On Thursday I travelled to Braintree and back by train to give a speech there. The announcement system kept shouting at me that if I saw something that didn’t look right I should report it to a member of staff. Ever obedient to other peoples rules I spotted several things that were wrong, but there was no available member of staff on either train to report to. So today I report here and will send a copy  to  the railway.

Things that went well

The Greater Anglian trains both left on time and arrived on time. The outbound train had been cleaned. The return train had litter on floors from recent passengers and was not cleaned. The on board train information system was clear and updated as we progressed.

What was not right

Passenger discomfort

The seats like many modern trains were unacceptably hard with a rigid and painful back angle. I had bad back and thigh pains for most of the journey which I do not experience on normal chairs.

The day was pleasantly hot. The fierce air  conditioning  made the train like a chill counter continuously blasting  cold air. I was cold for the whole  journey and was delighted to get off to warm up.

The perpetual loud announcements were over the top and ear piercing. The automatic doors kept opening and closing in stations with loud bleeps.

The state of the track

The worst part of the experience was the nationalised part visible through the windows . Practically every trackside structure was defaced with ugly graffiti, showing a failure to stop people getting trackside and an unwillingness to clean and  maintain structures.

There were weeds and vegetation growing out of older track and encroaching on the operational property. There were abandoned bits of rusting track . building supplies and sleepers left lying around. It looked as if no one managed it properly, left supplies hanging around and did not care about the assets.

Fare collection and enforcement

As a heavily overtaxed taxpayer I was worried to see the poor usage and likely losses from running the 20.08 from Braintree where only around 6% of the seats were taken and where only around 20 of us went all the way to Liverpool Street. The 16.35 outbound appeared to have more than half the  seats empty.

Tickets were checked on departing  Liverpool Street but not on arriving at Braintree or on train. Tickets on the return were only checked at Liverpool Street.

So I saw it and said it. I bet nothing gets sorted.

There are 3 ways to pay for lots of new infrastructure. You can leave it to the market as we largely did with broadband. That went pretty well with most people now having access to it. You can leave it to regulated  monopolies to do it. That worked badly with water where the Regulator often said No and the companies spent a lot on debt and equity. It worked better for gas and electricity. You can leave it to the government  to do on borrowed money. That was a disaster with the HS 2 new railway line and the new Horizon computer system for the Post Office.

The government wants to do more joint ventures and partnership funding, It talks of public financial institutional capacity. It thinks the last government had established £97 bn of that and the new one has added £40 bn. The bulk of it was UK export finance. Now there will  be National Wealth fund, Great British Energy and housing money to add in.

The use of nationalised business banks, wealth funds that can borrow and public companies that can partner and borrow conjures a world where the taxpayer could  be on the hook for losses and write offs. Where are all these good investments the private sector cannot finance? How does the state avoid getting the ones the private sector does not want?

 

Review of newly published book: PANDERING TO POPULISM? JOURNALISM AND POLITICS IN A POST-TRUTH AGE

 

Bite-Sized Books (www.bite-sizedbooks.com) have taken on the crucial issues of the role of the traditional media in a social media world and in a world of radical new political movements and parties. Pandering to Populism? (Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y25vtpta) contains some excellent essays by people wrestling as journalists and academics with these problems. The editors see the growing strength of the new parties and the ways traditional parties have to change their views and preoccupations to stay in the national conversations. They mainly see the rise of in terms of Trump, Farage and Brexit, though they see the bigger picture with many radical party challengers of left as well as right in many EU states.

 

They date the phenomenon to the poor economic performance of Europe since the banking crash of 2008, though US performance has been considerably better with US living standards and productivity growth far outpacing the feeble European pace. They see that people have come to be anti-net zero, anti-migration, anti-EU and anti wokery, and often attribute this to dissatisfaction with the poor economic performance of the last 17 years.

 

John Curtice charts the collapse of support for the Conservatives in the 2024 election, and the poor result for Labour which still translated into a landslide of seats. He points to low levels of turnout as well as unprecedented numbers voting for parties other than the traditional main three. Trevor Phillips in an elegant Foreword shows how the growing anti-establishment movement today is left as well as right. He sees it as a strong condemnation of two main UK parties that have not listened to what the public want, and who have failed to see growing resentment at the changing of national culture through migration. Maybe in the case of some Conservative Ministers it was not so much not listening as failing to get the system to do what people wanted. On migration a succession of Home Secretaries struggled to stop the boats and cut the numbers, only to face opposition not just from government bodies but from the courts.

 

Stephen Cushion from his academic studies of the media thinks the answer to the rise of populism is to get broadcast journalists to fact check more things. He praises BBC Verify for challenging the Leave claim in the referendum that the UK would save £350 m a week of contributions to the EU once we had left. Yet this is what we are now enjoying, with an EU putting up contributions by more than we thought and the UK at last free of all such payments. He is pleased the BBC also “called out” Rishi Sunak in the 2024 election for claiming the next Labour government would raise taxes by £2000 per family. There was no attempt to call out the Labour claim they would not increase any of the big three taxes. Once in office they imposed a large National Insurance rise on the self-employed and employers. Labour has already put through a £40 bn tax hike with more likely to come in the next budget. With 20 million families in the UK £40 bn looks a bit like Rishi’s £2000 per family, as families and individuals end up paying the extra National Insurance through price rises and lost jobs.

 

Stephen Cushion has missed one of the main points made by the Populists. The so-called facts used by the establishment are often wrong or simply are lies. Take the Remain campaign, as he is so worried about Brexit. They used the Treasury and Bank of England in a political campaign to say if we voted to leave GDP would fall, unemployment would rise and jobs would be lost. After the vote the opposite happened, with GDP increasing, employment increasing and unemployment falling. What would Remain have said if the Bank and Treasury had backed the Leave campaign claims? Doubtless they would have told the Bank and Treasury to stay out of politics. The Remain campaign put out a bizarre forecast that over the next 15 years GDP would be 4% less than if we had not left the EU. This often was misrepresented as a 4% fall in GDP from current levels. This is now regularly repeated as a fact of Brexit when we have not reached the 15-year mark and when there is no evidence of any such fall owing to Brexit. Our service sector trade has grown rapidly since 2016 including to the EU and is the dominant part of our exports.

 

Stephen Cushion could have asked why there is no fact checking of the Bank of England, constantly claiming inflation will return to the 2% target when it does not? Why did he not call them out for forecasting 2% inflation for 2022 when it hit 11%? How wrong can you be without being accused of promoting a fictional reality you would like to see? Why no fact checking of the current government’s claim they would smash the gangs, as we see illegal migration up by more than a third this year?

 

My favourite mini essay in this selection is that of Tor Clark. The delicious caricature of establishment attitudes is wicked in its accuracy. He mourns the lack of effective challenge to Brexit, glossing over the concerted efforts of the combined civil service, legal and Opposition party establishment to prevent Brexit happening and to block any Brexit wins after the vote. He thinks immigration is all positive, filling vacancies that need filling, without pausing to ask how we house and provide for all those people coming to low-income jobs or to stay in a hotel with no work. He says, “GB News is driving a coach and horses through previously established hard rules on balance and impartiality”. Yet every GB News programme has a left-wing critic on to provide balance sadly lacking on the BBC. GB News will run big stories on illegal migration, rape gangs and other difficult topics which the main media refuses to cover or covers by just offering the establishment view.

 

Tor Clark’s fear that a crisis of confidence in the legitimacy of news journalism could become a crisis of confidence in the legitimacy of the state misses the point of populism. Populists think the state is letting them down and failing society. They see mainstream media as part of the same problem. More fact checking will not hack it. The two sides do not agree the facts or choose to use different facts to illustrate their arguments. Rigged fact checking to expose exaggerations by Populists need to be balanced by exposing the outright lies of an establishment that has failed to control the borders, failed to deliver strong economic growth and could not even keep inflation under control.

 

Do get a copy of Pandering to Populism? It reveals a lot about why we are in a mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The government stunt before the local elections of taking powers to override the Chinese owners and the managers of British Steel at Scunthorpe failed to save Labour from electoral loss. We now need to be told how much all this will cost UK taxpayers. It has the makings  of a financial disaster resulting in   the loss of many jobs.

There is first the need to sort out the ownership. The Chinese owners will contest their liability for costs and losses since the government took over issuing the orders. Company law  will be in conflict with the imprecise statements in the emergency law to “save” the blast furnaces and jobs. The government clearly wants the owners out as there is such a big disagreement over the future of the plant.

The second is to find a new owner/ manager to take over the responsibility for the business, with agreed levels of subsidy which will be needed and could be high to keep open the present plant.

The third is to return to the US trade talks and negotiate the freedom from super tariffs on our steel exports as the government originally claimed.

The fourth is to agree a plan with the new management over the likely life of the current blast furnaces and any necessary investment into them .

If the government is unable to find a new owner/ manager and has to nationalise, all of the above need to be done through a new nationalised Head of British Steel. Taxpayers will then have to take all the risks and pay all the bills, instead of limiting exposure to an agreed level of subsidy.

If nationalised all the capital spending as well as the losses have to be included in public spending. Those who argue for nationalisation fail to tell us how much all this costs. They also imply it will save all the jobs and gives eternal life to two very old blast furnaces. I do not believe them.  At current energy prices in the UK a blast furnace will not be internationally competitive.

We have government of the lawyers by the lawyers for the lawyers . Could they please get better at the law? Could they get onto the side of the British people instead of so often siding with questionable  interpretations of foreign treaties  and courts?

Why did our government lawyers not point out that the International Court of Justice who advised we should give the Chagos away has no power to judge a UK case involving a Commonwealth member?

Why did they not remind us the US accepts no judgements of the International Court of Justice?

Why did they not point out under our Treaty opting into the Court we have the right to unilaterally amend the terms of membership?

When advising on the human rights of illegal migrants, why do they not point out that France under the same human rights laws comes to a very different view over what they have to offer them?

Why don’t our government lawyers find a way to strengthen or enforce the law against illegal boat trips, money laundering , people  trafficking and dangerous voyages to stop the small boats.?

Why don’t they want to enforce and strengthen environmental and fishing law against plundering 100 metre plus industrial trawlers in our waters?

Most of us want to live under the rule of  law, but we want one that’s fair to taxpayers and voters legally settled in our country. The government lawyers are out of touch with the public mood.

 

Facts4EU have launched a campaign to save our sovereignty, with several other groups in support. The give away of Chagos, the invitation to the EU/Spain to police the Gibraltar border , and the offer to the EU that we will lay them money to enforce more of their trade and farming laws on us all point  to a government that does not value our sovereignty.

A party with a big majority in Parliament has every right to impose more  laws, put up our taxes and waste our money if that’s what they want to do.They will  pay the price at the next election if they ignore the criticism and opposition voices. Any if these things can be cancelled or amended by a new government after the next election.

What they are not allowed to do is to give powers of self government away without consent. It needs  a referendum to give powers away to the EU after the clear result in 2016. The Labour party did not signal its surrenders to international pressures and bad advice over these matters in its Mainfesto.

Well done to Facts4EU and the other groups who are promoting thus  campaign, Stand up for Our Sovereignty. I say Save Our Sovereignty. We all say SOS.

 

Donald Trump came to office wanting peace. He had pressed the Biden team to try to get a cessation of hostilities in Gaza. He thought he could talk to Putin to get a ceasefire in Ukraine. Both have proved too difficult so far. Now as he tries to negotiate a settlement with Iran to stop them acquiring nuclear  weapons and stop them backing militant groups  in several Middle East hot spots, he sees Israel taking preemptive military action against Iran.

The UK with France tried to put together a coalition  of the willing to act as a peacekeeping force in Ukraine There were not  many willing and Russia saw such a force as a NATO proxy  on the side of Ukraine, not as an independent and neutral peacekeeper. In Gaza the UK speaks as a neutral telling both sides, Hamas and Israel, to calm it.The UK has no plans to intervene militarily in Gaza.

What do you think the US should do next? Is there anything useful the UK could do or say to promote peace in any of these conflict zones?

The OBR in March, reviewing its budget forecasts, quietly cut its forecast for capital or wealth taxes by £2.8 bn for 2025-6.  It slashed £5 bn off the forecast for 2028-9, an 18% fall to a £23 bn total. Capital taxes are Inheritance tax, capital gains tax and Stamp duties. So much for Labours plan to soak the rich to pay for everything.

The government has to learn that energetic entrepreneurial people and people who have worked hard and built up their savings do not need to stay here to pay extra taxes on their efforts. Indeed they are leaving in their droves for lower taxes and sunnier climes. We are not just losing the ultra rich, the Non Doms driven out by the abolition of the right to just pay here on their wealth and earnings here. We are losing the modestly affluent, retiring abroad, and young strivers who want to set up a business or get a well paid job somewhere where they can keep more of the reward.

It is also the case that those with savings and wealth who do stay decide to pay less capital tax as the rates go up.People with second homes bought a long tine ago do not feel able to swap them for a more appropriate sized or located property because the CGT and Stamp Duty is crippling. Housing becomes less well adjusted to needs as a result. People with shares bought  a long tine ago, or tec shares  bought well more recently sit on large capital gains. They are not going to switch the capital into something new or better if they face a big tax bill to do so. Capital is less well allocated and the government loses out on Stamp duty on switching assets.

Jealousy is a bad basis for  public policy. The notion that there enough rich people to stay and pay even more of the tax to cover a spendthrift government has always proved wrong. 1970 s UK had the brain drain with sky high tax rates. The Labour government had to borrow from the IMF and cut public spending as tax revenues disappointed.  Cuba and Venezuela impoverished themselves by blaming the rich.

This  government loves giving away  money and assets to foreign governments.They love taxing us to fund this largesse.

They gave away Chagos and a big dowry  to Mauritius. So big a dowry Mauritius cuts Income tax whilst we pay more. China applauds Mauritius whilst the PM wrongly claims China is against the deal!

£500 m to France to control the small boats, which then increase in numbers.

The offer of money to the EU to put us under their  laws which most of us do not want.

The offer to Spain/EU to run our borders  in Gibraltar with their armed police on our sovereign key naval and air base. The Spanish PM is over the moon and still claims he wants to take over Gibraltar against international law and the views of Gibraltarians.

Then there is the payment to house thousands of illegal migrants in hotels because the government fails to implement its promise to smash the gangs.

Why is this government always against us? It is the government of international lawyers, by international lawyers for international lawyers.

 

 

The Chancellor set about spending with rare enthusiasm as she pandered  to her Labour MP audience. In a heavily party drenched presentation she played fairy godmother giving out public sector sweeties to as many named MP s, public sector trade unions and client groups as she could cram in . A bloated state was put on a fattening diet.

Every part of the public sector mentioned was praised for its employees and achievements. Every part had according to Reeves been starved of money by the previous governments which had put up public spending every year. Not once did she mention the productivity collapse, the staggering losses of the nationalised industries, the huge cost overruns of many public sector projects. This was fantasy economics.

We are asked to believe they will build nuclear power stations on time and to budget, yet we are not told what either the cost or the  timetable will be. We are asked to believe the newly nationalised railway  will run to time and not  send supplementary bills. We are told British steel is saved without being told how we replace the blast furnaces, square the Chinese owners and avoid all the US tariffs. We are asked to believe that re announcing tram and rail projects long in the pipeline will revive city centres and solve problems of urban decline.

There was no mention that longer term interest rates are way above Truss levels, that markets think the government is borrowing too much, or that the small increases in spend for the last two years look implausible under a spendthrift government wanting to be re elected. This Chancellor invented a black hole then set about digging a much bigger one.

 

PS The document issued after the speech promises 5% savings from efficiency improvements based on a £3 bn Transformation  Fund to spend more on computing. This does not even remove all the lost productivity since 2019. There are targets to reduce administrative costs without explaining how.