Why did a MP earning a good six figure salary with an intelligent and capable wife need a rich man to buy clothes for them both?  Why when he accepts free clothes for his wife did he not automatically register the gift? He would of course have known of his wife’s good fortune.

Any MP knows that gifts and grants worth thousands of pounds all need to be registered promptly. It is not as if he forgot, as he registered his own gift of clothes. He decided a gift to his wife did not need the same prompt treatment, then his office decided rightly they did need to register this.

This is a bigger issue because we were promised greater transparency and honesty from the new government. Labour in Opposition were eternally vigilant for the slightest error or questionable judgement by Conservative Ministers and MPs . We were promised a new puritan era of government staying well within the tight rules. I remember being challenged because I had not declared an article I had written for the FT. They were so disappointed when I explained that I refused payment so there was nothing to declare.

The U.K. does not give the PM’s  wife a national role as First Lady with official engagements and an admin office to organise events. We have  a royal family to do that. Only occasionally does a PM’s wife accompany her husband when he has a work engagement. She is not the focus of attention and it would be a distraction if a PM ‘s wife wanted to make her fashion sense the talk of the journalists rather than the event they were attending. A PM ‘s wife can dress well from any store or mail order retailer at affordable prices and can wear suitable garments on more than one occasion. There is no need to rely on a donor for a fancy wardrobe. Mrs Starmer has her own senior role in the NHS paying her a salary.

This is one of those gifts that comes with a big political price.It jars with many voters when it is the background to taking away £300 of heating help for pensioners. Well paid Labour MPs charging taxpayers for energy bills on their second homes also sits uneasily with the present news.

It is difficult to comprehend the stupidity of this government. Dear energy and inflation helped bring down the last government. The Labour opposition hammered them for the rising prices, the impact on people’s budgets. They supported energy subsidies and wanted them to be bigger. Now they are in office they have presided over a 10% increase in managed fuel bill prices and taken away a crucial winter fuel grant from many low income pensioners. Their whole energy policy is based on pricing fossil fuel out of use.

They have put Miliband in charge of energy policy. He has set about destroying the U.K. oil, gas and residual coal industry. He is taking measures which will leave the U.K. more dependent on imports, more vulnerable to power cuts and facing the reality that more renewables with the  necessary fossil fuel back up will be dearer, not cheaper. He no longer promises the £300 off bills as more renewables come in that was offered in the election.

Labour has taken on the de industrialisation policies of the last government. It has dumped the softening of the policies when the past government re opened exploration and development licences for our own gas and oil. The last government was in favour of getting out our own metallurgical coal.It did heavily subsidise residential energy bills. It never considered taking fuel payments away from pensioners.

The public wanted change. I wanted a policy more directed to energy security and to affordable energy. Instead the new government has decided to be greener and nastier than the government they displaced, Taking away pensioner fuel payments after a big hike in rigged energy prices and against a background of overtaxed dear energy is a bad error. It antagonises many Labour voters and is opposed by energy and industrial Unions.

Woven into Labour’s broad message of change in the election was the roll out of a superior industrial strategy.We were told Labour would not accept the loss of jobs in steel despite large state subsidies, and would want a manufacturing revival.

Instead Labour has signed off the death of steel making in blast furnaces at Port Talbot and looks likely to do the same at Scunthorpe. Instead of it dismantling the penal taxes and carbon charges the EU and the last government imposed they are intensifying those. Like the last government they will pay large sums to subsidise some more steel recycling in the U.K. after a hiatus when we import all the lost steel from the closures. We are told we need to wait until next spring for a steel plan, carefully delayed until our present  steel making industry has been closed down.

We also wait for the general Industrial Strategy. Any worthwhile one has to start by addressing the huge extra costs U.K. industry has to pay for electricity and gas compared to the Chinese and US competitors. Much of this extra cost is the direct result of extra taxes, carbon prices and regulations, and the high cost of trying to replace much of our generating capacity with renewables.

The government should work hard to try to avoid a closure of the Grangemouth refinery. The U.K. does need to be able to produce its own petrol, diesel and other fractions of oil instead of turning all that productive activity over to imports.

We were promised in Labour’s  Manifesto a new era of transparency. The Labour leader came over as a virtuous puritan, out to clean the stables and run an austerity policy. Modest additions to spending would be precisely costed and specifically funded by a small tax rise here or a small spending cut there. It was not exciting or uplifting, but some people liked it whilst many others wanted to show their disapproval of the then government.

So what went wrong? Why are MPs and journalists told that they should not expect to know what is in the alleged £22 bn black hole we hear about continuously? Maybe one day the Treasury will allow us to peep, but not before the budget. We hear large uncosted and unfunded spending commitments being made as the government offers inflation busting pay awards to various public sector groups well above the pay inflation allowed for in the budget figures. Why is there no formal Treasury statement of cost and explanation of how it will paid for? Why is there no Office of Budget Responsibility forecast and commentary as promised? The government is busy breaking the new law it is bringing in to make an OBR assessment essential for such events.

Why have various senior civil servants turned up as senior advisers or. Ministers? What does that tell us about civil service impartiality? Why have donors turned up in jobs or with favoured passes and access?

Why are they agreeing to close down our primary steel making capacity before completing and publishing their steel strategy? What is the point of a strategy if you have no industry left?  How are they allowing in the budgets for future revenues for the accelerated decline of the oil and gas industry? This is  the industry  which pays several times as much tax per pound of profit as anything else?

All the government says about anything is that it is all a mess thanks to the previous government. It also complains about all of us, alleging there is a societal black hole. Government is about tackling the problems before you. Normal governments explain the issues and then set about supplying the remedies. When they announce increased spending they cost it, get it approved and explain how it is being paid for. Most leaders try to point the country to a better tomorrow  and take pride in what is working and is good. How much longer can this government keep up the bad mouthing of the country, the NHS, political groups they do not like, and the state of society?

 

I have long been asking why GDP per head is twice the EU level in the US. Those who want the U.K. to obey more EU laws and pay the EU more money never want to answer this or think it some fabricated Brexiteer question . Now Mr Draghi has written a long report saying that the EU this century has fallen badly behind. Its productivity is poor, its investment too small, its skew to making cars rather than digital products and services is impeding growth in real incomes and living standards.

Central to Mr Draghi’s case ( as mine) is the EU – just like the U.K. in and out of the EU – has gone for dear energy whilst the US and China have gone for cheaper. He says EU electricity costs 2-3 times US and gas is a knock out 4-5 times US. China goes for cheap coal. He sets out the large extra costs of the EU’s net zero policies which he supports.

So what are his remedies? He says the EU must impose more tariffs and the carbon border adjustment tax on imports to offset the advantage. That means higher prices for consumers. He says the EU must find 5% more of its GDP to invest every year. He says the EU must borrow more itself to pump prime the hundreds of billions of investment needed.

Germany and some other states are against the EU building up yet bigger debts. The U.K. by Brexit has avoided responsibility for its share of the Euro 800 bn they are already borrowing, dodging a Euro 120 bn bullet. The U.K. would be well advised to study Draghi’s analysis of EU poor performance and move our policy on energy closer to the US one, as more affordable energy is crucial to industrial success.

I went to Jon’s launch yesterday in London. His book makes a strong case for lower taxes, fewer areas run by government and less regulation. He condemned the attacks on free speech and increasingly intrusive rules and bans on motorists.

He started his talk by pointing out there are now 8 bn people alive. Over all the years of human history there have been 109 bn in total, now dead. Multi billion populations are very recent. The average age of death was 30 for all those dead, lowered in part by a much higher level of infant and child mortality. he argued 80 bn of those died of disease.The reason life expectancy has shot up so much is the huge advances in medical science with vaccines and antibiotics given us a much longer life. More people now die in older age of inflammatory conditions. Maybe medical science will make more breakthroughs there.

It is free enterprise that has taken scientific and technical advances and applied them to products that prolong our lives. It is that same combination that has given us the car, the plane, the digital Revolution, the food conservation and supply revolution.

The book shows how high living standards and faster growth go along with lower tax rates, controlled public spending and regulation limited to the most important. It is well worth a read. I do not agree with all its challenges to the much loved principle of free healthcare at the point of need or to some of welfare measures the U.K. has developed.

Prime Ministers usually praise most of the things going on in the country they govern. They make proposals for improvement. They tell us things will be better tomorrow as we follow their lead.

Not this one. He tells us everything about the country and the government is bad. The NHS is broken. There is a societal black hole, meaning the people misbehave. The Treasury does not have enough money. There were “right wing “ riots on the streets. He stresses it is all the fault of the last Conservative government.

It is true many former Conservative voters stayed at home or voted Reform because they were very critical of the last government. They did not go and vote Labour because they thought Labour would make things worse. They are angry about the way the Starmer government runs down the U.K. as well as about the last not very conservative  government. They are angry that his changes in his own words will make things worse. They are angry about fuel benefit  cuts, about bloated public sector pay awards for well paid train drivers, about more overseas aid, more so called green investment, the continuing failure to control migration , more poor performance of public services and nationalised industries.

The PM may find it is easy to drive down the low polls for his party and himself but more difficult to pull them up again when has punished us enough. Normal PM s do not behave like this as they realise the public doesn’t like gloom and does expect a government who identifies actual or made up holes to fill them in quickly. Labour won a record majority on a very low share of the vote. It was no endorsement of Labour but a scream of anger by Conservative voters that their party had let them down badly over stopping the boats, controlling migration, keeping tax down and avoiding inflation.

The latest polls show Labour down to 30%. They show Reform and the  Conservatives together well ahead,  but also the big split between the two would still leave both individually trailing Labour. Since the election both Opposition parties are up, Reform by the more. Conservatives still lead Reform.

 

Are you as fed up as I am with left wing parties and many in the media constantly running down our past? They demand apologies for historical bad conduct only from Britain. They rightly  condemn slavery but do not insist on statute removal of Roman artefacts, a society based on violent conquest, slavery and an army of occupation. They ignore the U.K. role in ending the slave trade.  So here to provide balance and perspective are 10 things to be proud of in U.K. history.

1. Great Britain has pioneered many crucial technological advances that have raised world living standards. There was the steam engine, factory organisation, the jet engine, vaccines and many great products from the Industrial revolution  to the worldwide web.

2. The U.K. pioneered universal suffrage and democratic government through the Glorious Revolution to the great Reform Bill and votes for women.

3. The U.K. stood alone against Germany’s attempt to govern Europe with an army of conquest, later joining with the USA and USSR to end the tyranny and genocide.

4. The U.K. has made a huge cultural contribution to the world. Shakespeare is the world’s greatest dramatist. His plays are acted and filmed worldwide today because they capture eternal truths about mankind.

5. The U.K. pioneered relief of poverty from the provision of money under the early Poor laws by parishes through to the post 1945 comprehensive pension and benefits system.

6. The U.K.   has stood up for the self determination of peoples  and rescued smaller countries from invasion and aggression by violent neighbours. The U.K. sided with the Netherlands against Spanish occupation, defeated Napoleon’s efforts to invade  many European countries and helped liberate Kuwait.

7. The U.K. has been a leading force for free trade worldwide.

8. The U.K. invented or developed football, cricket, rugby and lawn tennis as global sports, bringing much entertainment to a world in need of joy.

9. The U.K. developed modern farming techniques from selective breeding to higher yielding crops to help eliminate starvation. .The U.K. has a big Aid programme helping bring improved agriculture to hungry countries.

10. Great Britain founded the east coast settlements in North America that fathered the USA, the most powerful and innovative nation on earth. The drivers of US independence based their thoughts and actions on Great Britain’s political theories and structures.

 

 

I have long made many important arguments against the policies the U.K. is following in the name of net zero. I have shown how closing down our own energy using industries only to import from elsewhere adds to world CO 2. I have pointed out that plugging an EV or heat pump into the grid may just lead to us burning more gas in a gas power station which creates more CO 2. I have shown how we will lose any well paid jobs and tax revenue as we rush to close down our domestic oil and gas production, close our steel works, undermine our refineries, petrochemical works, ceramics, aluminium, glass and other heavy energy using industries. I did not vote for the climate change targets as there was no proper costing or feasibility study.

Some of you want to make a case that far from being settled the science does not prove that serious global warming is happening from manmade CO 2. So this is your opportunity to summarise the case for that view or for the government counter. It would be useful if both sides could deal with the following points made in the debate when and where it is allowed.

1. Given there were periods of global warming and global cooling before mankind lived here, what caused those big changes? Could those forces change  the climate again? Will they reinforce warming or will some cause cooling?
2. What allowance is made for natural CO 2, water vapour, solar intensity, volcanic activity and other causes of warming and cooling?
3. What tests have been performed on models to back test them against temperature data, and to check them at future dates against predictions?
4. Why do some models and most official commentary concentrate on manmade CO 2 to the exclusion of all the factors that did cause climate change before mankind arrived, and in history before the coal based Industrial Revolution and the population explosion got under way?

5. Why when seeking to combat manmade CO 2 on a national basis do they not recommend the U.K. stops growing its population as that is a major cause of extra  manmade CO 2?

6. What is the total CO 2 impact of making battery electric cars including extracting the rare earths and metals through to disposing of the battery?

Mr Miliband’s desperate letter to National Grid seeking urgently a way to decarbonise U.K. electricity generation by 2030 and asking for the costs is very worrying. He spent 14 years in Opposition studying public policy. He set out how a faster drive to net zero would be central to Labour’s policy. He told us it would drive growth and bring us plenty of new cheaper renewable power, cutting our fuel bills. Now he reveals he never worked out how you could do it or how much it would cost.

This revelation doesn’t just undermine Mr Miliband. It demolishes the central  plank of the governments  economic, energy and jobs strategy. How can National Grid reply without revealing three truths. There is no way the U.K. can fully decarbonise its electricity by 2030. The cost in investment money would be colossal. With big subsidies energy will be dearer not cheaper.

To get to net zero power generation the U.K. needs to replace the 4.8 GW of nuclear that is closing, and replace the gas turbine power which can be as much as 20 GW on a no wind or sun time. It needs to find a way to have enough renewable power to cover these huge losses even when there is little wind or sun. Without gas fired backup that needs an unplanned large amount of storage or hydrogen conversion. The latest bidding  round has not provided nearly enough renewable power when you allow for the  governments view that solar only delivers 12% of rated capacity and wind around 30%.

Replacing more than half our current generation costs tens of billions , as would putting in sufficient storage and a new hydrogen system, along with grid expansion. Dogger Bank wind farm was to cost £11 bn and would  be considerably dearer starting today for 3.6 GW of gross capacity or maybe 1.4GW of average power.   Hinckley Point for 3.2 GW of power will be over £40 bn. So 20 GW of replacement generation would be say £200 bn plus costs of grid and storage. Energy prices would need to increase with many more high price guarantees to bring forward the investment. £8.3 bn over five years from Great British Energy would make little difference given the vastness of the task.