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The U.K. vehicle industry is in sharp decline. Honda pulled out of Swindon and announced all of Europe will be supplied from Japan given falling volumes. Ford quit assembling vehicles here sometime ago and is now cutting jobs in its component manufacture. Vauxhall is closing one of its two van making factories. Jaguar has lost a lot sales and is now rebranding with a policy of shedding up to 85% of its remaining customers and doubling typical prices. This is not likely to add volume.

The remaining car makers are lobbying hard to get a change in the deeply damaging battery car mandate. The last government put in fines up to 2030 for selling too many petrol and diesel cars as a percentage of the total. The targets  are unrealistic so the companies face a £15,000 a vehicle charge.Labour came into office and took five years off the time to go all electric making it impossible.

The Industry Secretary says he feels their pain and will make changes. However he is talking about change in January, after the end of the first year where the current law imposes these fines if they sold less than 22% battery vehicles. He also says he will not change the steep path of battery sales to reach 100% by 2030, which looks unlikely given consumer resistance unless the market is swamped with much cheaper Chinese imports.

This crisis is now. They have lost one plant  this week. Other plants are at risk if they fail to change rapidly. It is no good pretending everyone will switch to a U.K. produced battery car when more than four fifths of consumers say they want petrol or diesel. Keir Starmer said he would not tell us how to lead our lives,yet when it comes to the very important decision of what personal transport to have that is exactly what he is doing.

The Chancellor at the CBI when asked why she had not found some other way in the budget than burdening business with big taxes on employing people and taking money off pensioners said she was not hearing alternatives for righting the national accounts. Let us try again. Controlling spending is a better answer than the tax rises. I have pointed out 4 big targets. Bank of England losses. Productivity falls in public sector. Large numbers of people not working. Too many low pay and no pay migrants needing subsidised homes and public services.

Here are some questions about other wasteful or less crucial public spending.

 

Why spend on sending 450 people to COP 29?

Why offer trebling of U.K. grants to emerging economies for net zero?

Why increase the hotels for illegal migrants?

Why do nothing to get back £20 bn of lost public sector productivity?

Why give away the Chagos  islands then pay to lease back?

Why propose £19 bn of carbon capture

How much more will the government devote to HS2?

What will be the additional rail losses from higher wages?

Will investments in National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy cover all the interest charges on the extra  borrowing?

 

The site suddenly published 3 posts this morning when two were in the files for later. I will publish them when they are completed on other days.

Let me return to the madness of the government wanting to give these islands away to Mauritius and then to pay a large annual sum to rent back the naval base at Diego Garcia. Talks have resumed between the U.K. and the new Mauritius government over how much money we need to pay

The government should tell the new Mauritius Administration that they are not now proceeding. The protests of Chagos islanders living in the U.K. and elsewhere against Gifting to Mauritius has swayed with them. The deteriorating U.K. budget position thanks to the collapse of growth in the U.K. also means we cannot afford this policy.

Mauritius is more than 1000 miles  from Chagos. Mauritius never owned them. Mauritius is a friend of China. Mauritius could put people and activities on the other islands that impeded use of the naval base.

The advisory international law opinion made little sense. The only people who have a real case against the U.K. are the islanders who were moved away when the base was expanded. Many of them are now U.K. or Seychelles citizens . They are not proposing Mauritius ownership.

President Trump will doubtless be worried by the transfer of the freehold of  a crucial US base from the U.K. to Mauritius. Sir Kier says he wants to get on well with President Trump. Why not remove this disagreement from the list. The Chancellor could also celebrate at another large bill no longer falling due.

 

COP 29 was all about money. The COP did not chase up improved national plans to get to net zero,though the U.K. did table one. They now say they can get to an 81% reduction by 2035, without telling us what the cost will be or the extent we will have to change our travel, heating , diets and other CO 2 generating activities.

COP 29 opened with a huge gap between the developed countries currently offering $100 bn of payments a year and the emerging world demanding a minimum of $1trillion a year. After much wrangling a late nights they ended up agreeing a trebling to $300 bn a year by 2035 with the emerging countries saying they will be back for more at the next COP. China declined to join the developed countries in the pledge of a big increase.

The US was represented by President Biden’s people. Will President Trump go along with this? All just expect the US to be the largest donor. What is the UK’s share? Presumably it will mean higher taxes to pay for it? How can the main EU countries pledge large rises when they have large state debts and are under pressures to get their deficits down?

This is not a good time to ask developed countries to pay more. Most outside the USA are struggling with low growth and large deficits. US voters have just elected a new President on a pro fossil fuel policy.

Mind the gap. It is difficult to see big rises in payments in the next couple of years. The 2035 target looks hard to hit

It is a useful way for politicians to talk about illegal migration to say they want to stop the small boats or smash the people smuggling gangs. It maximises support as most people dislike those profiting from the unsafe travel trade across the channel. It leaves open opinions of the migrants themselves

If someone from abroad wants to come to the U.K. because they think they have a better chance of a job here or can get a better paid employment here, then they can apply to come by a legal route. If someone wants to seek asylum they should have their passport showing they come from a high risk country along with reasons and preferably some evidence that they were at risk there.

As the French Mayors have pointed out, North France has many migrants camping there waiting to get to the U.K. They do not want to stay in France, a safe country,  because France does not offer them a hotel and easy access to jobs and eventual acceptance of their right to stay. They wish to get to the U.K. because they hear it is easy to stay and once here to get a job.

The Home Secretary says the  right approach is to smash the gangs. The previous government tried that with limited success. She is trying it and so far arrivals have gone up. The last government was trying the Rwanda idea so an illegal migrant could end up in a different country. The idea was this would be a deterrent to coming. Some did start going to Ireland instead because of it. The legal system delayed it and the new government ended it, writing off the costs.

The evidence points to the need for a deterrent to cut demand for illegal crossings as well as measures against the boat organisers. The people paying the boatmen are seeking to break U.K. law and risk their own and their children’s lives. The government should listen more to the Mayors of Northern France.

When will we get the £300 off energy bills promised in the election from backing more renewables?

How many more large rises in managed energy prices will the government put through before they might consider £300 off?

When will the government admit it cannot get to zero carbon electricity by 2030, and trying to will mean ever higher taxes?

Why did the government budget put up inflation and cut growth?

The government inherited the fastest growing G7 for the first half of 2024. Since they took over it is the slowest. When will the economy be the best again?

Small boat migration has gone up. So when will the government stop the people smugglers as promised?

Why did the government offer the Chagos islands to Mauritius and promise to pay to rent them back?

How much will the government spend on net zero policies next year?

Why won’t the government tell the Bank of England to rein in its losses by copying US and Euro area policies to handle their bonds?

How will the government store energy on sunny and windy days so there is power when the wind drops and the sun does not shine?

Imagine the bottles of bubbly being opened by the consultants to Jaguar on their re brand campaign. They will be delighted one ad has become a dominant news story. They will be even more delighted if the new typeface they have designed pays them well, alongside the new JJ insignia to replace the famous Jaguar  head. Consultants  like to get fees for re use or for repeat business to “ maintain and develop” the brand.

The company executives should not join in the celebration. Someone has briefed that the new brand will lose them 85% of their past customers. So they need to start from scratch identifying who it is will like this new brand. They are also making it much more difficult by saying that instead of selling lots of £40,000 to £70,000 cars they now want to sell £100,000 cars. So they need a good pool of new Jaguar buyers who are trendier, younger and richer than the more traditional customers. Good luck with that.Today they cannot even tell those people what they are being offered.

The main reason seems to be their wish or the looming legal imperative that they switch from selling petrol and diesels to battery cars. They have decided on big bang. The trouble is they do not yet have the new range of electric cars to show the public, hence no cars in the ad.

They brief that they are being true to the heritage, because in its glory days Jaguar was prepared to do something bold, different and modern. That is true. The launch of the iconic Jaguar E type for example created a car with wow and new graceful lines that produced love at first sight. It was not an ad or clever PR that sold the car. It was its beauty, pace and realistic price. Jaguar adopted the slogan Grace, space, pace  which the cars had in abundance.

If the rebrand is to succeed Jaguar are going to have to come up with a game changing stunning design and a great specification. They will need to wow. For £100,000 they will also need to convince there will be no battery life, range and recharging problems. Somehow I expect they will produce another “safe” range of SUVs and a GT saloon  that look much like others. The true brand produced icons of style in the XK, E type, XJS and F type, and the saloons including the Marks 1 and 2, XJ and the S type. They were brilliant and competitively priced. We are told the new brand will be dear.Can it be beautiful?

I can give them some good news. As someone who has bought their cars in the past I will not be buying an electric one and would not be spending £100,000 on a vehicle. So their wish to get rid of me worked.

Whenever I ran a business I always found it easier to get more business from people who had been customers before or who still were customers, along with their circle of friends and family. That to Jaguar’s consultants would  just show what an old fashioned view I had.

 

Inflation rose sharply last month to 2.3%. 4 months into the new government and growth has tumbled from 0.5% to 0.1% a quarter. Inflation has risen from the target level of 2% they inherited.

It’s true it is still relatively early days for the government. They have used up  just 7% of their maximum stay pre election so far. The problem is they now need faster growth to make up for the loss to date, and lower inflation. The higher inflation should impede the Bank from cutting interest rates faster.

The inflation was primarily their decision to use the regulatory system to put up fuel bills a lot instead of changing the system or cutting fuel taxes. Indeed the government is wedded to dearer energy. It has increased the tax  on oil and gas, demanded we extract less to keep domestic gas prices up, and backed more renewables which need carbon taxes and subsidies to get them started. Far from cutting our bills by £300 their policy means dearer energy .

Putting up public sector wages without productivity deals is also inflationary. I am all in favour of people being  better paid,  but  if you are to be paid more you need to help your employer work smarter and win more business. In the public sector you need to help drive other costs down.

Wes Streeting does  talk about NHS reform. He needs to get on with it. Yvette Cooper talks of stopping the boats to cut pressures on hotels and house rents, but so far has allowed numbers and bills to go up. Controlling inflation requires better control of government costs including the runaway nationalised trains and ultimate bad bond investor, the Bank of England.

 

The Conservatives recognised it was unrealistic to suppose we can ban new petrol and diesel cars in 2030 so they put it back to 2035. I gave one cheer,  then told them they also needed to scrap the £15,000 fine per new  petrol or diesel car sold above a maximum. They introduced a target of battery cars to be at least 22%  of the total this year rising to 80% by 2030.

The new government has brought the ban on new petrol cars forward to 2030. It has not yet revised up the percentage of battery cars, though presumably it wants a target to hit of 100% in 2030. This is unlikely.

This year with just one a half months to go battery car sales are at 18% instead of 22%. They do not seem to be heading for 28% next year. Fining manufacturers for making good petrol cars people want to buy is a disgrace. It is leading some car companies to think of manufacturing elsewhere. The industry is in crisis talks with Ministers this week,

The government should not fling more subsidy at battery cars. It should not fine car companies for consumer reluctance to buy battery. It should end this tyranny of false targets. This policy will helped industrialise the U.K. and provide a further big boost to imports. Why?