a basic competence in Maths and English. Failing particular GCSE s should not bar people from other education and training, but the educators do need to find a way of assuring themselves that the person going on to a new level has sufficient basic skills to be able to read course materials, write replies and undertake calculations sufficient for the task. The current options include Functional Skills level 2 as an alternative to GCSE. How will any new alternative compare to this? Will it ensure sufficient competence to give the young person a decent chance of making a success of A or V level?

I remain to be persuaded about the new V levels. I note that in modern universities that succeed there is much more stress on obtaining work experience and striving to find links between the academic world and the world of work. 16-18 education also needs to be rich in building those links. It would be good if more 18 year olds emerged fully trained and ready to take a skilled job.

Since President Trump got into office again many on  the left in the UK have claimed he has undue influence over the UK, and spend their time condemning what he does. They need to understand that past US Administrations have all sought to influence UK policy, and the Biden Administration was particularly influential. President Trump has not interfered in many areas where he could. He has not condemned the idiotic surrender of the Chagos base to a friend of China. He has not sought to block the siting and expansion of the Chinese Embassy in London, though UK US intelligence security is a joint concern. He has not sought to use tariffs or other sanctions to get the UK to onshore more of our industry and produce more of our own energy, though both are crucial to being able to make an important contribution to NATO.

All the time we had President Biden in the White House I declined to criticise and was keen for our country to do the best deal with him we could.

Biden’s team were anti Brexit, pro the Republic of Ireland and pro the EU. They interfered extensively in the negotiations over the treatment of Northern Ireland and over what was to become the Windsor Framework. They sought to divide the pro Brexit Conservative MPs from the DUP, and to marginalise both in the discussions over the future realti0onship. The US stance wrongly argued that the Good Friday Agreement would be damaged if the UK did not adopt the EU scheme for controlling Northern Ireland trade and business laws. This was self evidently wrong but became the prevailing orthodoxy in much of the official UK government. US influence helped secure a great deal for the EU at our expense.

President Biden put in two new Vice  Chairs at the Fed and engineered major changes of approach and policy at that institution. Ironically the remodelled Fed duly printed too much money and allowed an inflation which did big damage to the Democrat cause. This had knock on effects to the UK with the Bank of England deciding to make a similar mistake.

President Biden pulled bis troops out of Afghanistan overnight without warning his allies or seeking our agreement. This left UK troops exposed and gave the UK government a major problem to rescue our forces. It also led to the needless loss of the country to the Taliban.

President Biden mis spoke about Ukraine, saying a limited Russian acquisition of territory might be alright, giving Putin a clear indication the US would not respond strongly to any invasion.

President Trump has made clear he wants an end to net zero policies which weaken the west, but has not used the same pressures and methods that the Biden team used to secure the Windsor Framework. He has just given advice to the UK to look to its energy self sufficiency.

Where President Biden refused a Trade Agreement with the UK President Trump gave the UK the first and softest deal on tariffs. President Trump was right to push NATO and the UK to spend more on our own defence, and he is right to want peace in both Gaza and Ukraine.

According to MI 5 and the Deputy National Security Adviser China regularly spies and tests out our systems. China dislikes UK naval vessels using international waters near Taiwan . Successive Ministers have expressed concerns about China, whilst successive governments have decided on a policy of having diplomatic relations with China and promoting mutual trade and investment.They have stressed they have the difficult conversations over human rights, Taiwan and threats whilst  developing trade.  Action was taken to remove China from sensitive areas like nuclear and digital communications.

This has now flared up over the issue of planned prosecutions of two people for spying for China. The decision to drop the cases over the issue of whether China is a threat has not been clarified. What changed? Why say the last government did not regard it as a threat when advice from that time  made clear they did as they gathered the evidence for the  cases  to go to court.

So what should the government do? Does trading with a country mean you cannot say anything bad about its government? When the issue is the governments attitude to China how can Ministers stand aside  and blame someone else? What should we do about China’s huge trade surplus  with us?

Fortunately it has not been too cold in the last few days. Nonetheless the UK has been relying for three quarters of its electricity on burning gas and wood, with imports helping out. Solar  and wind have been producing very little. How much worse it will be if we have a cold dark windless period during the winter when we will be very dependent on  imports  at a time when the rest of Europe could also be short of power.

Mr Miliband still has no answers on how we keep the lights on when renewables let us down if imports are scarce. He keeps telling us more  wind capacity is the answer, but it is not when the wind drops.

He also keeps telling us more  wind and solar will bring prices down. That is not true. He is offering guaranteed prices  for many new renewables  well above current average prices. He refuses to take into account the extra cost of needing stand by gas generation  for windless days.He is not allowing for the cost of battery or hydro storage schemes or putting enough of them in.

The government is at last talking about getting electricity prices down. There will be no thanks if they shuffle costs off our electricity bill onto our gas bill, and few thanks if they take renewables  costs off the  power bill and put it on the tax bill.

What they need to do is to take carbon taxes off gas to make gas fired electricity cheaper, and only back renewable projects which do offer cheaper power . Getting more of our own gas out would help, as we now have unused pipe  and platform capacity waiting for some gas making new sources much cheaper to exploit.

The original black hole estimated around £20 bn was blamed on the previous government, though more than half of it was higher public sector pay awards  made by the new government. This  was more  than covered by large tax rises in the first budget where we were told this would be  a one  off tax raising budget to get the finances into prudent shape.

Instead the Chancellor boosted spending greatly, Give aways to Mauritius with Chagos,to France who accompany  Channel migrants into our waters instead of stopping the boats, to record numbers of illegals arriving here, to a surge in mental  health disability benefits, to a huge increase in NHS spending with   no productivity requirements, to an further increase in the civil service and more net zero projects, for paying the losses by British Steel and the Bank of England.

Now we hear the Chancellor wishes to claim her economic problems arise from Brexit. Nonsense. Anyway Brexit happened well before the election so it  is not a new issue.

The truth is the black hoke would be much bigger  were we still in the EU. They levy up to 1.4% of GNI or ££42 bn on the UK. The average member state  pays 1% or £30 bn for Uk. We would also be paying away £4 bn of  customs dues and £1 bn of plastics tax to the EU if we were back in.

So the black hole  would be £35 bn to £47 bn bigger spending  on our terms of membership. Instead of blaming the EU she should be grateful we are saved  such a big set of payments.

I am fed up with hearing the lie our GDP is down 4% owing to Brexit. It isn’t. The dodgy OBR forecast said a loss of 0.25% a year for 15 years from our growth rate, which was also wrong. This was based on forecasts of a loss of trade. We now know our trade post Brexit is well up thanks to a surge  in services which are the majority of our exports.

The Remain campaign latched  on to a flimsy fifteen year forecast put out by the OBR of the possible impact  of Brexit. They said our trade with the EU would contract, so our productivity would  decline by 0.25% a year for 15 years because of this. It would mean a lower overall increase  in productivity of 4% fifteen years out, as productivity overall would continue to increase.

This has now become the simple lie, retailed by Ministers of the government and Remain/Rejoin commentators that we have lost 4% of GDP from Brexit! There is of course no sign of our GDP falling 4% from leaving the EU and that is  not what the forecast said.

Forecasting for  fifteen years is a bizarre over reach, given the OBR’s usual inability  even to forecast current year revenues and the deficit accurately. I would not try to offer a single figure forecast for GDP  15 years hence.

We do now know the results of the Brexit vote over nearly nine years. Far from our trade contracting, it has boomed. Our exports of services, the largest part of our  total exports have boomed. Exports overall are well up in real terms . There is no sign of the export hit the OBR forecast.

It is true the weakest part of our growing  exports is goods to the EU.That is  because the big items included oil, gas, refined oil products and petrol and diesel cars. All of these are being deliberately cut back by bans and high energy costs and taxes as part of the net zero policy.

Meanwhile the OBR in its review of its productivity forecast has confessed service exports have done so much better than they assumed without formally revising the forecast. Why?

The truth is the UK has a productivity problem   with its collapse  in the public sector  after covid which results from bad management. The government is busily forcing closure of some of our most productive capital intensive activities in its drive  to stop fossil use.

These have nothing to do with Brexit, so stop the lie about a 4%Brexit  hit to GDP which never happened.

The government sounds as if it thinks it can do the same again as last year. Now it has a report of a large black hole or bigger deficit to tackle it can put up taxes on the rich.

It won an election saying it would keep taxes down, apart from VAT on school fees. It put  them up by £40 bn last year saying it was a one off to get rid of an exaggerated  inherited black hole. It gave a revised promise of  one and done for tax raising budgets.

At the same time it put up spending by £70 bn, creating its own new black hole. It pencilled  in £5.5 bn of cuts which its MPs refused to vote for, making things worse.

Now it is allowing the same confidence busting  conversations about which taxes to raise to dominate the media in the long run up to the budget. All the discussion is about surrogate wealth taxes as if they were not numerous enough and high enough already.  She does seem to have got it that more general business and jobs taxes are counter productive. That may not stretch to the gambling and banking industry.

She should note that CGT revenues have been falling for 2 years thanks to her changes and Hunt’s.

She should worry that cash receipts from spirits duty are down this year following her big hike.

She should see the queue of rich people and young talent leaving the country , reducing future savings and higher income tax receipts.

She should confess her tax on jobs slowed growth and put up unemployment.

She should work out what was the true net gain from VAT on school fees after allowing for costs of extra state school pupils. Why has the number of teachers gone down when state schools were promised more from the extra  VAT.

Maybe she should have the courage to  tell her colleagues No more Tax. We are at the point where in many cases a tax rise will deliver less money.