The UK establishment media are usually slaves to Treasury spin and Bank of England error.
Throughout the Osborne years as Chancellor we were told the main thrust of economic policy was to bring down the deficit. 80% would be achieved by spending cuts and 20% by tax increases. I set out regularly from the Treasury’s own figures that public spending carried on rising in total in cash terms, and edged up a little after allowing for inflation. In normal language this meant 100% of the large deficit cut achieved relied on a very big increase in tax revenue. Some of this increase came from higher rates, particularly on VAT, and some from lower rates on higher incomes which generated substantial extra income for the state. It was of course true that some programmes suffered from actual cuts, and areas like the NHS and schools with no real cuts were squeezed more than under previous budget plans. It was also true that areas like Overseas Aid and EU contributions marched remorselessly upward. The Chancellor sought to gradually relax the tough controls and cuts Labour had imposed on capital spending towards the end of its period in government as it wrestled with its huge deficit.
More recently last spring I highlighted the addition of a monetary squeeze to the fiscal squeeze going on and predicted this would lead to slower growth. That duly happened. The tax attacks on housing in the 2016 budget and on cars in the 2017 budget meant these areas suffered especially. I have yet to hear or see interviews asking why we need a combined monetary and fiscal squeeze, or even much acceptance that this is what is happening. This slowdown has nothing to do with Brexit. The economy performed well for the first nine months after the vote, when the official forecasts predicted an immediate collapse and a recession in winter 2016-17 which did not of course happen.
There have been too few examinations of how the UK establishment so misjudged the adverse impact of joining the EEC, misjudged the dreadful impact of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, misjudged the Euro ignoring the obvious structural weaknesses which led to a series of Euro crises, misjudged the banking boom and bust and most recently misjudged the impact of a Brexit vote. One golden strand, which in their hands turns out to be base metal, links them all. Any economic project which comes from the EU is always favourably rated, and is usually bad news. Remember the “golden scenario” they said the Exchange Rate Mechanism would bring about? Or the huge extra growth that the Euro would foster? When you look at economic history you discover that a scheme which could be good for jobs and growth has usually been at best disappointing and at worst downright hostile to progress.
October 9, 2018
Being members of the EU has been an expensive disaster for the country.
Paying vast sums annually to improve infrastructure of other countries whilst suffering cuts at home. For the employees of Brussels it has been the biggest bean feast in history.
And still the great and good think its a wonderful scheme.
October 9, 2018
Quite, I still can’t fathom why so many of the ‘great and not so good’ still think membership is best for our nation. People should be allowed to trade with whomever they wish, why do we need politicians to tell us?
Why does the MSM fail to report economic issues accurately? simple: not educated to do so. Manchester United FC gets more eyeballs.
October 9, 2018
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Mrs. May and the establishment media will renew Project Fear – a turbo-charged version.
The aim of the exercise is convince people that a May Deal is better than No Deal.
October 10, 2018
The EFT’s recent explanation of why a World Trade Deal works fine for the UK was particularly clearly written: https://brexitcentral.com/world-trade-deal-brexit-wto-terms-highly-advantageous/
Agreeing Canada+++ after leaving also works fine for the UK with initially either a zero-for-zero EU-UK interim FTA or £13+Bn pa extra for the UK Treasury. The non-implementation period is nuts.
David Davis is right that making the UK a colony of the undemocratic EU Empire is impossible to sell.
Again JRM: ‘There is no market for a technical Brexit’.
October 9, 2018
@Ian wragg: “vast sums” is a little exaggerated for this 2 trillion pounds economy.
Your net contribution was less than half of one percent. A weekly cup of coffee for every Britain, or the amount you might give to the homeless beggar in your street.
It is ok for me, but then don’t expect equal access to the EU as e.g. the paying up Netherlands has.
October 9, 2018
£400 billion and counting. Not a pittance.
October 9, 2018
@Ian wragg:
About £2000 billion was the UK income for 1 year, calculating it over 46 years I’ll gladly leave to you. I’m getting tired of this.
October 9, 2018
PvL, Our current net payment is over half a percent, on top of our contribution of half a percent (contribution = money to cover the costs). We have been net payers for all but one year in the long 45 years we’ve been under your thumb. When you can explain why we should pay to trade in the EU, but not pay the USA to trade with them you might have something useful to say.
October 9, 2018
@NickC
Really very simple, you could have thought of it yourself: The USA doesn’t have to pay us (EU) to trade with us, and after Brexit you can have the same. Just don’t expect more frictionless trade than the USA has with us. That wasn’t difficult, was it?
October 10, 2018
PvL, It’s really very simple, you could have thought of it yourself:
We don’t want more “frictionless” (whatever that is) trade with the EU than with the USA. That was one of the points of voting Leave – you know, to actually, well, Leave. That wasn’t difficult, was it?
October 10, 2018
@PvL – I can and do buy electronic components from the USA.
Place order Day 1, receive goods Day 3 – Carriage & Duty paid.
I reckon that’s pretty frictionless
October 9, 2018
In the annual tax summary that HMRC provide me with, the UK contribution to the EU is one of the 15 listed areas where the income tax I pay is spent. It is at the bottom of the list as it is the smallest percentage share of all the items. Foreign Aid is the next smallest. The top four (in order) are Welfare, Health, State Pensions and Education.
October 9, 2018
Peter Parsons, A few £billion here and a few £billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money. I think £20bn for the EU (about a 3500 times more than we pay the WTO) is serious money.
Maybe you don’t. In which case you Remains need to find about £52,000 as a one off payment for each of us 17.4m Leaves for the 45 years (at current rates) that we have paid for your rotten EU.
October 9, 2018
Quoting figures without context is meaningless whether it’s 1p, £1, £1 million or £1 billion.
To put a real context on it, 0.7% of tax paid is the figure stated by HMRC. For someone on median earnings (£27,200 in 2017 according to the ONS), 0.7% of their total income tax and NI equates to just under 0.14% of their annual salary, or just over 10p per day.
Anyone remember Labour’s state pension increase “insult” of 75p per week under Blair/Brown? That’s also just over 10p per day too.
October 9, 2018
I never see my EU contributions via VAT each year in my annual tax summary.
October 10, 2018
Billy, possibly because no one keeps a record of the VAT you pay. However, it is possible to come up with an estimate.
Consider again someone on media earnings of £27,200pa. Their after-tax income will £21,665 (assuming default tax codes). Assuming the entirety of that is spent on things which incur VAT at 20% (unlikely given all the things which are zero rated, but it will give us an upper figure), that represents a maximum contribution to the VAT pot of £3,610.83 per year. Using the same 0.7% as for Income Tax and NI gives a maximum contribution to the UK’s contribution to the EU budget from VAT of £25.28 per year for that person.
October 9, 2018
That is a false comparison. We didn’t pay our EU contributions out of “ the whole economy” though, we paid it out of government tax receipts and it was a very significant sum.
October 9, 2018
Roy Grainger, It is even worse than that. The contribution to EU costs and the net payment together, came out of profits, or wealth, not out of turnover. GDP is turnover. The £20bn was “Danegeld” – money lost entirely from our country as though it was stolen.
October 10, 2018
Nick C
With the size of trade and service we do with the EU the figure of “20 bn which is two weeks consumption of the NHS, this so-called Danegeld,(which it is definitely not) comes out as nothing in the scheme of things
October 11, 2018
Hans, In which case you Remains owe each of us Leaves around £52,000 (the total the UK has paid the EU over 45 years at the current rate of £20bn/yr, divided by 17.4m). That’s so obviously “nothing in the scheme of things” as you say.
October 11, 2018
NickC, your figures are wildly innaccurate. The UK doesn’t pay £20billion a year, the gross figure is less than that, then you remove the rebate (which is never sent), then you have to factor in all of the money that flows back to the UK (which you’ve also ignored).
The current annual contribution from income tax, NI and VAT for someone on median earnings is, as I calculated above, works out at around £60 per year.
For comparison, that is about the same as someone on median earnings sees their income devalued by every single month at the current rate of inflation. Does the effect of a month’s inflation really exercise you that much?
October 9, 2018
I agree it has been a disaster for our country in many ways, but not a particularly “expensive” disaster in the grand scheme of things. Just listening to EU enthusiasts one could easily get the false impression that our economy was totally dependent on exports to the continent, when they comprise only about 12% of GDP. Even if a new treaty has an effect on that trade its overall effect is diluted, so for example if there was an 8% effect on our exports to the continent that would become only a 1% effect on GDP. And 1% of GDP is probably the gross gain we have ever got from EU membership; in 2012 as EU Commissioner Michel Barnier issued a report claiming that the EU Single Market had increased the collective GDP of the EU member states by about 2%, and it would be less than that for the UK. This is why it is not possible to detect either the point at which the UK joined the EEC, or the later point at which the EU Single Market was created, by looking at a chart of UK GDP against time or UK GDP growth rate against time. All the evidence of the past benefits (and also disbenefits) is partial, a lot is little more than anecdotal, and the success of pro-EU economic propaganda almost invariably depends upon general ignorance and innumeracy among the target audience.
October 10, 2018
@Denis Cooper
The Netherlands (and I believe Norway) have the advantage of a longterm completely independent “Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis” (CPB, since 1945). As is not too difficult to commission biased studies, as a certain Geert Wilders has proven, it is therefore nice to also have a neutral institution like the CPB.
Both the “Single Market” and liberalising WTO developments have worked very well for the Dutch economy, maybe much more than for the UK economy, so it will be interesting to see how well the UK economy will fare in the coming decade, i.e. after Brexit.
Of course Dutch EU membership is about more than just the economy.
October 11, 2018
None of which takes away anything at all from what I have said …
October 9, 2018
“For the employees of Brussels it has been the biggest bean feast in history” and “And still the great and the good think it is a wonderful scheme” are not unrelated!
October 9, 2018
Mitchel
Agreed
Was going to be my comment, you beat me to it !!
Also do not forget to include the like’s of people like a certain Mr XX and others who benefit greatly from subsidies, and others with now excellent EU Pensions.
October 9, 2018
Let’s put this myth to bed.
You do not pay vast sums to the EU. You do not pay vast sums for overseas aid. They cost you virtually nothing.
You can get the figures from HMRC which prove it. The numbers are probably printed on the back of your income tax bill – assuming you pay income tax.
1.1% of your income tax goes on overseas aid. 0.7% of it goes on EU contributions.
This means someone on an average salary of around £28k pays just over £1 per week for the EU and overseas aid combined.
Even backbench MPs – who earn a healthy £77k for a job which requires no discernible skills or experience – contribute less than £1 a day for aid and the EU combined.
In contrast 57.5% of your income tax goes on welfare, health and pensions. That is almost £2,000 tax per year for those on average salaries and more than £11,000 for MPs.
I want my taxes spent properly and appropriately – and I do not want them to be higher than necessary. So let’s axe state pensions, only pay for social care for those who can not afford it (and, yes, you should have to sell your home to pay for it) and require over 70s to pay higher rates of tax to reflect the fact that the bulk of NHS spending goes on them.
Then the rest of us could then have a tax cut. But it requires you lot to start paying your own way first and to stop being such a drain on the state.
October 9, 2018
Scrap NI then and give everyone who paid it a rebate.
October 9, 2018
Right. Let’s put this one to bed too then about how little £1 a week is.
If I earn a similar amount then:
£3 a week goes on the police (in crisis and unable to investigage my burglary)
a mere 80p goes on prisons (in crisis andon the point of a major mass breakout)
£1.80 goes on roads (in crisis, potholed and congested)
You utterly fail to include the costs of uncontrolled immigration on our system and the costs of legal immigration too. Also the costs of EU policies that we might not apply.
October 9, 2018
Just about every proper report ever shows that migrants pay more into the system than they take out. Whereas pensioners take out more than they put in.
Politically it is easier to blame foreigners than grannies – but it is the grannies who are causing your problems.
As for your complaints about the police, prisons, roads etc. Too right. I agree. They are all in a shocking state.
But what do you expect? We’ve had almost a decade of Tory misrule. Services cost money to run and the Tories would rather give tax breaks to their rich buddies than invest in the services you need.
If you want better services vote Labour or Lib Dem. If you want worse services and rich people to get richer vote Tory. Easy.
October 11, 2018
3.9 million women who have been forced to wait up to an extra six years to get their pensions didn’t that make you happy Andy?
October 9, 2018
You forget that it is not just income tax that raises money for something like overseas aid or payments to the EU.
Taxes go into a general pot and that is used to pay for things.
So things like VAT Inheritance tax Stamp Duty Fuel duty and so on.
And don’t forget we run a deficit each year.
So as usual andy your figures are wrong.
October 9, 2018
PS
You also forget that state pensions are paid from the national insurance contribution people pay out of their wages during theirvworking life.
You need over 30 years full contributions to get a full pension.
Many also pay extra into private pensions.
Surely you know all this andy being a business owner?
October 10, 2018
Edward2 the majority of people working in PAYE posts also have an Employer’s national insurance contribution of 12.8% over the lower earnings level (£8424pa). 25.8% in total.
The current average wage in the UK is £28,000 on £28,000 the national insurance contribution would amount to £5050 in 2018. This means a payment for national insurance of £97 per week, which is 18% of the weekly wage figure towards your state pension and healthcare hardly the pittance Andy alludes to (“So let’s axe state pensions”) the majority of us paid our own way Andy , then, of course, you have a parking charge of around £3.50 for every hospital visit now minimum and people who visit you pay this charge, £180million from parking in England isn’t to be sneezed at and lets not forget it’s FREE in Wales and Scotland, another time just the English get whacked with extra tax. Then the English also pay prescriptions for their drugs some of them are cheaper to buy without a prescription.
October 10, 2018
Edward 2
you are right but it is actually 35 years
October 10, 2018
That is why I said over 30 years.
It has altered recently down from 39.
October 9, 2018
Andy, You can’t even get your own propaganda straight. The 0.7% is for Aid and it is 0.7% of GDP = £14bn. Income tax receipts for 2017/2018 are £181.4bn (Statista) so Aid is actually 7.7% of income tax.
Likewise the gross payment we make to the EU is about £20bn which is about 11% of income tax. So you not only got the raw figures reversed you’re also out by a factor of 10.
October 9, 2018
That £1 per week adds up to 13 billion. That 13 billion could either be not collected or spent on something else. It could actually make a difference.
October 9, 2018
Andy
“So let’s axe state pensions, only pay for social care for those who can not afford it (and, yes, you should have to sell your home to pay for it) and require over 70s to pay higher rates of tax to reflect the fact that the bulk of NHS spending goes on them”
Have you not considered that the vast majority of pensioners have paid taxes all their working lives ?
Some even went through hell just so you could enjoy the freedom to whinge about how hard you think your lot is.
Pensioners sometimes irritate me, and I’d be a liar if I said otherwise, but most of us accept there is no need to be blatantly disrespectful and we don’t cross that line.
You will also find that the bulk of NHS spending does not go on pensioners. Actually it goes on; pharmaceutical and tech companies bleeding the living daylights out of the Health Service, it goes on wastage because of poor management, it goes on obesity – itself fast becoming the number 1 killer above smoking related diseases.
If anything should be removed from NHS treatment it should be self inflicted obesity.
October 9, 2018
Andy
Less than half the population pay income tax, so the figure has to be divided between the 47% who do. As its such a small mount I’m sure the Greeks, Italians and Peter vL won’t mind paying it for us.
.. But wait…whats this? More facts that show Andy hasn’t a clue and talks total nonsense ….oh dear Andy
German economists have warned that no deal could cause German exports to the UK to plummet by as much as 57%. The highly respected IW Economic Institute based in Cologne called for policymakers to take “constructive action” to avoid what they called the “horror scenario” of no deal.
The boss of the BDI – Germany’s equivalent of the CBI – has also warned that a “disorderly Brexit” would be a “massive crisis” for the EU, demanding that political leaders achieve a “breakthrough in the talks” at the next EU summit.
October 9, 2018
Oh and Andy
The news just gets worse and worse….. for you and your anti UK rhetoric
The surge in the number of tourists visiting Britain since the referendum has put the UK on course to beat VisitBritain’s target of 40 million annual inbound visits a whole two years early. Tourism is now worth a whopping £127 billion per year to the British economy as tourists continue to flock to the UK in record numbers thanks to the double “Brexit effect” of a lower pound and greater global interest in the UK
October 9, 2018
Ian wragg
“Being members of the EU has been an expensive disaster for the country”
==
We were called the ‘Sick man of Europe’ and were on the verge of collapse before we joined the European community.
Industry was collapsing, interest rates were spiralling and inflation was rampant. You obviously can’t remember the food, fuel and power shortages of the Heath government or the steadily growing balance of payments deficit.
The common market had to pump in 25% of its regional development funds to stabilise the nation, the highest ever figure.
The EU became the world’s biggest economic entity, with peace, prosperity and standards of justice maintained where they never endured before, whatever the condition of its members.
October 11, 2018
We stopped being the sick man of Europe when Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe stopped spending money we hadn’t got. Remember Geoffrey Howe’s 1980 budget: VAT up, income tax down, public expenditure down, all by significant amounts? Forex controls abolished overnight. Truly ‘A Nation not Afraid’.
Not at all like Mrs May’s grovelling posture. If Mrs May is a ‘nice Tory’ then come back the Nasty Party, all is forgiven.
October 11, 2018
Your usual cut and paste job margaret.
The UK have been net contributors for every year bar one.
Paying in billions more than the EU has ever paid us.
The EU has no money of its own it just recycles members money after taking a big cut for itself.
Your take on history is wrong.
It wasn’t the EU that turned the UK into a modern prosperous nation it was three terms of a Conservative government lead by a great PM.
October 12, 2018
margaret howard
You’re STILL pumping out this cut and paste myth
ALL the things you say happened AFTER we joined the EEC , so basically its the EEC’s fault is what you’re saying
October 9, 2018
The fundamental problem is that Tory Eurosceptic MPs haven’t the courage to bring down this Europhile government for fear of opening the door to a Marxist government. I understand that but when Cameron proposed a referendum on our membership of the EU he was convinced a majority would vote to remain in the EU. He called it wrong because he’s a London centric politician unable to read the mood and London isn’t the UK
If a Eurosceptic politician became leader of the Tory party it is my belief that we would destroy Labour in the north. A return to Thatcherism, the nation state, low taxes, freedom, liberty, an emphasis away from politicisation by the left, emphasis on the individual, anti-state, destruction of liberal left political and social engineering.
But we need a new leader as we needed a new leader in 1978. We need a new sense of absolute radicalism and there should be no sacred cows either
October 9, 2018
I would agree with you if we had a level playing field, but the BBC would campaign vigorously against us and the Left have infiltrated much of the civil service, charities and quangoes etc (in fact anything unelected) and these people have the platform to make themselves heard.
Meanwhile, John Redwood and the like-minded have been rendered silent and invisible by a hostile MSM.
October 9, 2018
Kenneth – The opposition is formidable, in many self-righteous legions, many of which are unhelpfully undeclared or profess their neutrality. I do not believe it is unassailable, and up here north of the border a group of us is working to chip away at the ignorance and prejudice which is rife up here and to win a majority of support.
Also I do not think it is right not to fight.
(Btw, the Facts4EU Brexit Battle Pack liststh ings that we mere minor citizens can do to get our messages heard – write short punchy letter to MP, go to MP surgeries, but also do things like ring in to radio programmes, write to local papers.)
October 9, 2018
May seems to be heading rapidly towards being a Marxist too (in copying Corbyn’s mad big tax, big government, over regulations & prices and an incomes policies) – if she is not removed soon then within perhaps within a year she will be one.
October 9, 2018
I agree there is a need for a new leader to replace May and for policy changes that actually promote enterprise and cut back or cut out the spending of £billions on the politically correct agenda or wasteful public projects.
October 9, 2018
I am sure you are right, Duncan.
October 9, 2018
JR, we had these discussions in 2012 following Osborne dreadful budget. He went on a jolly in the US president’s 747 plane to watch a basket ball match with Cameron while lumbering us with higher taxes and energy price increases under obligation to environment i.e. Wind farm nonsense and closing down perfectly good coal power stations! You eventually conceded Osbornes false claims of 80/20 split was not happening and there was only a paper width difference between his and Darlings economic plan i.e. Level of increase in public spending slightly lower under Osborne! We also had him reverse his stupid pasty tax.
Eeyore Hammond has reached record high taxation for fifty years upon us while May announces increases in public spending! Both,falsely claiming to be low tax conservatives, they are neither conservatives nor beleive in low taxes. Not only are they both throwing away huge amounts of our hard earned taxes away on overseas aid and EU there is also the dishonest hidden costs like the £3.75 billion EDF fund! Why is the U.K. On top of overseas aid giving the EU billions to spend as it wishes on its overseas aid programmed to sponsor exotic fishing mating programmes? May has still not explained why a dishonest KitKat policy, to hide costs and ties to EU, is being pursued by the civil service or why she has not stopped it.
May and Hammond plans will prevent strivers, entrepreneurs, self employed, wealth creators from creating the wealth the country needs through their socialist plans.
October 10, 2018
Indeed Hammond and May are total frauds they claim to be the party of business, in favour of low taxation and that Brexit means Brexit. But they give us the highest taxes for nearly 50 years, are clearly aiming for a totally fake Brexit in name only and have a hugely anti-business, endless red tape, anti gig economy regime.
October 10, 2018
If May has explained nothing then it must mean that Corbyn is happy with all that as he never mentions it on PMQs.
October 9, 2018
Absolutely , you have hit the nail hard and on the head !
October 9, 2018
All true. A pity that Cameron did not stay and issue Article 50 immediately. We certainly have not had a PM up to the job of implementing the referendum decision.
October 9, 2018
Are you sure? If anything Art.50 was called far too early before anybody within the Leaver top bunch had any real deep understanding about what to do and how to do it. That was Dominic Cumming’s position at the end of 2016, and I think he was right considering the present events and how the EU27 superstructure has been reacting to the vagueness of the various continuously changing “proposals”, by basically simply being steady on their positions. Anybody noticing how the ERG has recently been retuning?
October 9, 2018
“If a Eurosceptic politician became leader of the Tory party it is my belief that we would destroy Labour in the north.” Ha!
2001 general election – pro-EU Labour 413 Seats, Eurosceptic Tories 166
2005 general election – pro-EU Labour 355, Eurosceptic Tories 198
2010 general election – pro-EU Tories 306, pro-EU Labour 258
If a Europhobe becomes Tory leader Jeremy Corbyn wins the next election.
October 9, 2018
That is a very silly post andy because the data from referendum shows that many northern labour seats voted to leave the EU.
October 9, 2018
Yeah – northern Labour seats will back Mr Rees Mogg! Genuinely I am killing myself with laughter at the thought. Please try it – election night will be funny.
October 10, 2018
JRM is just one MP. not a party.
It is political party you vote for and with Brexit a big issue at the next election if Labour become a party determined to remain then they will lose seats in many northern Labour heartlands that voted to leave.
Even the Labour party recognises this danger so I dont know why you refuse to accept the obvious.
October 9, 2018
Andy, You may have missed it but we had a Referendum and Leave won. Nowhere in the 2015 Referendum Act does it say that one result – Leave – can be discarded.
October 12, 2018
Andy
The bulk of the Labour Party , its current leadership and most of its Union backers have been firm leavers UNTIL they spotted a opportunity to cause political mayhem. If you think Corbyn would remain in the EU after becoming PM you are seriously deluded
October 9, 2018
Quite right. Fortune favours the brave. We should not fear a Marxist government, for it is this fear that is being ‘weaponised’ by the PM and by the civil service to bind us in to a European future.
October 9, 2018
Indeed. The choice is socialist remainer May surely leading a Marxist Corbyn disaster or a real Tory party i. The Thatcher + mode for perhaps three terms +.
October 9, 2018
“Remember the “golden scenario” they said the Exchange Rate Mechanism would bring about?”
Well the problem is that too many people DON’T remember that – we get them posting here moaning about angry pensioners and how they know better.
October 9, 2018
Indeed. When government ‘create’ jobs they do so from higher taxes that almost alwaysx destroys far more jobs. The jobs they do ‘create’ are largely pointless or essentially parasitic ones.
Look for example at the green crap industries. This was being pushed yesterday by all the media and BBC especially. The bogus science priests and fools seem to think CO2 is some kind of world thermostat that can just be set to 1.5 degrees!
Do they have a temperature control knob for the Sun output too perhaps. Thank goodness for some sanity from physicist Piers Corbyn (be brighter brother or Jeremy) yesterday and his weather web site.
Government is brilliant at creating pointless largely parasitic jobs in HR, the law, taxation experts, compliance, regulation…
October 9, 2018
LL. ‘The bogus science priests and fools seem to think CO2 is some kind of world thermostat that can just be set to 1.5 degrees!
Do they have a temperature control knob for the Sun output too perhaps’
Ha,ha, yes, agree with you on this. I said exactly this to my husband yesterday. What makes them think that all these expensive measures will have any effects on nature? They really do think they are God. Much of what we do in the name of saving the planet is actually destroying so much habitat for wildlife that I wonder why we do it in the first place. There are definitely some out there earning a mint from all this crap and it’s not your average Joe Bloggs.
October 9, 2018
A bit o/t but you mentioned it! On the same day as the shock horror forecast by the Climate Quango there was a report about a study of temperature data over the last 100 years. It was found that the data was full of errors – mixing up F and C degs., caribbean islands reporting temperatures of zero degrees. Basically, any records before 1950 can be ignored. Since 1950 temperatures have shown no significant difference from normal variation. Thus, any warnings from global warming people need to be ignored unless some realistic data is presented.
October 9, 2018
Indeed so much of the ‘news’ is informed by pre-conceived political prejudices. Any economic policy driven by the EU is one example. Green crap is another. Yesterday was an extraordinary uncritical fest on the BBC on the new IPCC report. No interviewer that I heard asked why the original apocryphal projections have so far not come about- either of warming or weather events. John Humphreys challenged a couple of interviewees over why Drax power station is burning wood, but without mentioning that this came about as a result of the climate change act and counts as ‘biofuels’. Diesel cars were criticised without any mention of the EU policy driven by car industry and green blob lobbying which has promoted it. A free pass was given to leftist politicians like the leader of the green party and an absurd woman from the UN to urge new leftist fad policies, which if we are browbeaten into accepting will look as silly in 10 years as diesel and burning wood pellets do now.
There are certain subjects – the EU, green crap, ‘austerity’ are examples – on which the BBC at least is no longer a source of news it is a source of propaganda.
October 9, 2018
richard1. I think I have read somewhere that Trump is going down the nuclear route. More money for research into safe nuclear which will render all these crap renewables null and void.
October 9, 2018
I don’t understand why George Osborne claimed he was pursuing austerity, took the political fire for doing so, when in fact he was doing nothing of the kind – carried on spending and borrowing with little change from the labour party.
The national debt went up dramatically during his tenure, and he didn’t close the deficit like he said he would.
October 12, 2018
Dave Andrews
Because its an excuse to raise, raise and raise again more taxes which is exactly what Osbourne did
i.e. if you dont want austerity then you need to give us more of your hard earned. Like always they fell for it.
October 9, 2018
Good morning
The fact of the matters is, that we have had a GE and the government and MP’s do not feel threatened by the wrath of the electorate. So that can do as they please.
But rest assured, a year for the next GE and the purse strings will be loosened and the economy will grow like never before.
Same old cynical game and a total abuse of power in my opinion.
October 9, 2018
Even remainer Mark Harper (yet another PPE Brasenose) and ex chief whip now thinks Canada + + is the answer. When is May going to ditch her sick joke of Chequers minus with a new name agenda?
It’s time to destroy the myth that we can’t have a free trade Brexit because of the Irish border – MARK HARPER in the Telegraph today.
October 9, 2018
I’m sick to death with all the deliberate confusion and outright lies which are being spread around BY OUR OWN POLITICIANS. The EU and the politicians in other member states are at best our friendly counterparties or interlocutors – as they should be, under Article 8 TEU* – but more likely they are our adversaries or enemies, and so we could expect them to obfuscate and deceive and lie for their advantage and our disadvantage. Our politicians are supposed to be on our side but it is clear that most of them are not, they too are on the EU’s side. So should I waste money on a copy of the Telegraph to see what particular brand of lies Mark Harper is hawking and try to work out his deception plan? I think not.
* Have you ever heard Theresa May referring to this treaty article and saying that she expects the EU to stick to it? I haven’t.
http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-1-common-provisions/6-article-8.html
“Article 8
1. The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.
2. For the purposes of paragraph 1, the Union may conclude specific agreements with the countries concerned. These agreements may contain reciprocal rights and obligations as well as the possibility of undertaking activities jointly. Their implementation shall be the subject of periodic consultation.”
October 9, 2018
Denis Cooper, Well said. Our own politicians are likely to deliver the Chequers revolving-door Remain. They have been corrupted by the technocratic non-democratic ideology of the EU so have simply discarded Leave entirely.
October 9, 2018
Examination of establishment failed decisions is unlikely as they are not into self criticism. The media tells the story that suits it’s own agenda. This is why my school library had copies of everything from the FT to the Daily Worker on display daily. The object was to gather all the evidence you could and form your own opinion, but even that did not necessarily make the end result accurate.
October 9, 2018
Ignorant media should be ignored & then lose any purpose to exist.
October 9, 2018
‘Never forget that a tranche of Labour MPs believe that Corbyn is unfit to become Prime Minister. If they could be peeled off into some sort of National Labour or Democratic Labour pool in Parliament, then May could do what Thatcher did after the formation of the SDP: divide and rule – gaining the elusive big majority that has eluded the Conservatives since, well, those very Thatcher years. The Brexiteering Right could thus be marginalised. Some in Downing Street would welcome that.’
This is by Paul Goodman from today’s CH. Note the penultimate sentence. May will imho try to destroy the so called ‘Brexiteering Right’. And she’ll do it using Labour MPs in Parliament.
Eurosceptics either bring May down now and she will destroy the Tory Eurosceptic right
Reply No-one names a Labour MP who would defy a Labour whip to support the government on the EU issue, let alone enough such Labour MPs to cancel out pro Brexit Conservatives.
October 9, 2018
JR, you should be concerned she is even trying and sanctioning such behaviour. What does this tell you about her and her treacherous ways?
October 9, 2018
Reply to reply: I think Duncan was making the point that May is trying to destroy the Brexiteering Right. He, like so many of us, are concerned that the Brexiteers do not believe that May would actually do that. She would, and, if clear proof were needed, the covert operation with Ollie Robbins against David Davis (in order to produce Chequers and sideline Davis’s Canada + Brexit plan) is just that.
October 9, 2018
Chris and Duncan. Nothing that May did would surprise me. She is the most untrustworthy PM we have had in a very long time. Says a lot for being a member of the church too.
October 9, 2018
JR, Why should any Labour MP be named at this stage? Is the news about government whips talking to Labour MPs invalid without names? Some Labour MPs have already voted with the government to try to secure Leave. It is perfectly possible that some different Labour MPs will vote with the government to ensure that the Chequers revolving-door Remain gets through Parliament.
October 9, 2018
How easy life must be for those so-called “journalists” to await the press releases from the Treasury, BoE and the EU and regurgitate them. As far as our membership of the EU is concerned they act as propagandists rather than independent seekers of truth. I now find I no longer watch or listen to many news and current affairs programmes which I once regularly did. I do not appreciate them lecturing me on what I am supposed to think.
October 9, 2018
Why are you talking about the media? You are the first line of holding the Executive to account but with 100 plus MPs on the ‘payroll’ and umpteen more trying to get there, personal ambitions take precedence over the nations needs.
The Times this morning says that despite all b.s coming from the ERG group and others the ‘Chequers agreement’ is ploughing on with the Treasury etc planning project fear 3 hard sell.
You have a non listening dictatorship in No 10 and you continue to sit on your hands.
Reminds me of the Titanic. Captain. Captain, there’s lots of ice about, we are in mortal danger. Captain Captain, Change course…………… too late. We’ve sunk!
October 9, 2018
No government scheme has ever been good for productive jobs. Great for make work scams, red tape and transferring public money to favoured companies, all of which remove wealth from those that make it honestly.
October 9, 2018
Too general. Actually there have been some really good initiatives but the funding is short term/prone to be the first to be cut, the providers are chosen because they are the cheapest, not necessarily that they have the expertise, indeed chasing the funding Is often the start of their process, not we have the expertise, how can we use it?
Ministers insist on big number outputs from the start, so contracts go wrong because they were never deliverable at the price and then need the lightest touch possible to tick a box rather than a more inclusive embedded approach to deliver real benefits in the mid to long term. They con the public by saying how many zillions of outputs they have achieved but not what effect they have had.
We have inoculated millions of people. Wow what a good job you are doing. Months/years later when that has been forgotten…….. but they all died!
October 9, 2018
Unfortunately journalism is dead in this country. I’ve been reading the EU daily news website for years and have been appalled at their future plans for EU citizens but these stories are never picked up by the press. Only facts4eu.org provide an in depth analysis of what’s really going on and they can only scratch the surface due to a lack of funding.
October 9, 2018
Maybe Carney and Hammond are trying to engineer a recession so as to prove themselves right ?
October 9, 2018
Would the Treasury, in association with the Chancellor, be engineering a slow down to blame it on Brexit? Surely not!
We are sorely in need of new dynamic leadership, someone with the United Kingdom at the forefront of everything they do.
October 9, 2018
I could not agree with you more.
October 9, 2018
Apparently, an announcement is due this week, from the EU, on what they demand from a UK Brexit.
One surprising addition to the demands, concerns the ‘Last Night of the Proms’.
– The concert must include at least 3 performances of the EU Anthem.
– Members of the EU’s European Solidarity Corps shall be given free entry.
– The types of flags waved by attendees, will henceforth be controlled by EU Law. The European Flag shall be the primary flag allowed.
No flags representing the UK, shall be allowed.
However, as a concession and as a future symbol of UK national pride, a White Flag shall be allowed, as a replacement for any UK flag.
October 9, 2018
Well stranger things have happened! In 1980 when Thatcher disgracefully tried to stop the British Olympic Association going to Moscow because of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, the US boycotted totally, the BOA pushed back and left it up to individual sports.
The quid pro quo was that the national anthem was not allowed to be played at medal ceremonies, possibly the Union Jack was banned as well, I cannot remember but instead was played the European anthem dirge.
Our gold medalists ignored that and sang our anthem lustily, indeed as we did in the crowd with Daley Thompson hearing us and turning to ‘conduct’ us from the podium.
We all hated that deference to the United States if Europe then as many of us do now.
October 9, 2018
WeToldYOu. If this is true then it is truly horrendous. I just hope people manage to smuggle in British flags and put two fingers up to the EU. I intend to fly an English flag in my garden once I move.
October 9, 2018
FUS
Well they say there’s a note of truth in sarcasm.
October 9, 2018
It appears that Mrs May is trying to get Chequers back under the radar.
Alexander Downer (Former Australian High Commissioner to the UK) has said that under Chequers a trade deal with the UK would be heavily restricted.
October 9, 2018
John, how about an article on Police “screening out” cases so people never get any help – just a crime number for their insurance. Less and less police to save cash – – while that money is diverted for free lives for immigrants to sit here doing nothing. Even I can see the inevitable end result.
October 9, 2018
“areas like the NHS and schools with no real cuts were squeezed more than under previous budget plans” What do you mean? Are they being expected to do more in England with less money?
You know which hospitals have hot spots caused by lots of immigration, I would expect it would impact on around ten-fifteen hospitals more than the others, put a recharging system like those used in private sector in each of those hospitals immediately and bill back the originating Country as they do with us, this apparently is something our UK governments have failed to do whilst being allowed to do it under existing EU rules – and the rest of the World re-bill us plus we have to take on travel insurance or not get treated abroad, it’s ridiculous to starve the service unnecessarily and inept of the Health Departments over the years. There is an annual bill to register with a UK GP surgery of around £150pa that we were told is funded by the NI contributions of the adult workers (those without children subsiding all the free children’s places) rebill these back until four years NI contributions have been made, I’ve been told DC had this concession made to him.
October 9, 2018
Monetary Policy is still stimulative you are misrepresenting the position entirely. It is not quote in the emergency hose position it had to adopt to avert the Brexit recession but it is still very very stimulative
There are significant headwinds on consumer confidence and investment due to Brexit , everyone else can see it why can`t you ?
The 80% target was abandoned immediately after the referendum to apply a fiscal hose to add the monetary one . £200 billion of additional borrowing that for years was denied to people needing operations or children needing help ….suddenly became available
This sickening cynicism was the final straw for me with the Conservative Party
October 10, 2018
Newmania, So now you are a monetarist? There are no “significant headwinds on consumer confidence and investment” for me – I am more confident – as long as we do actually leave the EU multilateral treaties and don’t sign up to new bi-lateral treaties in their place.
October 9, 2018
… and less importantly your thing about Diesel is cobblers . People have not swapped Diesel for walking they just choose other cars . It is an absurd excuse
Oh dear I can`t have an ice cream , thats ok I`ll :
a- stab myself with a pencil instead
b – buy a cake
You see ?
October 9, 2018
You miss the point that many people have delayed changing their cars until politicians make their minds up on diesels and low emission zones charging policies and on the taxation of different vehicles.
Also the residual values of diesels have fallen makong swopping more expensive.
October 9, 2018
German purchases of cars have gone down 10% more than ours.
Is this due to Brexit too ?
October 9, 2018
Why buy a new car when you cannot be certain you will be allowed to use it? Best stick with the old far cheaper one as long as possible.
October 10, 2018
and have you seen the big tax increases on new cars and the increases in car RFL coming in soon.
October 9, 2018
They have put off buying cars until it is clear that Euro 6 diesel or petrol or hybrids or electric battery only is what they will approve. The government has started something it did not understand and is in a mess, as people believed the Green hype but can’t afford to scrap a now worthless new car.
October 9, 2018
I personally have chosen walking to owning a diesel car – plus using local car hire and sharing schemes. I did this because owning my old diesel car in London becomes impossible after 2021 and I did not want to buy a new car. So, next time you make something up to post here try a bit harder.
October 9, 2018
Roy Grainger. Oh, lucky you. The fact you live in London has everything to do with you walking. Try that in many parts of the country and you would find you would never get to work. Why does everyone thing that things are the same everywhere as they are in London?
October 9, 2018
RG, Very good for you, I guess. But does it make you statistically significant?
October 10, 2018
Hefner, Rather more statistically significant than Newmania’s guess, I would think.
October 9, 2018
Newmania
Bit behind the curve mate
Germany suffering same new car problem as us . Sales down 7% last month alone. Its the new emissions tests that are causing the problem of being able to switch away from diesel it isn’t viable yet
October 9, 2018
You say- this slowdown has nothing to do with brexit- but brexit has not happened yet? It will happen 29 march next..a few months to go yet
October 9, 2018
Numbers will be released tomorrow, showing the extent of the UK’s financial capitulation to the EU, based on current ‘promises’.
Frightening stuff!
This will completely undermine May’s claims about Chequers that “the days of sending vast sums of money to Brussels every year are over for good”.
October 9, 2018
Ha, how typical of the smug hypocritical anti-English Irish government:
https://order-order.com/2018/10/09/irish-allow-remote-customs-checks/
“Irish allow remote customs checks”
“As Guido was travelling through Dublin Airport last night, he noticed the remote customs checks the Americans have, 3,000 miles away from the US border. The Republic of Ireland are perfectly happy with the principle of remote customs clearance, except for when it’s politically convenient not to be … ”
I can only suppose that must be because those remote US customs checks in Dublin do not “imply a border on the island of Ireland” © Helen McEntee 2017:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/08/interest-rates-savers-and-borrowers/#comment-965454
“We have been very very clear from day one, there cannot be a physical border and that means ruling out cameras, that means ruling out technology, that means ruling out anything that would imply a border on the island of Ireland, it is not an option for us”.
Some are suggesting that the EU is using Ireland as a cat’s paw:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2018/10/05/lettersthe-eu-using-ireland-cats-paw-impose-trade-terms/
but I would say that Ireland is being allowed to use the EU against the UK, especially the English part of the UK; and as one might expect the English pro-EU Tory Prime Minister of the UK is perfectly happy to go along with that as a useful pretext to keep the UK and especially the English as much under the EU thumb as she can manage.
I cannot help wonder why it is that we constantly get people with such sick minds at the top of our political hierarchy, it has been like this for as long as I can remember.
October 10, 2018
Ah Denis- the US customs checks in Ireland was started first in Shannon Airport a long time ago and was to help with the ease of movement of people especially during high tourist season and has worked very well, it was an experiment at first and now has been taken up by Dublin airport- It has nothing to do with goods or trade. We have even one better agreement between the UK and Ireland where we can all move freely- so don’t see what the problem is unless you’re using it as another excuse for Paddy bashing- hope not- would hope those days were past
October 10, 2018
If the Irish government adopts an absurd, extreme and intransigent position, as it has since last autumn, then it’s not “Paddy bashing” to point that out and propose that the obstacle they’ve invented should be sidestepped.
October 10, 2018
Michael O’Sullivan, Paddy bashing?? Well no more than Irish republicans bash the English. Personally I think that Eire takes advantage of the UK (free movement, soft loans, etc), and I would treat Eire in the same way as any other random foreign country, though less friendly than say Norway.
October 9, 2018
Five good, short, succinct and generally accurate videos from Steve Baker here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPhYmGv3wWs&list=PLRXacD0bo1ZZ-J2TOZA8JZlk_1Rs-YUyf&index=1
Well worth watching, JR, and I hope you will allow this post to advertise them.
October 9, 2018
Seeing and listening to Sturgeon’s last stand at the SNP Gathering:
She shouts the wrong shout. Will not get off the old horse, facing us off. It is behind you My Lady Sturgeon.It is only a EU rearwards. No Fear! We Brexiteers shall fight for your Independence and tap you on the shoulder when we’ve done.
October 9, 2018
In a nutshell:
Save for a couple of newspapers, all the media is mostly left wing, one or two liberal leaning newspapers, which is just as bad.
Of course the daddy of them all is the BBC. Rotten to the core.
October 9, 2018
Voters voted for all of it and received it with bell and whistles, i can’t understand what the problems are, are the voters now saying that they have been hoodwinked by the establishment, media and MPs or are they saying they should have taken more notices at the time and shouldn’t have voted the establishment parties of the day which media recommend them to vote for, well its a bit late in day, taxes are up 120 billion and cuts are about the same in some departments, who would have known, parties and MPS have been receiving this advice from world body that has been recommending it to them and the treasury back up by the media and establishment.
One thing is for sure, the above mentioned have done very well out of the world organization, along with the EU recommendation along with the elite and most companies, well i mean boardroom members, they have been overwhelmed by all your support for whichever establishment party you were voting for, just carry on voting for establishment parties so they can get to where they want to be, of cos there have been a few casualties along the way but that progress for you, would you say.
Chin up girls and boys and carry on and following what you are told, you know it makes sense to do your duties for all the above, as they tell you-you can take it.
October 9, 2018
Decent, moral, apolitical British people want their country returned to its legitimate owners and its political class be held democratically accountable for each and every action they take on our behalf
October 9, 2018
but you know why………. or there again have we just too many parrots.
October 10, 2018
The fiscal and monetary squeeze is not ‘combined’. The monetary squeeze should be implemented by steadily increasing base rate to half a percent above inflation, at a rate that doesn’t lead to many defaults on mortgages. There is no need for any other measure, save ensuring that banks don’t lend money they haven’t got; the BoE needs to specify a minimum ratio of cash and liquid assets to loan book.
[Slight change of topic: has anyone noticed that the Italian banks are in deep dodo, following the EU’s ruling that Italy’s fiscal deficit of 2.4% is too big. Pro-European Italian governments were cut more slack. Too big to bail!!]
Fiscal policy has to remain tight because State debt is still too big a % of GDP and the interest payable on that debt, already a large item in the annual budget, is set to rise gradually. As long as State debt is slowly declining as a % of GDP, we will be all right; there is no need to be vicious about it.
It does mean that if we want to cut taxes, we have to reduce overall public expenditure. As I keep saying, we need to shrink the State – see previous blogs for ideas.
October 10, 2018
No Teacher should go on stage in a school without taking a double dose of drama instruction.. by someone who knows how to act a part other than Teacher. It is already overacted. A b. Pantomime.
October 10, 2018
Jeremy Corbyn PMQs today “tax giveaways for corporations and the super rich”
I’m neither a corporation or super rich but I’m interested in what tax giveaways the Conservative Party have given them that Jeremy is talking about? For those taxpayers, in the middle, you have increased your tax take (esp. in England) repeatedly.
Our children now pay an effective graduate tax of 9% for their higher education at extreme rates of interest to ensure they can never pay it off in 30 years.
Our hospitals charge us at least £3, more often £3.50, per visit in a car or per visitors car.
Our prescription charges taxes have gone up.
Our traffic speeds have reduced considerably often by 20mph and fees and fines risen exponentially with fines based on income, there are more accidents at this speed check it out please as it is having a severe drag on productivity and is causing people to lose their job, people who haven’t had one accident driving for thirty years yet are now caught out by quickly reduced speeds on roads they’ve always been able to do 60mph and 70mph on!
Our key breadwinners have lost their child benefit should they dare be so bright as to get a higher tax rate job, you have also whacked them with an effective 60% tax from £100,000 to £121,200 thanks to removing their personal allowance.
There are new dividend tax rates since 2016 even though taxes are already collected on the profits.
Why didn’t May point out the modern Conservatives in power have whacked higher earners more than any other government just more sneakily, why didn’t she point out all these insidious new charges?
Now we are reading you are about to affect the pension return for private sector workers only while protecting your guaranteed defined benefits in the public sector – enough of this – how the hell do you get away with this, people get taxed when withdrawing their pensions and now you want to double whack them and reduce their hideous pots on the way in, but not for your own, you should all be in Nest then these decisions by Hammond wouldn’t be made because his colleagues would say no.