The EU was busily influencing Ukrainian opinion and politics  , encouraging a pro Western line working towards EU membership. The 2014 revolution and  change of Ukrainian leadership forced out a more pro Russian President and brought in a pro EU President. Putin seized  the Crimea , claiming it was a very pro Russian region that should never have left Russia.

This left the south eastern provinces where there was also a larger pro Russian population. Civil war broke out with Russians encouraging secessionists. The pattern of behaviour was similar to Russia’s action in Georgia  to detach South Ossetia and Abkhazia . In Moldova Russia seeks to control Transnistria. Belorus is governed by allies of Putin. To the west this is a war of  Russian expansion, as Putin seeks to reunite old parts of the USSR. He claims he is supporting and assisting populations  who wish to be independent of Georgia or Ukraine or Moldova as they look towards the EU but uses force to back up his claims. The West sees Putin as an aggressor seeking to gain territory by violent conquest. Whilst they wish to stop him they have understandably not wanted to go to war themselves with Russia. Ukraine has been fighting the war whilst trying to get more help from the US  and EU.

To Russia the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine should belong to Moscow. They claim there are people in those parts of Ukraine especially in Crimea that want to be governed by Russia. They see it as a war against EU expansion  with the EU offering membership to Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, to push its borders closer to Russia. Russia does not distinguish between expanding borders by military action and expanding  them by government decisions in the way the West does.

It is most important if there is a peace Treaty or ceasefire in Ukraine with  the current front lines as a new border that the UK leave the task of policing that border to the EU.It becomes an EU  border as soon as Ukraine membership of the Union is confirmed.

I will be giving a lecture at 11 am at All Souls  College, High Street Oxford on Friday 21 February. It will set out how to reduce waste and bad spending in UK budgets. It will not propose any cuts to benefits or to main public services.  There will be an on line facility to see it live as well. See www.asc.ox.ac.uk/events     for details

I have long thought it wrong of the EU and Biden’s USA to tell Ukraine to fight on against Russia but to fail to supply enough weapons and ammunition to give them a better chance of winning.  The UK did proportionately more to lead the West into giving more powerful and modern weapons in greater quantities, but  has nothing like the scale of arms manufacture in peacetime required for such a war. The West as a whole by its weakness and thanks to Biden’s mis speaking  led Putin to take a chance, and then to double  down when his plan for an easy win was thwarted by Ukrainian bravery . The West has been reminded if it wishes to fight a war by proxy it still needs to put its own industry on a war footing.

Today after 3 long years and all too many deaths the two sides are at a violent standstill. Russia edges forward in the south east  of Ukraine but is unable to evict Ukrainian forces from its own soil. Many Ukrainians have battle fatigue and want to end the bombardment of their towns and cities. Russia is suffering large losses of personnel and some economic privations from sanctions.

Biden, Scholz and Macron were united in saying to Ukraine they should fight on, but no NATO troops would be committed. The EU failed to meet its promises for ammunition, leaving Ukrainian forces out gunned. President Trump is making the allies face uncomfortable truths. They want Ukraine to sacrifice more without giving them the means to win. He says do a deal with Russia now, then fortify the new border  with EU forces. The USA seeking to cut its huge deficit and concentrating on western defence against China wants out of European security matters. The EU has to grasp that it needs to spend a lot more on defence, as Ukraine is an EU problem.

A series of cases in the Uk have seen judges twist human rights law to allow more people to remain who entered as illegal. migrants. The latest case allowing Gazans to qualify under a Ukraine scheme was sufficient to even  draw the PM ‘s criticism.

The UK has often in the past been careful not to put itself at risk of foreign judgements making it do things we disagree with. The International Court of Justice cannot judge matters between us and the Commonwealth, making a Chagos judgement out of order. The UN Law of the Sea does not apply to  us in any defence matter.

In more recent years we casually gave away too many powers to the European Court of Justice. These have now been reclaimed by Brexit. Time was when if the ECHR found against us Parliament would overturn the judgement, as with votes for prisoners.

Keir Starmer advised by Attorney General   Hermer seems keen to side with foreign complainants and courts wherever possible. He needs to grasp that the public want to stop the flow of migrants and expect Parliament to legislate a fix. He should see we must keep the Chagos  as there is no legal power to find against us.

Many in government say they are prevented from acting owing to Hermer telling them of dangers of judicial review. As they are the government they must legislate to deal with over activist judges.

 

When Labour lost office in 2010

Unemployment 7.8%

Inflation 3%

Real pay -1%

 

When Conservatives  lost office in 2024

Unemployment 3.6% ( under half 2010)

Inflation.  2% ( one third lower)

Real pay 2.2% (3.2% higher)

Today

Unemployment 4.4% ( more than a fifth higher)

Inflation. 2.5% ( up one quarter)

Real Pay 2.2% ( unchanged)

 

Growth in 2024

Q1   +0.7%

Q2   +0.4%

Election

Q3  no growth

Q4  +0.1%

 

When the UK  finally got out fully from the EU, four years after the decision to leave , we removed tariffs from one fifth of the product lines where we had to impose tariffs under EU rules. This was a win for UK businesses and consumers. We took  tariffs off intermediates needed by UK producers and off consumer items we do not make ourselves. Then we signed up to tariff free trade with the Trans Pacific Partnership, wins to come soon as it comes into force.

It should remind us the so called single  market is a protectionist customs union, charging taxes on 73% of the product lines it imports. It has no free trade deal with the big TPP. The EU often charges higher tariffs than trade partners. Cars for example are charged 10% coming into EU and only 2.5% into the USA. No wonder President Trump wants to level up. The UK should have another round  of tariff reduction, assessing where we could  take our tariffs down to US levels from the higher EU levels we are still imposing in some cases.

Our total trade is up 8.6% 2016 to 2023 in volume and much more  in money. Our service trade is up 30% in real terms. Our total exports to the EU are up 6.2% in real terms. [figures taken from recent published Commons Library brief using ONS numbers]

Such a pity so many condemn Brexit from ignorance of these successes.

NHS productivity has plunged 18.5% in five years. That’s despite or because of five years of record increases in money going in, and large increases in staffing, taking it to over 2 million employees. This is a national disaster.

The sackings should begin at  the top. There are too many six figure salary managers who manage to lower productivity by over recruitment and by diverting attention away from getting people  better to a whole series of woke issues about the staff and the organisation. I was blocked in the  past trying to find out how many chief executives  there are in the NHS in the alphabet soup of quangos and Trusts. Chief Executives who cannot meet budgets or cut waiting lists with all the extra staff and money they have should be told to go.

Good medical teams need building and supporting. Managers need to be good at organising work flow and ensuring a good patient experience. Wes Streeting needs to start at the top, appraising his reports and expecting a much better performance. They in turn need to expect more from the hospitals and GP surgeries that do the work.

Some posts are not  accepted as they misunderstand this site. It is not a Conservative party site. If you have criticisms of the Conservatives take it up with them. The electorate made clear their disagreements with the last government.  This is an independent site geared to examining government policy and how it could be changed for the better.

When we had a Conservative government  I allowed plenty of criticism. I set out my own disagreements with the net zero policy, with the Bank  of England’s wild  ride, with tax rises, with the extent and nature of the covid lockdown and much else. I am now doing the same with a Labour government. I rarely  wrote about Labour when we had a Conservative government  and I will rarely write about Conservative or Reform now. We are likely four years  or more away from an election. We need to find ways to influence this government to reduce the damage being done . Nearer the election Opposition party policies are more  relevant. Now what we need the fragmented Opposition parties to do is to lead and where possible get behind good campaigns to change this government’s policies.

In June the UK had grown at a 2.2% annual rate in the first half of 2024, and inflation was at 2%. How has Rachel managed to get growth down to zero and inflation heading for 3.7% according to the Bank of England? How did she get longer term interest rates higher than Liz Truss, which Rachel called ‘crashing” the economy?

1. Place a big tax increase on employing people to drive employment down and business costs up

2. Tax small business more to discourage family companies

3 Tax farms more, putting them off investing in new and more productive  equipment

4.Put up the managed energy prices three times to ensure UK has uncompetitive energy prices leading to business closures

5 Grant inflation busting pay awards to public sector workers with no productivity agreements . This requires higher taxes and helps push wages up in the squeezed private sector

6. Frighten markets with excessive spending and borrowing, putting up longer rates of interest

7. Announce more planning permissions for homes without solving the problems of too little demand and lack of affordability

8 Push up Council taxes, rail fares, water bills and public sector charges to boost inflation despite promises of stability

9. Allow extra payments to Ukraine, Mauritius , carbon capture and storage whilst hitting UK business and pensioners

10 Fail to ask Bank of England to curb its excessive losses, running at £30 bn nine months to December

11 Think growth can come from closer links to EU when EU is not offering us a better deal and when the German economy has not be growing for two years.

At least she can congratulate herself on dragging the UK down to German levels of economic performance, way below fast growing USA.