John Redwood's Diary – For freedom and prosperity

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The last thing we need is an expensive EU re set

November 13, 2025 36 Comments

The government’s worst mistake as it surveys the damage it is doing to our economy is thinking an EU re set will boost growth. As the EU is making clear, any attempt to get closer to them would come on their terms. It would mean us paying big bills to them. It would mean us accepting their laws on many matters. It would mean even higher carbon taxes and dearer energy.

They want us to pay £5 bn a year to have a chance to bid to supply them with some weapons. They want us to surrender the Turing scheme which helps UK students to go to a university anywhere in the world, and to go into Erasmus to pay for more EU students to come to the UK at the expense of the freedoms of UK students to go to non EU universities.

They insist on us joining their carbon market to impose a still higher carbon tax on everything we do. They want us to impose big tariffs called a carbon border tax on imports from outside Europe, making things dearer. They want us to accept a lot more younger migrants into our country, who may come with the need for subsidised housing and free public services. They require us to accept their rules over farm products and will impose a charge for supervising our food trade.They have demanded many more years of taking too many fish from our waters, stifling the UK fishing industry.

None of this would make us better off. Linking to a slow growth protectionist customs union gave us dire growth in the last decade. Their rules make them uncompetitive with the USA and China. The OBR should mark down their forecast of growth for the re set policy.They should add in around £10 bn a year more cost and lost activity.

There is one simple word for Ministers to use for every one of the EU’s demands. It is No. When I was single market Minister No was in constant use as we had to fight off so many costly and damaging proposals.

As expected, unemployment surges

November 12, 2025 65 Comments

Many of us forecast a rise in unemployment.Three months of undermining confidence last year was followed by a tax raising budget. Telling us all the UK economy was in a dire state and nothing worked was followed by a swingeing tax on jobs and a large hike in the minimum wage.No wonder job vacancies tumbled and companies decreased their workforces.

When you are in government you own the government actions and administration you inherit. Talking it down depresses staff and annoys the voters who want government to manage it better and be positive about what they manage.The government has had plenty of time to change things that were not working well Pity they changed them for the worse.

One of the reasons there is a new black hole in the finances is the big rise in unemployment, now up by a quarter from the low in summer 2024. Two of the big successes of the previous government was the near halving of unemployment during their time in office, and the introduction of Universal Credit to make it more worthwhile to work . This governments failure to extend this to disabled and to help more people into work has led to more public spending on benefits . Granting too many sick notes for life, benefits without the need to look for work, is ballooning the costs.

The government should worry about the self employed, hit by IR35, higher National Insurance and more regulations. They should be concerned about small business, put off employing people by higher taxes and the new Employment legislation .Government says it wants cheaper energy, so why press ahead with the extremely expensive renewables and more grid plans?

We still need a growth plan. We need a productivity boost in the public sector, and policies for cheaper energy and less migration that work. more unemployment is the last thing we needed, but it was baked into the disastrous first budget and into much of the preparation for the second.

My GB News article on BBC

November 11, 2025 96 Comments

The BBC has no idea what impartiality means. I watch GB News which has to balance sensible views with the view of an often wrong headed establishment in every programme. I listen to some BBC Radio 4 to keep up with what the establishment thinks we should be told and what the latest lies are to defend the often indefensible policies they are following.

Michael Prescott’s damning and well argued report to the BBC sets out part of the problem. He shows in great detail how the BBC came to rely too much on the “facts” and opinions of Hamas concerning the Israel/Hamas war. They have usually taken the very questionable figures for deaths from this terrorist group, have usually kept the Israeli case off their Arabic service, and have misreported various issues like famine and the causes of deaths of those in mass graves.

He accuses the BBC of suppressing the views of the many who think there are just two sexes and genders, and who think there should be women only spaces. He instances ways in which the trans case has excluded other views, even by those who have travelled the trans road and have worries later about what happened to them. He sets out clear bias against Donald Trump. The programme where they mis edited a speech to give the opposite intention to that of the original was also a programme where he says there were 10 people interviewed against Trump and only one in favour. He also points out that in that critical election period there was no balancing programme attacking Kamala Harris. He shows the BBC wishing to find cases of racial discrimination where there were more likely explanations of the concerns being highlighted over employment and treatment of those involved.

The BBC today is in crisis. It has lost its Director General and its Head of News at a critical time. The Board seems incapable of deciding what to do, delaying an apology over the Trump Panorama footage and now unsure about how far it has to go to win back confidence in its output. The Board needs to go further in its enquiries before settling on a longer term answer. Far from the Michael Prescott Report being the sum total of the issues, it is but a good starting point in showing just how far the BBC has drifted from impartial reporting and from giving relevant opinions a voice on their shows.

I have been involved in several big disagreements with our governing establishment in recent years. GB News has seen these are important matters that worry many voters and viewers. It has given them appropriate and balanced airtime. The BBC has never allowed me on to disagree with the stupidity of the establishment over inflation, economic growth and jobs, the pursuit of net zero, de industrialisation , the economic impact of mass migration and the truth about our ever rising public sector spending. All these matters go to heart of why so many are not better off and feel badly harmed by current economic policies. They affect so many people, with industrial jobs going and factories closing. Life is made so much more difficult for anyone who wants to drive to work and pay for their own family.

Let us take the case of net zero policies as we look on in amazement at the foolish COP 30 gathering without China, the US, India and Russia present. Who are they conning? World CO 2 has carried on upwards since the Paris Treaty of 2015 pledged countries to cut their emissions down to net zero by 2050. The BBC has refused me interviews to point out the obvious, that getting us in the UK to close down our oil and gas industry and to import instead increases world CO 2. They have not admitted that the so called “green jobs” they celebrate will mainly be in China. Getting people to buy battery cars does not help all the time they have to burn more gas in a power station when the wind is not blowing to recharge these vehicles . The UK banning all new diesel and petrol cars in 2030 helps kill off our car industry when the rest of the world will still make these products people want to buy.

Let’s remind ourselves that the BBC regards a so called independent Bank of England as the bedrock for low inflation and good economic policy, fighting political forces. Why does the BBC fail to interview the Bank about its plans (set out in OBR figures) to lose taxpayers £257 bn from second quarter of 2022 until the end of their badly bought bond portfolio? Why do they never ask why did the Bank preside over 11% inflation recently? Saying it was the result of the Ukraine war will not wash, as Switzerland. China and Japan, all big importers of energy, kept their inflation down thanks to better central banking. If the Bank is independent and has the main task of controlling inflation it clearly experienced a massive failure.

There is so much more to be said about the systematic pro establishment nonsense on the BBC. Let us hope this clear out at the top allows the BBC to understand what impartiality means. The more the BBC joins the establishment team, the more viewers will turn to the refreshing two sided debates on GB News.

What austerity?

November 10, 2025 62 Comments

Facts4eu and GB News have recently published charts showing the big increase in government spending in recent years. Here is my take on the numbers and their revealing findings.

In 1996-7, the last year of Conservative government before the Labour landslide win, the UK public sector spent £314.7 bn. (127 page 1997 budget book). By 2010 when Labour left office spending reached £671 bn (260 page 2009 budget book). Annual government borrowing rose from £33 bn to £175 bn.So spending was up 113% in cash terms and borrowing up 430%.

Inflation ran at 27%, so spending was up 86% more than prices.

In 2023-4 spending hit £1190 bn with borrowing at £159 bn, so the Coalition and Conservative governments put up spending by 77% and borrowing down by 9%. Inflation ran at 50% so spending was up 27% more than prices.

Rachel Reeves has put spending up by a further £88 bn this year, with borrowing planned at £118bn but in danger of over running.

So we see this century the public sector got a large real boost in spending power under Labour, helping the financial collapse in 2008-9 when government and private sector borrowing was excessive. It got a further boost under the last government averaging almost 2% a year after allowing for inflation. What austerity?

The truth is the explosion of spending, up 306% since 1997, has not been well spent. Lots has gone on inflated costs, low productivity, and on population growth of 20%. Borrowing has soared , helping drive the inflation higher.

Every year since 2010 we have heard of cuts, and some cuts have been made. Yet overall the surge of spending has been relentlessly upwards , with every public sector budget and body demanding more.

If my income had been as high as £31,000 in 1997 and was now £128,000, a cash increase of 306 %, I would have thought I had done well and could afford a better lifestyle. That is what has happened to the government’s spending multiplied by ten million, so why do they not feel better off?

Remembrance Sunday

November 9, 2025 36 Comments

Today we remember all those who lost their lives in conflict. They died to defend our freedoms and to allow a better world. We need to remember their sacrifice. We need to strive to defend and enjoy the freedoms they fought to preserve.

Too many rules and taxes

November 9, 2025 61 Comments

Being an MP and maybe a Minister is a privilege. Any law or tax you disagree with can be removed if you persuade enough colleagues to vote with you to get rid of it.

Being an MP also brings with it plenty of accountability for your own actions. As an MP who wanted fewer taxes and rules I was very conscious I needed to ensure I obeyed all the ones I disagreed when I could not get them changed.

I set up a system of personal diary alerts to ensure I did not miss Council tax bills, tax returns, vehicle licensing, Congestion charge compliance and all the rest.

When parking I poured over the parking rules to ensure I had paid the right amount. I worried all the time about complying with so many rules and tax requirements. I did not think I would get much sympathy if I had made a mistake, with some bound to assume I had deliberately failed to pay or comply. I avoided any error.

Labour MPs should find compliance easier, as they are the ones who campaign for more rules and higher taxes. There should be joy in their heart that they have to pay more tax on making a profit on their home, or have to buy an expensive licence to rent it out. They should be model landlords always putting their tenants first if they have investment houses.

It is strange three Ministers have tripped up over these housing related issues where their government is so keen to boost tenants, regulate landlords more and tax people more who make money on their homes. We know the Chancellor was well aware of the landlord licensing schemes in general as she was promoting them. We know the former Deputy PM was keen on taxing better off people with property more as she argued that case. We know the former Homelessness Minister knew about landlord regulation to stop bad landlords as she managed that as a Minister.

Express article on too much change, published Thursday

November 8, 2025 73 Comments

King’s College latest research on migration tells us 86% of UK people now think there are tensions between migrants and people born here. In practice most UK people have been welcoming to many newcomers over recent years and have hired many of them to do work that needed doing. What angers people are illegal arrivals and people given advantages by the state on arrival at the expense of settled taxpayers who have to pay the bills.

It is not surprising there are current worries given the failure to keep out illegal young men chancing it on unlicenced boats across the Channel. Most UK citizens think it wrong that people should enter illegally and then be given free housing, healthcare and financial support when no-one agreed to their arrival. Some are housed in good hotels that until recently were places people aspired to go to for celebrations and big events. How come they are now for people who have broken the law to come here and are now given priority? Why are our hotels not available for their proper uses? We have seen many protests in localities where people object strongly to this use of a local hotel. Driving rents up to put them in HMOs can also cause tensions with locals seeking affordable housing.

The news is currently led by stories about the early release of foreign criminals from jail who have committed sexual crimes which naturally causes concern, adding to domestic crime in a high profile way. All acknowledge that we have home grown criminals but that is no reason to allow in some sexual predators, murderers, tax evaders, illegal business organisers and drug dealers without making sufficient check. Where they are allowed in by mistake and prove to be criminal people want them sent back to where they came from promptly.

The King’s survey reveals wider concerns about the pace of cultural change. With around half the country telling pollsters they would vote Reform or Conservative at the next election, the fact that 9 out of 10 Reform voters and 7 out of 10 Conservative voters think the speed of change too fast is a major worry. It means many people do think a country has to evolve, with new people welcomed in numbers that local communities can accept and absorb. We want evolution not revolution, with attitudes towards religion, national identity and democracy accommodating other views at an acceptable pace. Most conservatives want some change. Things can be made better. Progress in technology and living standards is welcome. Most conservatives accept we should grant asylum to our share of people fleeing torture and death elsewhere, but there are legal routes to do that.

The problem with very high levels of migration lies in making proper provision for the new people, and in reassuring the settled community that all will be well as they arrive. Inviting in too many leaves us short of homes. It pushes up rents as the government contracts for large amounts of accommodation for new arrivals. Hotels are switched to hostels affecting the facilities of an area. It adds to the need to put in new electricity and gas supplies, to enlarge water pipes and expand sewage works, to put in more rail and road capacity. The settled community is then told it needs to pay more for water and electricity, and to pay more tax to expand our infrastructure, partly owing to the pressure of numbers. That can lead to resentments, as many people did not feel they ever voted for a policy of major population expansion from migration.

Cultural change has also been rapid over sexual and personal identity. I welcome more freedom for people to express themselves and enter adult relationships based on consent as they wish. As a recent court judgement has concluded that does not mean losing the ability to distinguish between a woman and a man or allowing men to use women only spaces.

It is putting all these things together that has led to disaffection in the conservative half of the country. These worries spread across the right/left divide, with others sharing the feeling that change has been too rapid. That does not mean trying to recreate 1950s Britain or reneging on the freedoms we have gained since. It does mean slowing the pace of these changes, and being more tolerant to those who are alarmed by some of them.

Free lunch or magic money tree? How to pay for public services.

November 7, 2025 59 Comments

Magic money trees and free lunches.

When politicians tell us the hard truths that there are no magic money trees and no free lunches many do not want to believe them. In recent years a so called independent Central Bank wrongly created a money tree called Quantitative easing. It allowed government egged on by all the Opposition parties to spend and borrow a fortune to lock down the country for too long and pay people for doing nothing. It led to a predictable high inflation, vindicating those of us who warned against Latin American style government finances paid for by a printing press in the Bank.

It would be more reassuring if more officials from the Bank and Treasury would speak out against a repeat of the Magic Money Tree experiment. Instead when the Bank Committee yesterday met it did not even discuss and comment on its damaging bond sales programme, apparently oblivious to its importance to money policy, fiscal policy and the state of the economy.Getting off dependence on the magic money tree is coming at huge cost to taxpayers which the Bank top people will not even talk about.

Politicians occasionally hit back against disgruntled voters expressing anger at bad government. They complain the public want both lower taxes and better services. They say the public think there is a free lunch.

I think the public are right to want lower taxes and better services. They sense the public sector is awash with money and recruits many extra people year after year. It would not be a free lunch if the public sector spent its money more wisely, employed fewer people, and helped them work smarter. That is what all good private sector businesses try to do. It would be a better value lunch for the hard pressed customers, the taxpayers.

It is bizarre that UK public sector productivity is no higher today than in 1997. That’s despite 28 years of big investments in computing by all parts of government, years of more training and promotions in the civil service and wider administration of the public sector. So why has none of this resulted in efficiency gains to match those of the private sector? Big employing departments like tax collection and benefit spending were obvious beneficiaries of the greater productivity putting more on computer and on line could bring. Productivity fell under Labour 1997-2010 as they spent more and hired more staff. It rose a bit under the Conservatives 2010-19, as they tried to get some better value out of the public sector. It fell disastrously over covid lockdowns and still has not properly recovered despite heavy spending on remote working, on line meetings, better data handling and now AI.

Working away to capture the possible productivity gains in the public sector would give us a trend line of at least 1% gains in productivity a year. Some would say the public sector in catch up mode should be able to achieve 2% a year. At 1% a year after five years the public sector would cost £30bn less to run the current level of services. That would be a handsome free lunch, allowing service improvements and tax cuts without borrowing more.

Surely public sector managers, now well remunerated and plentiful, could achieve this? Why aren’t their bonuses dependent on it? Where are the plans to amalgamate posts and improve jobs as people leave? All this can be done without any compulsory redundancies as staff numbers fall around 7% a year if you do not replace them by external recruitment.

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Time for Ministers to own their problems

November 6, 2025 81 Comments

From the moment you are appointed a Minister you are on duty, on risk, and have powers to improve or prevent things that are wrong. The present government 16 months in still behaves like a dissatisfied guest in Hotel Government, blaming the previous managers for things not working. They are the managers now.

Worse still they are the managers whose actions to date are making things much worse, not improving them. Take the most sensitive issues where people wanted change for the better. Illegal migrants have increased a lot instead of smashing the gangs. Inflation has nearly doubled as they put up energy bills, water hills and the costs of employing people. The number of people wrongly let out of jail has more than doubled. The deficit has been greatly increased by a big increase in public spending with no matching improvement in service.

So why? Ministers have done things that were bound to make things worse – increasing prices and costs, removing past attempts to cut ilegal migration, cutting sentences that have to be served, giving more money without seeing what it will buy, hitting business, entrepreneurs and savers with penal taxes.

Ministers have proved incapable of leading their officials. David Lammy instead of taking the blame and working with officials when there was the first high profile wrong release, denounced his staff in public and announced a new way to release without getting buy in from the people doing it. No wonder there was another big embarrassment a few days later.Rachel Reeves has pencilled in big numbers for more efficiencies and productivity gains in future without setting out a joint work programme with departmental managers to deliver the savings. Wes Streeting has announced the abolition of NHS England without thinking how to pay the redundancy bills or get the work done that will still need doing.Ed Miliband Announces unrealistic targets then refuses the blame for the rip off costs and prices needed to try to hit them.

Ministers need some training on how to do these demanding jobs. Mouthing press releases about what they would like to do jars when reality is so different.

Rachel Reeves is right that our poor productivity is no puzzle, but is wrong about how to put it right

November 5, 2025 69 Comments

Rachel Reeves yesterday in her speech set out reasons for her poor performance. She is still claiming the problems stem from her inheritance, but she took over with 4% unemployment, now 4.8%, with 2% inflation, now 3.8% and a faster growing economy in the first half of 2024 than since. Most commentators see the damage was done by the run up to her first budget, hitting confidence by threatening all sorts of taxes, followed by a tax raising budget. Targeting extra tax on rich people, on companies, on small businesses , farms and above all on employing people was a sure fire way to undermine confidence, reduce new jobs and lead to closures of plants and shops and loss of jobs.

Food prices surged as shops struggled to meet the new higher wage and property bills. Energy prices surged as Mr Miliband’s enforced transition turned out to be dearer, not cheaper. Jobs dried up, and many young people now languish on benefits, unable to get their first foot on the employment ladder.

She says the poor rate of productivity growth is not a puzzle. I agree with that. She says it stems from years of underinvestment, Brexit paperwork and austerity economics. Wrong on all counts. The public sector collapse of productivity from covid was not owing to too little public sector investment, but to bad management. Just look at the wasted investment into the Post office and NHS computers, and into HS2. Our trade went up, not down after Brexit, with soaring services trade helping boost our economy. Far from 2019-24 being years of public sector austerity they were years of large increases in public spending and public recruitment, which lay behind the falls in productivity as too many people achieved too little extra.

So why is the productivity slowdown no puzzle? Because it results from the UK’s mad dear energy policy, closing high energy using factories and shutting down our highly productive oil and gas industry prematurely. It is because the public sector has greatly expanded its employee numbers and spending levels without delivering more service. This started after covid under the previous government and was clearly visible when Labour took over. Instead of demanding better public sector productivity they made the problem worse. They recruited more and boosted pay considerably without requiring smarter working. They intensified the closures of oil and gas, preventing any new wells being drilled or new investment being put in. They pushed up energy prices more in a dash to introduce more high cost renewables. The rate of factory closures speeded up. The ever higher energy taxation drove two oil refineries to close and two big olefins petrochemical plants to shut. No wonder productivity struggles as these are the capital intensive businesses that boost the national average productivity figure. People who serve in bars and restaurants work hard and are much needed but their labour productivity, the amount of revenue they earn for their business, is much lower than the revenue earned by the oil production worker or the refinery staff in very automated settings.

To get the UK back on the road to higher productivity, faster growth and higher living standards we need lower energy prices to price industry back into world markets from a Uk base. We need lower total public spending and borrowing to start to bring our very high long term interest rates down. Rachel Reeves drove those up well above Truss levels in her first year by spending too much. She is wrong to say our high rates are the result of international markets. Our rates have gone higher than others thanks to a very bad budget. She recognises the need to get more people into work to cut the benefit the bill the right way. The trouble is without other spending reductions and some tax cuts on investment and business she will not get all the jobs it needs to bring that about.

She needs to redouble efforts to help the public sector work smarter. Bonuses need to be aligned to doing things better and cheaper. There needs to be an immediate staff freeze on all external recruitment apart from uniformed staff, medics and teachers. That way the organisations can slim as people leave, amalgamating roles and promoting existing staff into more rewarding and demanding positions.