On Friday I inflicted a journey by rail to Cardiff and back on myself.

GWR spent a fortune on designing and buying very uncomfortable seats. They have little padding and a severe back angle. They quickly give you back ache. The HS 120 seats they replaced were more comfortable .

I had a pre booked seat on my ticket. Once again the seat booking system was not working on the outbound train. Fortunately there were some seats. The train had been cut back to just five coaches. It did run to time which was an important  bonus.

On the way home they  cancelled one train. My train arrived late and was crowded thanks to the cancellation which had left many people waiting on the platform.The train continued to run late.

Car parking was expensive at Reading. Getting a taxi back to Cardiff Station required making an advance payment to a taxi firm, a new hazard. Fortunately the taxi did turn up to honour the contract. Overall it was an expensive way of travelling with plenty of car and taxi diesel as well as the electricity for the train on a day of little renewable power. Far from green.

The lack of flexibility with the ticket meant I had to get the train specified even though I could have made an earlier one which would have had more space.

The train controllers in Whitehall need to relax their controls more, or take a more intelligent  interest in why potential users of the railway have poor experiences. Uncomfortable   trains  can be remedied . Inflexible ticketing  can be changed, Poor timetabling to manage demand can be optimised without cancellations. Much more thought needs to be given to how a person travels to and from the stations.This link and cost is an integral part of a so called train journey and often falls foul of anti taxi/car schemes in the centres of cities and towns near stations. It adds to delays and frustrations.

I could have been better off driving by motorway to Cardiff, avoiding the centre and urban area of Cardiff with the station altogether. I went to a venue close to a motorway exit.

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We are told to expect action to make it more difficult for Councils to introduce low traffic neighbourhoods and 20 mph zones. We are promised the end of the much disliked ULEZ zone in outer London.

There have been big strides to tax and regulate drivers off the roads in Wales and London in recent years, and in other  parts of England with anti driver Councils. Getting the right balance between local   needs for clean air and safety, and combined local and national needs for a good road system that get people to work and goods to market is not easy.Here are some thoughts of how to get a better balance.

1. National highways should be for road vehicles. They are our safest and fastest roads. The network needs completing to at least 4 lane dual carriageway standard, preferably with grade separated junctions. These are U.K. government controlled.

2 A strategic network of major local roads. Whilst under the control of local Highways authorities they should have national limits placed on how far they can go in restricting them . Government could lead cross Authority larger improvement schemes. These roads would normally be a minimum of 30 mph in urban areas and faster permitted speeds elsewhere.

3. Other roads under local control. Residential  roads should be regulated against excess speed and inappropriate parking.

4. It is a good idea to promote more walking and cycling. This should be done by installing better footpaths, greenways and cycle ways apart from main roads. We need more and safer capacity, not cycleways carved out of an inadequate main road adding to tensions and conflicts between different types of road user.

5. Review extent of pavement capacity in London where  it is in places excessive. I walk a lot in London. Along the Embankment and in the City pavement space is well above our needs whilst east-west road capacity has been strangled.

The Bank of England is independent when it comes to forecasting inflation and the economy. It has the sole right to fix the Base rate, the crucial short term interest rate that affects the returns of savers and the costs of borrowers,

All the time I was an MP I respected their Base rate power and did not advise on changes. I was critical of their forecasts of inflation when they were obviously wrong.

Now I can write and speak as I like about interest rates. The European Central Bank and the US Fed made similar mistakes to the Bank of England delivering inflations several times target level in 2022. The Japanese, Swiss and Chinese Central Banks did not make the same mistakes and their inflation  stayed low, showing the inflation was not the result of lockdowns and the Ukraine war.

Over the last year the ECB has followed a better policy to correct past mistakes than the Bank of England. This week they rightly cut interest rates recognising sluggish growth and tight money and credit. The Bank of England should do the same.

The Bank will probably hold rates claiming it should not move them in an election period. That implies it suspends its own independence. The Bank needs to be seen to be independent on rates. Otherwise not cutting them now will be seen as pro Labour and cutting them now seen as pro Conservative . I think most people do believe the Bank is the independent setter of rates and I have not seen any Conservative government pressures on the Bank over rates.

The U.K. economy has been badly slowed by the Bank’s very tough money policy 2023-4. Inflation will come down as a result. The Bank should cut,especially given its obstinate refusal to change its very damaging policy of over the top bond sales.

Some contributors here love running down politicians, pointing out their mistakes and inadequacies. Today you can lodge your papers to run yourself if you know how to do it better.

Many people are searching the perfect party or the faultless candidate. Realists  accept the task of the voter is to choose from a range of candidates and parties who are fallible, or fall short of our ideal. Our democracy offers plenty of opportunity to lobby, criticise, brief and engage with those who get elected.

Opinion polls tell us of the current dislike of the Conservatives by an important bloc of former Conservative voters. I can understand their frustration at the long COVID lockdown, the Bank’s inflationary money printing, the disruption of energy markets by war in Ukraine and the big expansion of the state to micro manage our lives and the economy as a result. It has meant taxes too high, state services losing productivity and quality, and too much borrowing.

What I also remember was Labour, SNP and Lib Dem wanting longer lockdowns, more handouts, and higher taxes. They wanted an economic policy driven by the Bank of England and the OBR who turned to austerity policies after their big inflationary mistake.

Labour and Lib Dem are short on detail on how to pay  for their plans for expanding the NHS and social care. They are agreed on keeping the austerity framework of current economic policy. Neither talk about how they would get productivity back to 2019 levels in public services, let alone get on with raising it. Without an answer to this crucial question they could not deliver their improved services. They would spend and tax more with little to show for it.

Imagine the fear and the adrenaline rush  for those young men in 1944  as the landing craft beached and opened them to German fire for the first time. There  were many who had to brave the privations and dangers of the soldiers life as the largest amphibious landing was underway against Germany’s brutal fortress Europe. We owe them all so much, that for 79 years now many European peoples have been able to live in democracies freed from Nazi tyranny and mass murder.

The US and U.K. had to bring together a huge army, massive supplies, and a large seaborne force to ferry  them. The airforces had to control the skies, drop troops behind enemy  lines and bomb enemy defences. There were innovations including floating harbours, a pipeline under the ocean, adaptations of fighting vehicles to tackle mine strewn beaches. There  was superior Intelligence and carefully placed disinformation to allow some surprise.

It should serve as a reminder that we need to keep strong defences and use diplomacy backed by lethal force to deter and prevent evil triumphing again in the way it did in 1940 s Europe. It is a worry that war stalks Europe again in Ukraine, with continuing tensions in countries near Russia’s borders and in the Balkans. The foundations of NATO emerged from the Allied victory in 1945. With the emergence of a modern Italy and Germany pledged to democracy and Western values they too came to join the Alliance.

NATO was tested by the Cold War against the USSR. The Alliance allowed Russia to dominate countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland that wished to revolt against Soviet rule, whilst preventing and deterring any further expansion of the USSR westwards. The tensions over Russian  missiles going to Cuba with US  missiles inTurkey brought war close, narrowly avoided by diplomatic exchanges.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Gorbachev reforms gave us the opportunity of a new and improved relationship between a Russia shedding reluctant USSR member states and a NATO with no territorial claims of its own. Unfortunately in recent years the opportunity has slipped away, with a mutual suspicion bringing back a new kind of Cold War. Mr Putin’s wish to recreate a wider Russian zone of influence has spread to invasion creating challenges for NATO.

1944 can remind us that the resolve  of the democracies, slow to rouse, can bring victory over tyrannies. It should make both sides to the current tensions and both combatants in the Ukraine war want to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

 

I helped persuade the Sunak government to take action to cut legal migration last year. This January they took some steps to do so.

Now I read Labour too want to bring it down. They decline to tell us how or by how much. Meanwhile they have announced policies for an amnesty for illegal migrants already here and have stated their wish to set up more legal routes for people to use. That sounds like more migrants. The Lib  Dems are always identifying groups and individuals who should be welcomed that current law restricts.

Some, along with many pro left wing broadcasters now rightly point out that Conservatives have promised lower migration but ended up with much higher. This is a major mistake by recent governments. All the time we were in the EU the open birders of the Treaty  swelled numbers in ways government could not control. In the last four years University expansion, the invasion of Ukraine response, the Chinese changes to Hong Kong and the pressures from business to fill more vacancies from abroad have conspired to create a large migration surge.

Those of us who advised against were ignored. Over the last year we have won the arguments against importing more people to take low paid jobs, and against expansion of the University world putting quantity before quality. I do think Conservative Ministers have learned this lesson. They have also been genuine in wanting to stop illegal migration,  but undermined in the courts showing more legal changes are needed.  I do not think Labour are convinced we need much lower migration. They just want to win an election.

The U.K. needs to go further than adopting a more realistic rhetoric about getting to net zero. It needs to keep recent policy changes and add additional ones

1 Policies to keep

It needs to extract more U.K. oil and gas in place of more LNG and oil imports

It needs to keep the delay to the ban on sales of new diesel and petrol cars

It needs to keep the delay on penalising new gas boilers for home heating

These could all be changed back if we have a change of government.

2. It needs to ditch the following policies

The tax on car manufacturers selling too many petrol and diesel cars

The grants to farmers to stop growing food

The high extra taxes on Domestic oil and gas production which makes us more import dependent

Further investment in electricity inter-connectors to an energy short Europe

3. Things it needs to do to keep the lights on

Commission more gas fired power stations as back up for unreliable renewables

Speed up order process for new smaller sized nuclear power stations

Control migration more successfully to limit demand growth

 

 

The ideas of Labour, Greens and Lib Dems offering us a future abundance of cheap renewable electricity is a dangerous deceit.
We lack the guard capacity to shift more to electrical operation and to handle more renewable generation from far off and unreliable wind turbines. It is an absurd lie that the U.K. can generate all its electricity from zero carbon sources by 2030. On a bad day wind and solar are under 10% and gas above 50%.We are becoming hopelessly import dependent.

Adding more onshore and offshore wind farms requires a breakthrough with some chosen methods of storage, with huge investment in batteries and or hydrogen to retain the surplus wind power when there is a lot of wind. What happens if there is a longish period with little wind, particularly on cold high pressure days in winter?

Many voters are appalled at the contradictions and nonsenses in some net zero thinking. Why not go for net zero immigration as every person has a carbon footprint? Why import LNG with greater CO 2 output than using our own gas down a pipe? How does closing a steel works in the U.K. to save carbon help if you import the steel from somewhere else that allows the carbon?

The net zero brigade does not know where all the huge sums will come from to close down all our gas power stations, build  wind farms, treble or quadruple the grid and switch all industry over to renewable electricity, introduce hydrogen at scale and cover land with battery farms.

It will require subsidy and taxpayer support as it has so far. Renewable power is only cheap if you ignore the costs of back up and skew tax and subsidy their way.

The Conservative government since 2019 has let in too many people, mainly by granting visas for legal entry. The Labour, SNP and Lib Dem opposition has vigorously opposed some measures to clamp down on illegal migrants,  leaving our borders poorly policed against small boat people trafficking. Labour says they will control this better by setting up a unified Channel Border Force under a  Commander which is exactly what the government  has already done with limited success.

The main Opposition parties want an amnesty for all already here and want us to take more people coming by new safe routes with visa grant when they come. They have backed the U.K. government’s grant of large numbers of visas to people from Hong Kong and Ukraine given the special circumstances there.

If the next government is serious about cutting the housing shortage, tackling high rents and long NHS waiting lists it has to start with a major reduction in total largely legal migration. No wonder we are short of homes and doctors when we are inviting in an extra 750,000 people a year with more than a million of new arrivals. Where the new arrivals are people without wealth and needing a low paid job the strains on public spending and core public services are obvious.

The Conservatives launched a new policy this year to cut migration by 300,000. That is a start which no other party is offering. It is not enough yet to  tackle the large increase in demand for public services, homes and utility provision that recent numbers  generate. The TUC should be on the side of far fewer  visas to do low paid jobs here. We need to move to a higher productivity economy where machine power and computers take more of the strain.