I with others argued that appointing Lord Mandelson as Ambassador was a bad idea. We had a good career diplomat Ambassador in Washington, liked by President trump, who got appropriate access and set out the UK case.

The PM knew Mandelson had connections with Epstein though he may well have not known what has come out. He would have known that President Trump had no wish to have friends of Epstein in the Oval Office given Epstein’s criminal convictions. He should have worked out that some of Mandelson’s past views and certainly some of his past statements about Trump were far from helpful in winning over President Trump. By any measure this was a bad appointment before we learned of more of the detail of the Epstein relationship.

One of my biggest annoyances is the damage this has done to UK/US relationships and the impact it has had on UK policy. When he was first appointed I urged Mandelson to see the damage the Chagos give away would do. Instead he helped Starmer reassure the President this was a good policy. Now the President has found out more of the truth about the deal he has concluded it is a very bad idea.

It looks as if Lord Mandelson failed to explain to the President the US/UK Treaty promising the UK would keep the freehold of Chagos, failed to explain the consequences of Mauritius being signed up to a No nuclear Treaty, and failed to consider the defence impact of the islands being owned by a friend of China.

An Ambassador being close to our most important ally let us down badly by not explaining all this to the President,leaving the President no choice but to change his view when someone else put the full truth to him about this bad deal.

When responding to this remember Mandelson has not been accused of any criminal offence and is innocent until proved guilty. Of course the revelations of his lifestyle and the involvement with Epstein has been quite enough for the PM to say he has behaved badly, should not be a peer and should be subject to an enquiry. All this from the man who thought he was the best person to be our most important Ambassador and who said he had full confidence in him when the Opposition pressed him in Parliament.

Why did he ever force Mandelson onto the diplomatic service given his troubled past when in government? This was well known to all of us given his loss of office twice over conduct issues.

Do you remember the one about how the government was going to preside over building far more homes, boosting growth and jobs? The last government promised 1 m over five years or 200,000 annually whch it delivered after covid. The incoming government promised 1.5 million or 300,000 a year. So far instead of putting up the rate of completions, they are down.

The Chancellor was arm wrestling the so called independent OBR to give her credit for more growth ahead from more homes which were going to come from easier planning rules. The OBR need to review that decision as numbers of homes have gone down, not up.

The collapse has been biggest in London, the part of the country with the dearest homes and the biggest shortages. A Labour Mayor and a Labour government have added more expensive regulations and allowed lower targets, against their own national policy. The new rules on two staircases in mid rise blocs, on net zero standards and more outdoor space requiring balconies, have undermined the viability of new flats projects.

The big tax attack and the government inspired or regulated price surges in water, energy, rail fares, Council taxes has also meant fewer people have enough money to think about buying their first home or about trading up. The housing market is sluggish or in decline as a result.

The Housing Secretary says they are sticking with his 1.5 m target. Few commentators and builders think there is any chance of hitting it. Labour would be doing well to get back up to the last government’s build rates. No more growth here than in China.

Much of the public deeply resents the spending priority afforded to migration. We read that the government is being asked to pay yet more money for its hasty and botched cancellation of the Rwanda plan, rubbing salt into wounds when we do not have the deterrent effect of somewhere to send illegal migrants which the government clearly needs. The government pays large sums to the French to stop the boats without conditions and accepts the French have broken their promise to tackle some of the boats in shallow water before they depart when their intentions are clear.The government is paying large sums for hotel accommodation they promised to close down, and paying more to convert older buildings for use as migrant hostels in an attempt to avoid more hotels as illegals continue to arrive. The government is paying top up benefits to migrants, and a full range of benefits to dependents that come to join them. Migrants taking up lower wage employment qualify for subsidised housing, free NHS, free school places and the full range of public services. The press have recently highlighted the costs of providing free English language tuition for recent arrivals. The arrival of a large number of people speaking a wide range of languages has raised language costs in a number of relevant public services.

In 2025-16 the EU was trying to respond to the large numbers of migrants arriving across its borders.They made a proposal that countries that would not take their fair share of these EU arrivals should have to make payments to the countries that did take them. Their calculation suggested that the set up and early year costs of a new low or no pay migrant were 250,000 Euros.
I tried to work out what a similar cost would be for the UK leaving the EU. I saw that the EU figure had plausibility. If many people come then the state does need to build new flats or houses to accommodate them, and these will need to be heavily subsidised with the public sector picking up the initial capital cost. There needs to be more school places and surgery and hospital capacity, with capital costs to increase the capacity of schools and health centres, and with more staff being recruited to man them. Adding more people on a big scale also means putting in more road and rail capacity. Meanwhile the private sector has to spend on more broadband, water, electricity and gas supply.

The case for controlled immigration has been clear and popular with the majority of voters for a long time. The Treasury idea that high levels of migration were fine because they added to GDP was always disbelieved by many of the voters. It is difficult to understand why clever Treasury officials never wanted to highlight the public spending consequences of unrestricted migration when it was bound to have a very visible impact on capital and revenue budgets for key state services and for benefits.

This anti growth government that has done so much to kill growth in our domestic market now goes in search of growth from EU trade. It has banned our businesses getting out more oil and gas, put strict limits on how many petrol and diesel cars our motor industry can sell prior to a complete ban on their best selling lines in 2030, taxed people out of jobs and increased closures of pubs, shops, entertainment businesses and the rest. It has followed a strong de industrialisation policy,is trying to close down as much industrial capacity as possible that dares to use fossil fuels by imposing high carbon and windfall taxes and bans. It refuses to offer grants to farmers to farm but will offer them money to stop growing food and rearing animals.

It is true our exporters do create jobs, pay people good wages and boost our GDP. If its more exports the government wants to replace its dwindling home output of manufactures, energy and food, then it should go to the places that buy lots of our exports, are buying more year by year and want to do business with us. Both in and now out of the EU our trade with non EU countries has been growing faster than with the EU. Both in and out our trade in services have expanded rapidly, especially with non EU countries. The quickest wins for more exports are trade deals and government backing for more exports of our services to the rest of the world beyond the EU to countries that speak English and like what we do.

Our trade in goods with the EU sees us in massive deficit. In 2024 we imported £313bn of EU goods but exported little more than half that at £174 bn. We import lots of refined oil products as we close down more of our own refineries in the name of net zero. We are importing plenty of crude oil as we refuse to get more of our own out of the ground. We are importing large numbers of cars as the government squeezes our own industry to closure brought on by high taxes on petrol and diesel cars made at home. We import plenty of vegetables and fruit we could grow for ourselves as government policy seeks to dissuade farmers from growing things. We also import a lot of European medicines and electrical products.

Our balance of trade in goods is bound to get worse with the EU on current policies. Our past top exports to them of oil, refined oil products, vehicles, chemicals and miscellaneous manufactures are all being hammered by the government’s high energy anti industry policies. Our services exports to the EU are growing but at a slower pace than with the rest of the world.
The government is wrong to think making sacrifices to try to get more trade with the EU will help us grow faster. Loosening rules on trade will help them more than us given the huge imbalance in trade in goods and the impact of their restrictive rules on farming and making things.

What would make a big difference is import substitution. That would boost growth. If only the government would follow policies that encouraged us to get out more of our own oil and gas, keep open our refineries, run chemical works with sensibly priced feedstock, and boost domestic entertainment, hospitality and tourism we would cut the big EU balance of trade deficit, create more jobs at home and enjoy faster growth. Imports subtract from GDP.

The PM will search in vain for growth from more trade with China. Our exports to China were a lowly £30bn in 2024 so a 10% boost would only be 0.1% of our GDP. Meanwhile our imports were a much larger £72.5bn, more than double our exports. A 10% increase in those would cut our GDP by 0.2%. In practice the PM claims a derisory boost of just £50 m a year to our exports in a £3 trillion economy! He doesn’t forecast the increase in our imports which are likely to exceed that tiny total, meaning less overall GDP for UK. Our trade in goos saw our exports down to £19 bn and their goods exports at £67 bn, three times as much.

The truth is there is not much we produce that China needs. Meanwhile the government’s deindustrialisation policies of dear energy, bans and high taxes in the name of net zero create plenty of scope for China to export to us. China dominates the supply of solar panels. It is big in wind towers and turbines, and is coming to dominate in batteries and battery cars. These are the products that lead our lists of imports, assisted by miscellaneous manufactures as UK industry is driven to closure by high taxes and costs.

China does want to copy our success in creating great universities, in generating plenty of innovations, in financial services, in culture and entertainment and the other service exports we are good at. It will pick up much useful insight by sending some of its brightest and best students to the UK and by getting them onto important research projects for further degrees. It will encourage some UK firms to collaborate, including supplying their best intellectual property. Some Chinese business people simply copy western brands and technologies without paying royalties or buying the rights.

China is following a China first policy. It intends to control the intellectual property, own the raw materials and set up the manufacturing facilities at home. The UK government is misguided if it thinks the UK can win large amounts of goods orders from China and sustain their role as a long term supplier, given the domestic focus of Chinese policy.

The much travelled PM thinks UK growth has to come from more trade with the EU and China. I am not sure he knows our big trade with these two is heavily weighted to imports, not exports.I worry he doesn’t realise importing more from them lowers GDP growth.

He is right that if we could export more to them without importing more that helps growth. So why does he follow anti industry anti farming policies that mean we will make and grow fewer things they might want to buy? We used to sell lots of oil, gas, refined oil products and petrol cars to the EU. All these are on the ban and tax more heavily list. We watched as EU grants tore out our orchards, as EU quotas limited our dairy and meat production. Since leaving the EU the farms tax, higher National Insurance, grants for not growing food mean less agricultural output not more exports to a loving continent.

The net zero extremism means high energy costs. There has been a rush of closures in steel, ceramics, cement, plastics, other building materials as demented accounting means we have to import energy intensive products rather than make them for ourselves. The decision to keep our own oil and gas in the ground so we import LNG which creates so much more CO 2 instead is particularly damaging.

This is bad economics and worse politics. The UK trade more with non EU so the PM concentrates on the EU trade in long term decline. We trade more in services than goods, so the PM concentrates on goods. We run huge deficits with the EU and China and a good surplus with the rest of the world. By concentrating on the two big deficits and giving in to them the PM makes more imports and less growth the more likely outcome. China has no intention of helping us rebuild our industries and every intention of making us depend on their batteries, cars, turbines and solar panels. The EU has every plan to use the reset to impose many rules to ensure they sell us more and buy less.

When in China the PM is well placed to do something about the big increase in world CO 2 as a third of the CO 2 and much of the growth in CO 2 comes from China. He should ask to see one of the new coal power stations and ask when China is going to follow the UK example of closing all coal stations and blowing them up.
He should say the UK is not going to carry on importing manufactures from China that depend on coal power. It does not help world CO 2 for the UK to shut its car plants to import cars from China where more CO 2 is generated in their manufacture. He should remind the Chinese of the forthcoming carbon tariffs on China products the UK is bringing in.
He should ask to visit a big naval port to see the expansion of modern ships. He should ask why China needs such huge forces.
He should point out that China runs a huge trade surplus with the UK and ask what UK goods China would consider buying. Our exports to China are only 18% of our exports to the USA. Why?
He should worry about coming home empty handed.A 10% increase in our exports to China would only add 0.1% to GDP assuming no increase in imports to offset.Even that looks very unlikely.
There is no growth in UK GDP to be had in China. The UK needs to become a more demanding customer instead of a pathetic pushover.

The PM is widely criticised for travelling too much and doing too little to tackle the problems at home that anger and worry voters. He and friends claim he isa good diplomat or UK representative, yet his trips usually result in the UK giving money, powers, islands away in pursuit of friendship that he does not naturally command. The Chagos deal means losing crucial islands and £35 bn over 99 years. The EU took 12 years of our very valuable fish just to get into talks. France takes more than £500 m but fails to stop the boats for this border money.

The PM follows the Chancellor who announced a measly £600 m of deals for a 3,000,000 million economy, or O.02% of our GDP! He thinks he will generate some growth from more business. The UK runs a big deficit with China and is busy shutting down our energy and fuel based businesses in order to import more Chinese solar panels and wind turbines.

A weak PM has given in and approved a mega Embassy to China despite obvious security risks. The Chagos islands are being given away to a friend of China. How long before China is spying on the most important air and naval base the US and UK has outside home territory? How long before they have fishing rights to wreck an important protected marine area?

This trip is bad news for the PM and for UK taxpayers. The PM will not stand up for UK interests, will be out manoeuvred by China and will spend more time away from our pressing problems at home. Why?

The UK has not suddenly alerted the US to the problems posed by the give away of Chagos. Nor has the President suddenly read a brief and got command of the issues.In his welcome condemnation of the folly of the deal he assumed the UK is being paid to surrender the islands. He will be even more stunned by the stupidity when he learns the UK is paying to give them away.
Some contributors here seem to think one word from Nigel Farage and the President is persuaded. This is clearly not true as Nigel could have told Mr Trump a long time ago and may have done do but the US went along with the folly. Presumably they did so because they did not want to disrupt their relationship with the UK government. They sought and were given assurances there would be no cost to them and they could still use the base for 99 years.
Over the last year there would have been exchanges between the 2 governments over this. It is extraordinary that the UK government,full of lawyers , missed the obvious point that the UK/US Treaty requires the UK to keep the Chagos freehold. Or maybe the lawyers thought this was a technicality the US would
agree to repeal.Strange they did not pocket that early.
There have also been many exchanges between leading UK Conservatives and Republicans, urging the US ruling party to think again. People have raised issues including Mauritius being an anti nuclear country, what would happen at the base if Mauritius issues fishing licences for the Chagos, settles people on islands close to Diego Garcia, grants rights to China etc.
The flurry of briefings had a reprise last week with the US Speaker in London. Briefings reached Rubio and Bessent in Davos. Someone half tipped off the President who came out strongly against the deal.
I was the first person to put to the media the fact that the UK signed up for the International Court with express exemptions for Commonwealth matters and defence. The ICJ could not make us give up Chagos. Someone else put out the need to get US consent to Treaty change. We do not know whose briefing got the President to change his mind. Trying to influence a President 2000 miles away takes many attempts by many people to land a key message.
We should also recognise the importance of the Chagos government in exile and the independent group who took the UK government to court over failure to consider the views of the Chagossians.

Article published in Daily Telegraph

Mrs Von Der Leyen claims “the shift in the world order is not only seismic – but it is permanent”. “We now live in a world of raw power”. This seems to be a response to the possible use of force by the USA in Greenland which Donald Trump has ruled out. Where was she when Russia used raw force from 2014 onwards to occupy parts of Ukraine? Has she forgotten the use of force by the Soviet Union to suppress eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin wall? Has she not seen how Afghanistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern states have been using raw power against their own citizens and neighbouring states? Has she missed the terrorist attacks of the recent decades? Raw power has often been a chosen means of more than half the world which is not democratic.

She also wrongly asserts that the answer to this outbreak of raw power is to speed up and strengthen European union. So how would more EU laws resolve the problems of Ukraine? Would the stronger EU have an army and navy capable of intervening against the abuse of raw power in the Middle East and its disruption of trade and energy? Of course not. The EU’s answer to every bad trend and crisis is more EU, when more EU has pushed the member states further and further behind the USA in growth and military capacity.

Mr Carney rightly observes if “the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself”. He comes late to this realisation. The rules of his idealised Davos world did not protect us from wars, hunger, poor economic policies prior to Donald Trump. When did the UN last negotiate a peace and enforce it? When did the WTO last intervene to stop unfair trade with China? When did the international order last constrain Russia? Why didn’t the UN COP s he so liked get China and the emerging world to produce and hit tough carbon targets in the way the UK and EU did?

Belatedly this globalist has come to offer the advice I have given for years to UK governments. “A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options”. Exactly. The UK needs to grow more of its own food, produce more of its own energy and strengthen its defences. The last 125 years of history shows us we could only rely on the USA to help us in brutal wars, and then only if we had the power and ability to fight alone for a long time until their national interest required them to join in.

What President Trump is exposing in his own provocative way is the so called international rules based system let us down. The UN cannot prevent conflicts and had to allow great powers to veto actions. The WTO allows China and emerging economies asymetric rules that rest easy on them. The COP UN climate change system is ignored or gamed by most of the world. The Davos consensus on how to run economies has delivered vicious cycles with banking crises and nasty recessions. The independent Central Banks of Europe, UK and USin the west in the last six years allowed or created high inflation whilst the politically controlled central banks of China and Japan kept inflation down.

Mr Carney and Mrs Von der Leyen are wrong to think a tilt to China is the answer to their prayers of how they can grow faster and have better defence.