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2025 will be a year of decision for the United Kingdom. Will we cling to an old and unavailable  dream of a free trading more prosperous faster growing Europe, or will  we have the courage and the self confidence to take a global view, adopting a path of free trade and more free enterprise?  The truth is the so called Single market was always more customs Union than free trade area It was always more a hook to justify too much regulation and legislation rather than a simple free trade framework.  The EU opted for higher taxes, more government and many more rules. The USA opted for lower taxes and fewer restrictions on enterprise.  As a result the US has grown so much faster than the EU all century so far, and has reached twice the level of output  and income  per head as the EU average.

The new UK government has got off to bad start, with an austerity budget for the private sector and an inflationary one for the public sector. It has pledged to woo the EU to unspecified improvements in our Free Trade Treaty with them, only to  be met with the predictable demands for more surrenders of powers, fish and money.  It has  failed to draft a Free Trade Agreement to put to President Trump who wanted Mrs May to agree one soon  after the Brexit vote only to be told the EU would not approve before we left!

I want the government to succeed with its chosen aims of giving us the fastest growth in the G7 and with public service reform so we achieve productivity growth after 27 years of no progress. With productivity growth can come higher real wages and  more and better service. With the US growing more than twice as  fast as the EU it is the US we need to catch up with . Their growth is led by three strengths. They have lower business and individual taxes. They have been  growing their oil and gas output to give them an abundance of cheap energy. They have dominated the digital world with their brilliant technology giants. Government in the UK can do much to achieve the first two. It should reverse its bans on UK oil and gas, which drive us to import and gives the world more CO 2 as a result. They need to cut taxes on earning, employing  and investing.

2025 could be a great year for the UK if we worked alongside the USA as it embarks on its policy of 3% growth. It will be another disappointing year if government here remains bogged down in futile negotiations with the EU as they struggle to get to 1% growth. The UK seems to be  looking  for more ways to run up big bills by giving more money to foreign governments and institutions. Today Chagos and the World Health organisation, tomorrow the EU are supplicants . If we do more of this it will confine us to the slow lane and the government to continuing unpopularity.

I wish you all a very happy  and successful 2025. May your personal journeys bring you to places you wish to be, whatever the government serves up by way of a future.

One of the worst features of the government’s actions so far has been the determined attack on industry, trying to root out all use of fossil fuels to rely on imports instead.

1 They reversed the last government’s policy of granting exploration and development licences to U.K. oil and gas. They want to close our industry down as quickly as possible.
2. They reversed the previous governments delay to phasing out new petrol and diesel cars to 2035, bring it forward to a crippling 2030. They refuse to relax or abolish the penal taxes on selling too many petrol and diesel cars. Expect plenty of factory closures.

3. They confirmed the ending of all new steel making, despite criticising the former government for agreeing to this.

4. They have lifted the costs of energy higher, with higher managed prices, higher taxes and the introduction of carbon capture and storage, an extra large cost on burning energy.

5.They have accepted the closure of the Grangemouth refinery.

Why create all this carnage? Why import when you could make at home?

Labour swept into office promising to make the U.K. the fastest growing G7. Instead in the first six months they have made us the slowest. They promised more jobs,  U.K. unemployment has gone up. They promised us lower inflation. It has gone up. They implied lower interest rates than the LDI/Bank of England crisis in October 2022, only to put them up higher.

How have they done this?

1. Raised taxes on business, farms, employing people, property transactions, capital gains, creating an anti growth anti business climate.

2. Granted large wage rises to favoured public sector groups like train drivers with no productivity package to help pay for them No effort to boost public sector productivity which has fallen further.

3. Pushed up energy price cap by 10%, allowed above inflation increases in Council tax and rail fares, boosted wages through inflationary pay awards.

4. Increased public spending and  borrowing, leading to higher interest rates and mortgage rates.

5.Failed to table a US/UK free trade Agreement with President elect Trump whilst giving in to EU in pursuit of improvements to the EU/UK free trade Treaty they are unlikely to grant.

1. Why do you insist on stopping new oil and gas from U.K. fields? It means more imports which raises world CO2 especially with LNG, slashes tax revenues and loses us well paid .jobs

2Why do you insist on high fines for each additional petrol and diesel car sold by U.K. companies when you can import a nearly new vehicle from abroad to get round the tax? Why do you want to force the closure of so many U.K. factories making petrol and diesel cars whilst overseas competitors will carry on making them?

3. Why do you want people to buy battery cars? If I did buy a new one lots of CO 2 would be released making the raw materials and vehicles. I would plug it into a grid unable to supply more wind power so you will need to burn more gas in a gas power station to recharge it. Silly self defeating idea.

4.Why do you tell us renewable power will be cheaper? You have to subsidise renewable investments and give them priority over gas fired electricity. You need to account for the costs of a big expense on more  grid capacity and on stand by power.

5.Why do you tell people and businesses to switch from gas fired heating, when electricity is four times the cost per unit of energy? Low income households will be unable to afford decent temperatures and factories will be uncompetitive and close

6. What is your estimate of the total cost of getting to net zero CO 2 from electricity generation by 2030. Will we pay through higher bills, higher taxes or both?

7. How will you stop CO 2 from jet planes taking you and others on holiday or to international conferences and work meetings?

8. When will all government owned, financed or subsidised vehicles be battery ones?

9. Why go ahead with carbon capture and storage? It raises industrial costs, driving more out of business. It is opposed by many Greens.

10. Do you want us to import most things like petro chems, steel, glass ceramics that need lots of energy to make? That adds to world CO 2 whilst losing us many jobs.

Far from gaining the much advertised lower cost energy advantage from all the solar and wind power the U.K. has put in, the U.K. now has some of the dearest energy in the world. It lowers our living standards as we burn gas and electricity to heat our homes and to cook. It drives the closures of so many of our industrial plants, priced out of the market.

Electricity prices $ per KWhr

UK   0.47

USA 0.14

France. 0.19

India  0.13

Brazil  0.12

Gas  prices per Kwhr

U.K.   0.11

USA 0.04

Canada  0.02

Japan 0.08

These figures show the huge premium we are paying. They also show just how much dearer it is to switch from gas to electricity which government demands industry does. U.K. gas is so much dearer than US because we are closing down our own production to rely on much dearer imports.

The government needs to stop misleading us about renewables producing cheaper energy given these numbers. Government is a main cause of such dear U.K. energy. Renewables receive subsidies to install,  favourable contracts and overriding access to customers when they are generating. There are windfall taxes, double corporation tax on oil and gas, carbon taxes, controlled retail prices, constraint costs –  payments to windfarms not to generate – and expensive use of gas generation as a reserve for bad weather days.

Even the Climate Change Committee think one quarter of U.K. energy will still be oil and gas in 2050, so why is the Rosebank field not going ahead to produce more here? Why is the Jackdaw gas field discovered in 2005 still not producing?

There is by tradition no new blog on Christmas Day. You are welcome to write in. I will moderate again tomorrow.
Have a great Christmas.

True devolution that would be popular is devolution of power to individuals and families. Indeed, in a good democracy power rests with the people and they only surrender those powers to government that are necessary for an orderly society. Government uses or abuses the powers subject to public opinion and the need to seek their renewal at general elections.

The overmighty state is now too intrusive. We do not need to be told what cars or heating systems we have to buy. We do not need so many bans and restrictions on how we use the nationalised roads we have paid for. We do not need anti money laundering checks every time we want to move money we have earned and paid tax on from a U.K. regulated bank account. Self employed people do not need IR35 controls. We do not need British Energy or a wrongly named National Wealth Fund. We do not need to be compulsory investors in costly carbon capture and storage. We do not need a monumentally  costly HS2. We should not have to pay a licence fee to use a tv if we do not watch BBC. We should not have to pay farmers to stop growing food. We do not need enforced wokery over what we can say.

This century MPs have argued over where power lies under the heading of devolution. The so called progressive parties have favoured devolution of U.K. government power to regional Parliaments and Assemblies for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. They have denied the same to England, seeking to break England up into false regions and enlarged city regions, devolving power to elected mayors.

Instead of making people feel empowered the extra overheads and tedious arguments between devolved governments and national government over who is to blame for anything  have left many electors unimpressed. Electors in England are reluctant to vote in Council and mayoral elections, leaving the task to a minority who do. The more devolved government you have, the higher the overhead costs an£ the more disagreements over powers and responsibilities.

Contrary to Gordon Brown’s view that allowing devolved government would stop Scottish independence the Scottish Parliament gave the SNP a great platform and got them a referendum on leaving the Union. They still use the Parliament as a platform to demand more powers and independence despite losing the referendum. The London and Manchester Mayors used their pulpit to denounce the national government whilst playing down their responsibility for poor transport, housing and planning under their control.

Now public spending and taxes are so high what many people want is true devolution to themselves, not to another layer of government. Government does too much and interferes too much. I will be considering things government should do less of.