I set out to a meeting organised by OUCA how in the 1970 s nationalised industries sacked many employees, put up prices and delivered poor service to customers, and cost taxpayers a fortune in losses, subsidies and investment spending.

I went on to  highlight the same bad patterns in our current nationalised industries.

The Post Office sacking and imprisoning good honest employees

HS2 costing us a fortune and failing to deliver any rail journeys on time or to budget

Steel absorbing large sums  to pay losses,probably ending in job losses and compensation to the Chinese.

It’s more a case of nationalised industries owning us and plundering our bank accounts, rather than us owning and benefitting from the nationalised industries. We used to own something called public dividend share in some of them but instead of paying us dividends they usually sent us big bills to pay their losses.

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The Labour Manifesto was clear. The next Labour government would not put us back into the Single market, or into the Customs Union and open borders with freedom of movement.

We read that the UK government think they could create a new single market area of the EU and the UK. The EU as the larger party will say the way to do that is for the UK to join the EU ‘s single market. They will not allow changes of rules, or joint decision taking or opt outs. They would also demand a big UK budget contribution, freedom of movement and other EU controls over the UK. All this should be a non starter.

The government is mad to think accepting EU rules, taxes and charges would boost our trade. We import much more than we export to the EU, whereas our trade with non EU is much better balanced. Being closer to EU rules and taxes would be used by the EU to boost their sales to us by more than we could boost to them, reducing our net jobs, incomes and wealth. It is bad to want to sell out in this way, wrongly pretending it is not breaking a Manifesto promise .

What does the government  think we could sell more of? It is going to ban us selling petrol and diesel cars, new oil and gas, and make it dearer to sell high energy using products. These are all things we sold a lot of. It is giving away much of our fish, preventing expansion of our industry and more exports. We are fortunate indeed that the EU seems to have been wise and turned down this proposal.

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The government’s Bill “ to nationalise steel” was designed as a Labour MP crowd pleaser. It always came with the strange lawyerly caveat that it only applied if in the public  interest. It now emerges that it thinks nationalisation is not currently in the public interest, so it is a Bill designed to disappoint all those left wing ideologues who want state ownership.

I assume this means the government is desperately trying to get a deal with the Chinese owners. This was always going to be difficult after the UK government unilaterally took over managing someone else’s business. The Chinese would be understandably cross about this, and would see it as an opportunity to demand compensation. It was a stupid thing for the UK to do, possibly leading  to the Chinese firm walking away from its responsibilities to the workforce and from the potential redundancy costs. Both the Chinese and the government thought the  future was to close the blast furnaces and put in an electric arc plant with far fewer people. Their disagreement was merely over when to close the existing blast furnaces. After this failed negotiation the UK government then implied to the employees it wants to keep the blast furnaces open, but presumably only for a bit whilst they get someone to put in an electric arc plant instead as in South Wales.

This looks like another unholy government mess. The employees probably end up sacked. The blast furnaces probably  will be shut down by this government. The Chinese will probably be given a load of taxpayer money to help pay their debts and losses. The taxpayer will definitely be sent huge bills. Maybe in the end they will claim it is at last fully nationalised. Then there will be a hunt to find a private sector partner to help manage to works and to put in a new electric arc investment.

This massive expensive state intervention looks set to fail. The powers in the Bill are wide ranging and apply both to taking over the shares in the company, and the property. They do include provision for compensation with an independent valuer.

I have now been in the Lords for four months. In that time I have asked 20 Oral Questions and made 11 speeches. I have set out a number of ways the government could run better public services, save money, increase tax revenues without raising tax rates or imposing new taxes and develop a Growth strategy that could work. Work has been regularly interrupted by the prorogation of Parliament and the various Bank holiday recesses.

I have been impressed by the detailed work the Lords does  examining Bills and suggesting improvements. There is a sprit of cross party working to find ways of improving legislation given the government’s aims. There  are efforts to  seek compromises where the government’s  policy is likely to damage or disadvantage large numbers of people and businesses. The Lords rightly does not seek to stop a Bill the government wants to fulfil a Manifesto promise, but can be more critical of legislation that cuts  across the government’s election promises. The Lords understands that power rests with the elected Commons, but asking them to think again can produce better results sometimes.

The Lords did do good work in exposing the dangers of giving away Chagos and giving so much money to Mauritius. This was clearly against a Manifesto promise to support our overseas territories. The delays mean this may well not now go ahead, given the changing view from the USA whose consent would b e needed under the US/UK Treaty establishing Diego Garcia as a joint base.  The Lords has helped the Commons Opposition point out the follies of closing down our own oil and gas industry, only to import oil and gas from abroad instead. The government announced some movement with its tie backs policy. The Opposition has set out why business has suffered from the two Labour budgets raising taxes and the imposition of new rules and regulations.It has worked with the government on issues like harms of children from too much social media.

The lack of resolution of the US Iran war and closure of the Straits of Hormuz is driving energy and food costs higher with shortage of fertiliser and major restrictions on movements of oil.

The government’s response of lifting sanctions on foreign refineries using Russian oil to make jet fuel and diesel show they are rattled, but once  again coming up with  the wrong response. They close our refineries and stop us getting our own oil and gas out of the ground when there is a world shortage. This  makes us more vulnerable.

They need to lift bans on new UK oil and gas, take down taxes on energy and help re open the two most recent refinery closures. Why do they always back imports and stop or overtax UK activity?

They are now asking supermarkets to freeze prices on 10 or 20 products out of the 30,000 they sell. What nonsense. It will not stop food inflation but will create shortages of the few selected. Do they not understand it is their National Insurance, their farm tax, their industrial closures, their energy taxes that are much of the problem of food prices?

When Gordon Brown proposed the HS2 nationalised new railway line project it was to go from London to Birmingham and on to both Leeds and Manchester, creating a Y shaped new railway between major cities in England. It was to cost £37 bn and was to get the UK up with or ahead of Japan and France with their fast trains running on straight track between major cities.

Labour, Coalition, Conservative and now Labour governments have all wanted the project to work, and have all ended up cutting back the ambition in the face of runaway costs  and endless delays. Ministers rightly get the blame, but Ministers just asked senior managers and officials to do it better and cheaper and each time ended up with its considerably dearer and slower. Each enthusiastic Minister wanting to help deliver a success was faced with yet another list of undesirable cuts and options as they wrestled with the absurd and unacceptable budget overruns. The highly paid consultants and senior managers have some questions to answer.

HS2 has become a warning to all those who think a nationalised railway will be so much better. Here is a fully nationalised railway which has  had access to an effectively unlimited budget of subsidy and free money paid for by taxpayers. No one can tell us when anyone will be able to travel from Old Oak Common to Birmingham on it, let alone from Euston. All agree we will never travel to Manchester or Leeds on it as promised originally.

Some say it will now cost £100 bn to just do the Birmingham to Euston part of it that remains, three times original costings for well under half the railway. There needs to be much thinking by the government about how it has come to this. We need to see a new business case for what they now hope to deliver. We need a more demanding timetable for the completion to lower the extra time costs. Maybe the railway should end at Old Oak Common, as the costs to complete new track  into Euston will be large.

This is a most inauspicious start for an all nationalised railway. As they cut the speed it can attain it loses its original main selling point. It will increase capacity on a route which currently does not lack capacity, so getting any financial return now seems impossible. No wonder growth and productivity are so disappointing when a major project like this hits the buffers. This is the first railway massively delayed and part cancelled by too many twenty pound notes from taxpayers on the line.

The current confusion over the leadership of Labour reminds me of the troubles that faced John Major. John Major’s blunt language telling his party to put up or shut up was his response to continuous briefing from undeclared people that the government would be much more successful if it were led by Michael Hesletine or Michael Portillo. Much newsprint was used running fantasy leadership elections in the names of the two favoured replacements, rather like Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting today.

When is a coup not a coup? When will a Labour MP who wants a change of PM get 80 supporters and start the contest? If they are waiting for Andy, they may have a long wait if the voters of Makerfield say No.

Labour need to change course to win back voters. They are  holding a shoot out between four or five wannabes who come to it without  guns only to find it is delayed. What they need is  a proper debate about what changes of policy and approach  could do better for the country and could win back some lost support.

They keep on about how they need to change more, without seeing that most of the changes they have made so far are changes for the worse. The public who voted for them or who did not vote against them did not want higher taxes. They did not  want dearer energy. They did not want higher unemployment. They did not want young people to be priced and taxed out of jobs. They did not want our overseas territories to be given away. They did not want more inflation. They did not want more factories and plants closed by net zero zealotry.

The government was elected on three  reassuring main wide ranging  promises that it would achieve faster growth, it would not put up taxes (except Vat on school fees), and would smash the gangs (end illegal migration). It has broken all three promises . Its specific offer of £300 off fuel bills has also been illusory, and the promised  1.5 m new homes will not materialise.  Trying to deliver these should be the changes Ministers want to achieve. Running off to nationalise more industries, to regulate and tax more drivers off the road, to make life more difficult for landlords to cut the supply of rented homes, to regulate and tax small businesses and farms to death, to abolish juries and create monster regional governments will just make things worse. Any further lurch to the left will see Labour scrapping for under 20% of the vote against the extreme Greens.

You can see the government has lost the plot as they think they need to engage more strongly against Reform and copy more of the Green agenda. These are the thoughts of a struggling minority party, not the thoughts of a government with a  majority. Their duty should be to govern better. That means reaching out to the voters they have lost, not intensifying their anger  by doubling down on more extreme left policies. The UK does need changes of policy, but back to the more moderate Manifesto, not forward to the Corbyn/Green agenda that will  destroy growth, deter investment and boost unemployment.