In 1981 The General Post Office was split into two nationalised businesses,the Post Office and British Telecom. They both needed to modernise to adapt to the coming computer, communications and data revolution.

BT was short of capacity. There were long waits to get a phone installed and some had to share so called party lines. That meant if your neighbour was on a call you could not be. UK switching was way behind US, relying on electro mechanical switches when the US had gone electronic. The UK had copper cables, with insufficient reliable capacity for data.

The Post Office counters business was labour  intensive and dependent on government business to handle benefits, driving and car licences  and passports.

BT was sold to new shareholders in 1984. It changed over to electronic switching, developed mobile telephony, greatly expanded its network and allowed many more devices and services to be run over its wires.

The latest annual  figures for BT show profits of £1.2 bn on turnover of £20.8bn. It invested an additional £4.9 bn in the year, extending its broadband coverage. It paid substantial taxes.

The latest annual figures for the Post Office recorded a loss of £414 m, with £133 m of investment paid by taxpayers.

What exactly are the benefits of nationalisation meant to be?

MPs are right to tell the government to speed up the compensation to sub Post Office managers who were wrongly accused of theft and fraud by their employer. It is taking far too long, with inbuilt complexity to allow Post Office delays and big fees for lawyers.

MPs should  also be critical of the continuing dire performance of the Post Office as a business owned by the state . It runs up huge  losses which taxpayers have to pay for. In the most recent year the business lost £414 million. It brings accumulated losses to a staggering £1.8 bn, and total net liabilities to £1.21 bn.In order to carry on trading with this insolvent balance sheet the Post Office relies on government continuing to pay  bills for whatever losses they make.

These losses have been going on for a long time and are not  just the  result of the need to compensate wronged staff.  £72 m of this years loss is underpaid tax and tax penalties because they did not follow the governments own IR 35 tax rules! Surely the highly paid Finance Director knew the rules?

In 2021/2 the Chief Executive presiding over these disasters  was paid £816,000 including a £401,000 bonus. Why? Last year the CEO was paid £436,000 salary, almost three times the PM but was wise enough not to take a bonus.

Taxpayers have to pay all the extra bills for capital investment and losses. The big investment in Horizon  computing lumbered us with a massively  negative return. Last year there a further bill for £133m of investment, mainly in IT. lets hope it was better managed.

Why do MPs fail to expose the disastrous financial mismanagement of nationalised industries? Why do they put up with high executive pay for lamentable performance in these concerns? If government got control of the finances of these bodies they would have money for tax cuts.

Labour’s plans to change the national curriculum have been set in the context of wanting to pursue diversity over race and sexuality. The UK is a diverse society with toleration as one of its main characteristics.

The national Christian religion expressed by the established Church of England does not condemn other religions, does not seek to make windows into people’s souls  nor require conformity. The UK does not prosecute people for heresy. Consenting sexual relationships between adults are legal and of no concern to others. The law recognises same sex marriages.  There is no mandatory dress code.

In recent years under the last government’s reforms the UK has greatly improved standards of literacy and numeracy, which was much needed. Any reform of the curriculum should  reinforce this progress. It should not make it more difficult or regard it as job done. There are still pupils unable to read and write to a satisfactory standard, limiting their prospects of prosperity and success.

The issues to be examined should start with absenteeism from class. Too many children and teenagers fail to turn up at school. It should be concerned about schools with low attainment letting pupils down. It should question whether expectations of pupils especially from disadvantaged backgrounds are in some cases set too low.

The cultural issues that need discussing are acute in the way literature and history are taught. There should be a home country bias. Everyone living here has chosen to do so. Many have crossed continents and broken laws or applied for legal entry and citizenship to do so. We should assume they are proud of their new homeland, not keen to convert it to their old one  which they left as a choice and could always return to,

Our history syllabus should encompass the great achievements of our early  adoption of democracy and free speech, equality under the law, relatively early adoption of religious toleration and our sacrifices to defend liberty and the right  to the self determination of countries in the 3 great European wars ending in 1815, 1918 and 1945. It should include the giant strides to greater prosperity through the Industrial Revolution and twentieth century scientific and technological advance.

Our literature courses should be based on Shakespeare, the  world’s greatest dramatist, on Jane Austen and George Eliot, great  novelists, and poets  like John Donne, Shelley, and Wordsworth.  If you want to write and think well, read well.

Overseas literature should not be limited to European but should include an introduction to American and Asian works.

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.