The Great Reset

I have no problem with the idea of building better or investing in a better future, but I do have problems with some of the agendas drawn up in the name of the Great Reset.

The problems of the past were not brought on by taxing enterprise too lightly or by being too generous to the self employed. We did not have too many large companies offering better new goods and services, and we did not have too many people working hard and investing their time, energy and capital in serving us better. We needed more of both, a need that has just been intensified by the damage done to both by the lockdown measures. Taxing work, enterprise and success more is a bad idea.

Many of the great advances in living standards and quality of life have come from the innovation and enterprise of the private sector. It was not government effort that launched billions of smart phones and electronic pads on the world. It was not government which provided the cars to liberate many more people with flexible personal transport, or supplied the great entertainments of stage, screen and events. It is important that as we build back from lock downs these gains are banked and enhanced, with broadening of reach to ever more people.

When the agenda proposes taxing and regulating the very products of the digital revolution and the transport revolution that have offered to the many the freedoms and advantages that used to be the preserve of the few I worry that build back better just becomes a cover for more state control over our lives.

254 Comments

  1. Sir Patrick Vaccine
    October 15, 2020

    BBC’s alarmist and biased Covid pandemic picture By Andrew Isherwood
    ConservativeWoman website October 15, 2020

    AT present, BBC News seems to be reinforcing the government’s message, reporting death statistics and infection rates that misrepresent the data, together with the trends of the diseases. As an example, the death rates being quoted are the reported daily deaths, which are not when an individual died. This paints a skewed picture of the actual daily death rate, with the apparent death rate significantly exceeding the actual trend – the date of reported death suggests a pattern of rapidly increasing deaths when the data includes deaths that occurred, in some cases, months in the past. Using the date of recorded death shows a trend that is level and not increasing at the rates experienced in March.

    read on … Conservative Woman websit

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      If only govt. could have applied all this underhand scheming and trickery to getting us out of the EU.

      1. Ian @Barkham
        October 15, 2020

        +1

      2. Sir Patrick Vaccine
        October 15, 2020

        7 Armed Police Officer Attend Liverpool Gym To Fine Them ÂŁ1000

        in the Mail, the Mirror, Metro

    2. Martin in Cardiff
      October 15, 2020

      Meanwhile, as the Guardian reports –

      “Management consultants are being paid as much as ÂŁ6,250 a day to work on the British government’s struggling coronavirus testing system, sources have confirmed.

      Senior executives from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) are being paid fees equivalent to ÂŁ1.5m a year to help speed up and reorganise the ÂŁ12bn network that Boris Johnson said in May would be “world-beating”…”

      Yes, we need a “reset” all right.

      1. Lifelogic
        October 15, 2020

        Meanwhile a typical NHS Junior Doctor salary is just ÂŁ36,112. Less than 6 days pay at the above rate. Plus the Junior Doctor is likely to have incurred about ÂŁ125K of debts and plus interest of about ÂŁ7K PA!

        Is it any wonder about 50% of the ones (very expensively trained in the UK) do not choose to work for the NHS, go abroad or simply do not work as doctors at all? Especially when the NHS treat them rather badly too.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        Pretty standard rates for the NHS.

      3. Roy Grainger
        October 15, 2020

        How is Test and Trace working out in Senegal Martin ? I mean you keep telling us that’s the gold standard we have to follow.

      4. Narrow Shoulders
        October 15, 2020

        It cost ÂŁ35 million.

        If those consultants make it work you would (as an alarmist who is desperate for track and trace) surely think the money was well spent.

        I, as someone concerned how my taxes were spent, would wonder why the civil servants in charge couldn’t make it work despite their high salaries and job security. You would want the minister to resign.

      5. No Longer Anonymous
        October 15, 2020

        +1

        I’ve knowledge of two people who have made HUGE amounts of money (lottery amounts) from the NHS during this pandemic.

        A house bought for ÂŁ4m in cash in one instance.

    3. Sir Joe Soap
      October 15, 2020

      The question is – why is the government putting out such dodgy and misleading death figures in the first place?

      If we really need to know our risk of dying, we need to know it in stark terms from any reason- – are we twice as likely to die today as we were on the same day last year as a 20 30 40 50 60 or 70 something?

      No, the same likelihood plus or minus a smidgen.

  2. Sir Patrick Vaccine
    October 15, 2020

    What is the purpose of this:

    Summary of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill 2019-21

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      So that just about anyone endorsed by govt. can commit all crimes with total impunity.
      All the better to grind us under the Jackboot I bet!

    2. Sir Joe Soap
      October 15, 2020

      Indeed.
      It is a small step between allowing the police and intelligence services to carry out criminal acts and the state prompting them to.

    3. zorro
      October 15, 2020

      Giving assets legal cover to commit crimes. Hopefully, that should worry a lot of people….

      zorro

    4. glen cullen
      October 15, 2020

      The said Bill is to distance MPs from any policeman who might, while undercover, have a naughty relationship and tell lies

      1. Sir Joe Soap
        October 15, 2020

        I would have thought that this bill encourages any policeman who might do so to think they can with impunity. A very slippery slope.

  3. Peter
    October 15, 2020

    I am glad to hear it, I am no fan of the Great Reset either.

    However, I did think it might be a taboo subject on here, along with the names of the individuals and the organisation that is promoting it.

    I differ only on its object of ‘state control. I think it will knock out small to medium enterprises and give more power to global corporations and individuals who are already wealthy. State control, such as it is, will only be a front for this.

    1. Peter
      October 15, 2020

      On a more pressing subject, it seems Boris will not hold to the October 15 Brexit deadline. This has now been reported by more than one one source. Some choose to spin it in his favour with the notion that he is being ‘tough’ by giving the EU until Friday.

      The EU are happy to string him along. Continued failure to meet deadlines is a clear sign of weakness.

      1. Andy
        October 15, 2020

        They are fake deadlines. You need to understand that there will be a deal. Whether it comes this week, or next month, or whether it comes after a brief no deal period first. None of you even begins to comprehend the consequences of a no deal.

        Planes, literally, lose the legal basis to be able to fly. Hauliers literally lose the legal basis to drive. No deal is completely unsustainable for both sides – but particularly for the UK because it turns out we’re an island which relies on food imports from Europe. And most people will not accept food shortages, however temporary, as a price of your Brexit.

        So there will be a deal. The question therefore becomes whether or not the deal is any good. And I can help you with this one too. The British government is so confident the deal will be good that it is already building lorry parks – complete with portaloos, it is hiring tens of thousands of bureaucrats to process the hundreds of millions of new forms which are needed and it is already blaming business.

        1. Edward2
          October 15, 2020

          Complete hysterical nonsense
          Project Fear 3.0

      2. Peter Wood
        October 15, 2020

        I agree; are we ready to leave on WTO as promised, has the government used this time to make the necessary preparations, or has it spent it on chasing fantasies? If we’re ready, lets go!

        On the reset, I’d like to see the government reset itself; get out of all aspects of our lives it shouldn’t be in, try to minimise; downsize and focus only on that which enterprise cannot do.

      3. Mike Wilson
        October 15, 2020

        It’s also a clear sign of being unable to take decisions. Maggie, where are you in our hour of need.

      4. Sir Joe Soap
        October 15, 2020

        Indeed, except when we need to pay tax or some other expenditure demanded by the state.

      5. Ian Wragg
        October 15, 2020

        Yes. Boris will bend to the EU if we aren’t careful.
        He finds it difficult to do the right thing.
        Cave in and your toast.

      6. Martin in Cardiff
        October 15, 2020

        It’s a clear sign of the facts, as to the UK’s greatly diminished standing and influence in the world, along with its crippled economic prospects.

        That’s intrinsic to brexit – nothing to do with personalities.

        1. a-tracy
          October 15, 2020

          If this were true Martin then why are the EU so worried about a ‘greatly diminished’ UK? If our economic prospects are ‘crippled’ as you say then we’d just be free now they’d have cut us loose.

          When you know the person that is leaving your organisation provides no real value why would you negotiate with them you’d just say “ta ta don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out”.

          1. Northern Monkey
            October 15, 2020

            Careful, you’re contradicting the narrative the UK is a doomed basket case.

          2. Sir Joe Soap
            October 15, 2020

            Indeed.
            We can carve into their markets and redirect investment to ourselves.

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          October 15, 2020

          Just what you wanted Martin, have you got the bubbly out?

        3. Dennis Zoff
          October 16, 2020

          Indeed so Martin.

          Up until now, Remainers and their nefarious ilk have done a sterling job of killing the golden goose, aka free enterprise!

          Fortunately, post Brexit, there are sufficient individuals (waiting in the wings) that have a deep financial interest in resurrecting the British manufacturing entrepreneurial prowess?

      7. Lifelogic
        October 15, 2020

        +1

      8. beresford
        October 15, 2020

        …… not to mention reducing the time available to prepare for WTO. In due course we will be told that we can’t possibly leave on Dec 31 as there is insufficient time left.

        1. glen cullen
          October 15, 2020

          You’re probably correct

      9. a-tracy
        October 15, 2020

        Well, I read George Osborne has let the cat out of the bag on this one, kick the can down the road until Biden is elected, then it seems listening to him the globalists will ensure Brexit will not be delivered and Boris will BRINO instead. I didn’t know Brexit was so reliant on Trump? Odd.

      10. BOF
        October 15, 2020

        Weakness indeed. It has been a long time since June!

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          October 15, 2020

          June 2016?

      11. glen cullen
        October 15, 2020

        Boris said the 15th October – just another PM that we can’t trust

      12. Jack Falstaff
        October 15, 2020

        I agree with Peter about his chosen subject being pressing:
        – If Mr Johnson is sincere about his threat to walk away on his stipulated deadline, then Brexit is indeed the most urgent subject right now
        – If Mr Johnson delays any further, we can safely question his ultimate motives, given that he signed the Withdrawal Agreement: could it be that he wishes to appease Remain like Mrs May and is trying to bundle a continuation of “talks” into November, i.e. past the US election, in the hope that Biden will win and thence cast doubt on a transatlantic Trade deal? That really would be serious!
        No more fudging, Tories, obey your mandate!

    2. michelle
      October 15, 2020

      https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/481/150-more-trades-being-opened-to-global-recruitment-as-unemployment-rises

      https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/press-release/618/is-the-uk-giving-up-on-training-our-own-butchers-bakers-and-it-technicians

      The two Migration Watch reports would suggest this is all very much in favour of global corporations.

      Note the amount of medical students turned away in 2018.
      It seems 10 yrs of Conservatives has done little to address the wrongs of Labour in many areas, in fact they seem to have doubled down in many.

    3. Bill B.
      October 15, 2020

      I agree, Peter, and as we saw in the 20th century the combination of big corporations and state power means – fascism.

      That’s where the Johnson government’s policies are taking us.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        Quite right. It classic corporatism which is the Continental version of ‘capitalism’. And Remainer Boris wants to keep us under the heel of German Europe.
        At midnight tonight Boris expires for me.

    4. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      +1 this crowd are working hard to achieve that. They give the appearance they aspire to the control the Chines have over their people

  4. Mark B
    October 15, 2020

    Good morning

    Sir John, but what is the alternative ? I can only think of reduction to public spending and we all know that that is not going to happen.

    The government needs money and to keep in line with the EU and the Level Playing Field it is going to sign us up to it will follow suit.

    10 Long years the Tories have been in power and in that time their only successes is to make things worse and not lose to Labour. The last despite trying really hard to.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      October 15, 2020

      Yes the horrible choice is between a party in opposition wanting to bankrupt the country and a party in government actually doing it.

      BXP come back, all is forgiven.

    2. Hope
      October 15, 2020

      Mark,
      Fake Tories have implemented more Labour policies than any suggestions by JR. All socialist structures in public bodies remain in place and unbelievably reinforced by Fake Tories.

    3. Martin in Cardiff
      October 15, 2020

      John’s claims are extremely selective.

      The public sector educated the workforce, and developed the infrastructure, in which hi-tech industries could take root and flourish.

      Without that, countries would generally consist of shanty towns and sweatshops.

      Taxation is a good thing on the whole.

      Countries with decent living standards did not come about because capitalists are Nice People either, but through the resolution of conflict with them, sometimes costing countless lives.

      1. Peter
        October 15, 2020

        “Taxation is a good thing on the whole”
        Good grief with that attitude we are all doomed!

        1. Peter
          October 15, 2020

          In the interest of transparency – Not posted by me.

          Peter ( with earlier post above at 5:20am)

      2. a-tracy
        October 15, 2020

        Actually I think I read James Dyson had a scholarship to Private school. Most of the telecommunications break throughs came out of Finland or Sweden (Nokia etc) until Steve Jobs took over from the States. We just seem to wait and copy unless you have any examples I’d enjoy learning about.

        The public education sector doesn’t appear to be doing a good job in relevant skills if you read the reports from migration watch that Michelle shared above an additional 150 trades and skills opened up for immigration because we can’t provide our own workers? All this Education, Education, Education and it seems they trained in the wrong stuff.

        1. dixie
          October 15, 2020

          Most of the telecommunications breakthroughs didn’t come out of Finland or Sweden. As a small taster – Fibre optics, TFT LCDs and phased array antennas (enabling lower power handsets and longer battery life) all came from STL, the R&D arm of STC which also laid a lot of the undersea cabling you rely on for the world bit of the world wide web.

          Apple’s smartphones were practical for two reasons, Li-ion battery technology and the low power consumption of ARM processors, both UK developments.

          1. a-tracy
            October 15, 2020

            Thanks Dixie I’ll look them up, I read ARM got bought up by the Japanese recently didn’t they? The UK never seems to get the recognition of any developments to me and when we do get successes we seem to sell out. I thought I read that advances in digital communications came out of Scandi Countries to remove the need for cables but thanks again for pointing me in this direction.

    4. bigneil(newercomp)
      October 15, 2020

      Don’t worry Mark B – at the next election the party will promise to cut immigration – for the ???? time – and get in again.

    5. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      I now think that the British State will have to suffer the humiliation if going bankrupt. Politicians must learn the lesson that we will not forever save them. The State will have no money to ‘give away’.
      That’s the only option to the expected state solution which is for the British people to be bankrupted first the State.
      Italy has often demonstrated how to do this.

  5. Iain Gill
    October 15, 2020

    A lot of these ideas have come from the big consultancies and outsourcers, which is why a common theme is destroying the small flexible one or two man band freelancers they are in competition with. Such destruction will make our economy a whole lot less flexible and competitive.

    1. a-tracy
      October 15, 2020

      The RSA did a big article 2017 about gig economy workers and several more since check them out online, you get a feel of what the reset wants.
      “The uncertainty over how gig workers will fare over time, however, is making people feel uneasy about whether they will still have a decent standard of living in the wake of ‘disruption’.
      “the starting point has been to challenge whether gig workers should be considered genuinely self-employed. There is an urgent need for government to clarify the law and deter misclassification of workers. “

      1. Iain Gill
        October 15, 2020

        they got a lot wrong didnt they. still obvious the government has nobody advising them that understands the realities.

  6. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2020

    Exactly

    Build back better is without doubt a cover for more state control over our lives though ever more red tape, health and safely and higher and more complex taxes. Climate alarmism perhaps the Governments best and most evil weapon.

    We already have virtual state monopolies in health care, education, much of transport and hugely damaging state interference in energy, broadcasting and much else. Over recent years the govenment has made huge attacks on renting out property with endless red tape, OTT health and safely, LEA licencing and changes to landlord and tenant laws and evil changes to the tax system that tax “profits” you have not even made. It benefits neither tenants nor landlords. It restricts supply and increases rents and pushed people out of the business. Then they are even expected to compete with unfairly state subsidised competition.

    The foolish lefty Michael Gove (who inflicted Theresa May on the nation and cost me my Boris wager) even wanted to entrench the state monopoly in schools even further by putting vat of private school fees. Osborne and Hammond increase IPT tax on insurance including medical insurance to 12% to kill further freedom and choice in health care. We see what dire state monopoly healthcare we have from these figures – Germany 117 deaths per 100,000 UK 635 (and the UK figures are actually about 60% higher that that in reality if you look at excess deaths) . We need freedom and choice and a level playing field almost everwhere.

    We have a Competition and Markets Authority but they never look at the main sourse of unfair competion (in health care, energy, education, broadcasting, housing, transport …….)
    which is the State and organisations subsidised by taxes taken of their competitors.

    1. Adam
      October 15, 2020

      Should you RULE people’s lives, or LURE them to work better?
      Reset L & R into their proper places.
      All’s well that ends Right.

    2. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      +1

    3. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      taken off!

    4. Stred
      October 15, 2020

      My landlords society just told us that the government is planning to increase the standard of the energy certificate to C for rented property by 2025. Mine are insulated in the floor, walls and roof and have a modern boiler and lighting but are all grade D. Presumably they will have to be fitted with solar panels if they are to be rented out, or perhaps spend 20k on s heat pump system to put the tenant’s bills up.

      1. Lifelogic
        October 16, 2020

        Back door nationalisation and theft by deluded green crap pushing idiots.

    5. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      +1

  7. Steven
    October 15, 2020

    As will become obvious to even the most brainwashed the whole point of this fake pandemic is to increase state control and big corporate profits. This is a coup against freedom and we are very likely to see an awful future unfolding. I hope all the politicians get what they deserve for enabling this fraudulent theft of our freedom based on ridiculous fearmongering and craven cowardice.

    1. a-tracy
      October 15, 2020

      The latest fearmongering in Liverpool is alarming. In October most years bed capacity in ICU is at 85% I read yesterday it is 10% higher this year even with this big uptick in covid and the NHS are playing catch up on all the operations and procedures they cancelled from March to July.

    2. bigneil(newercomp)
      October 15, 2020

      Steven, when we clearly see that we are being invaded by 3rd worlders in rubber dinghies and the govt puts them in hotels – paid for from our taxes – while our ex-servicemen sleep on the streets – then the govt’s aim is BLATANTLY clear. They moved some to a barracks – but brand new tvs were seen being delivered for them. Sick that the ex soldiers sleeping rough may have actually been based in those very same barracks – which are now open to people from the very country/culture the soldier was fighting. SICK SICK SICK – -and a VERY clear signal.

      1. APL
        October 15, 2020

        bigneil(newercomp): “… then the govt’s aim is BLATANTLY clear.”

        Lions led by traitors.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        +1

      3. fedupsoutherner
        October 15, 2020

        +1

      4. No Longer Anonymous
        October 15, 2020

        Wait until taxpayers have lost their homes and have to go to the back of the waiting list.

  8. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2020

    Covid has made matters far worse. The state sector employees (largely overpaid and pensioned) are mainly sitting at home or “working” on full pay & pensions. Many in the more productive private sector sitting at home on 80% pay or often far less and told they cannot work.

    The problem for this government is that tax increases (from the current hugely over taxed position) will not raise more revenue. Many businessses are also further indebted with Covid loans and deferred taxes and will stuggle to pay them let alone anything further.

    The only way forwards is to cut the bloated State down to size. Much of it does nothing of value (or is of negative value) so it should not be difficult. So much fat could be cut. But Boris cannot even bring himself to cancel HS2 or all the green crap he seems totally deluded as does Sunak whose first move to to increase entrepreneurs relief to just 10% of what is was.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      October 15, 2020

      …and soon no doubt CGT will be raised too on gains caused by inflation and currency depreciation. Nothing will move because the tax will be too high.

      Businesses can’t move into newer, younger and safer hands, because the owners who have already paid Corporation Tax on retained profits of approximately 25 % over the past 20 years now pay 28% on the remaining say 75%. So they hang on while they are sick or old and the business goes south.

      Everything will go into stasis to pay the Blob.

      1. Stred
        October 15, 2020

        CGT already taxes inflation on property. Brown took away the indexation and reduced tax rates to 18%, then Camoron put it up to 28% and Sunk is thinking of putting it up again. Over 20 years 40% CGT would be effectively 80%.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        Stop paying the Blob at all costs!

    2. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      – to decrease entrepreneurs relief to 10% rather (thus making going into business and creating jobs in the UK even less attractive that it was already). This with all the red tape, mad employment laws, expensive energy, OTT health and safely, punative taxation, compliances costs etc.

    3. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      +1

      If only they opened their minds and eyes

  9. Simeon
    October 15, 2020

    But you are in the Conservative Party! This, along with much (though not all) of what you write, sounds very much like that which critics of the Conservatives (and all the other big government parties) would write. You will get alot of comments saying ‘Well said’ and ‘Here here’ but it is not words but deeds that matter – and especially so when it’s the words of a backbencher set against the deeds of the government. Why not come out and say that the policies/agenda the government are pursuing are causing catastrophic damage to the country, and are either utterly idiotic, sinister, or both, and that you can no longer in good conscience support them?

    1. michelle
      October 15, 2020

      Exactly. How anyone calling themselves Conservative can remain within the party masquerading as such, is beyond me.
      The electorate throughout the years regardless of whether voting Labour or Conservative, had always tended to lean to the conservative socially. I think given the years of destruction that is not so now, sadly.
      Social conservatism seems to have left the building also in the party that is supposed to be the defender of it.
      GDP, big business, consumerism and globalism ( with one of its offshoots being mass immigration) is all they care to conserve.

      1. Simeon
        October 15, 2020

        There are no votes in social conservatism. Where there might be votes is in the tiniest possible government, with individuals able to associate and cooperate as they see fit. But given the extent to which so many seem happy to abdicate responsibility for themselves and others, I suspect there are not enough votes.

        1. Simeon
          October 15, 2020

          I did not intend to be so dismissive of social conservatism. I myself am socially conservative. But I think that there are far fewer social conservatives seeking to impose their values on others, than there are social ‘liberals’ seeking to impose theirs. This is of course to the credit of these true liberals.

    2. Iain Gill
      October 15, 2020

      The majority of the parliamentary Conservative party are not really conservative, they are post modern liberal lefties. Hence their policies and decisions in power.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        October 16, 2020

        In so far as facts and actuality are of lesser importance in Postmodernist “thinking”, you may have a point, and it’s particularly applicable to the anti-European Union types.

        I don’t buy your other claims about them though.

    3. Sir Joe Soap
      October 15, 2020

      10 years of not doing this tells us why not.
      The Tory party hasn’t received a jolt to common sense because, since Blair, the other lot have been even worse. Perhaps the tide is now changing however. Given a choice between a party trying to bankrupt a country from opposition and a party actually doing it in government, the choice of whether or not to remain silent will become quite stark for our host and a few other other Tories.

    4. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      Hear, hear!

    5. A.Sedgwick
      October 15, 2020

      Precisely, the two party state in England featherbeds the so called rebels. Nigel Farage secured the referendum from the ultra wet Cameron with the CP under serious threat, others were irrelevant. The crap deal is getting closer as another die in a ditch deadline passes. They should resign the whip, there are other jobs in 2024 or maybe not.

      2019 Year of Brexit

      2020 Year of Covid

      2021 Year of Scotland

      1. Simeon
        October 15, 2020

        I wonder how many voters are seduced into supporting the Conservatives because there are a few ‘sound’ MPs? Yet what actual difference do these ‘sound’ souls make? Ten years of the Tories, and where are we?

    6. No Longer Anonymous
      October 15, 2020

      +1

  10. oldtimer
    October 15, 2020

    My impression is that a majority of politicians are clueless about what it takes to create, build and sustain a business. Their careless attitude to the impact of the policies they legislate to tax and otherwise impede businesses provides plenty of evidence for this.

    1. Sea_Warrior
      October 15, 2020

      You’re probably right. Perhaps a CCHQ overly-concerned with ‘diversity’ might wish to consider establishing a quota on its candidates’ list – for the very type you identify. At least a third would seem about right.

  11. Fedupsoutherner
    October 15, 2020

    I see there is a warning from National Grid that electricity supplies are low due to low wind speeds and a problem with a couple of power stations. Well slap my thigh, who would have thought that wind on its own might fail and that without backup from another source we could experience power cuts? All those smart meters will come in handy. It doesn’t matter how many wind turbines we erect. If the wind don’t blow we don’t get power. Boris is putting his faith in turbines. Good luck with that.

    1. Sharon
      October 15, 2020

      Fed up southerner

      As I mentioned in my earlier comment…there will side affects that we’ve been warning about on here for months and months …and when they occur it will be said, oh, my word. That wasn’t meant to happen!

      Greedy globalist using ‘useful idiots’ to do their bidding, but no critical thinking anywhere from those who order the greencrap ideas into usage!

      1. fedupsoutherner
        October 15, 2020

        Sharon, My post the other day was blocked but I do know a fair bit about the cons of wind turbines having helped to set up and run the first national anti wind farm group in Scotland. We had many conferences with some very experienced guest speakers and even took a case to the courts in Geneva which I presume, like many other things that don’t sit well with the establishment was just brushed under the carpet. The group had much success in getting compensation for people whose lives had been completely ruined and we managed to stop a few large wind farms being developed. Water contamination was a problem with one of the developments and it was eventually stopped from going ahead.

    2. Sea_Warrior
      October 15, 2020

      Today’s exam question: how many power stations could have been built with the money saved by NOT rolling-out smart meters?

      1. glen cullen
        October 15, 2020

        You mean that same smart-meter that doesn’t reduce a household bill

      2. hefner
        October 15, 2020

        ‘Smart-Meter Roll-Out, cost-benefit analysis’, 2019, 93p, available on gov.uk website.

    3. rose
      October 15, 2020

      And who would have thought that gas fired power stations, designed to run full time, wouldn’t like being turned on and off in their old age.

    4. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      Hehe!
      We need Carter to start ‘em!
      Actually all that hot air in Parliament might produce a few watty electric thingies?
      But then our dear MPs might blow all the virus everywhere and start the Third Wave early?
      I believe that the wise Mr Hitchens once suggested hamsters in wheels? I mean…follow the science Boris!

  12. Lester Cynic Beedell
    October 15, 2020

    Why is Matt Hancock pouring scorn on the Great Barrington Declaration?
    It’s backed by some of the world’s greatest epidemiologists, I don’t profess any medical knowledge but even I’m able to comprehend that a lockdown doesn’t work because the virus isn’t going to go away and we should follow the course of previous pandemics, people will die, I’m at risk but I’m trying to live a normal life, masks don’t work the economy will probably never recover, totally bonkers strategy.

    1. rose
      October 15, 2020

      He is exhausted, as he was when he allowed himself to be persuaded by the media and opposition into pretending the original guidelines in March included a whole lot of prohibitions they didn’t.

    2. Sharon
      October 15, 2020

      Lester

      Matt H seems to have bought into the fake pandemic 100% and the Barrington Declaration shows it up for what it is and questions too much – so it must be berated.

      I suspect in time – it will come to light in the form of more coverage worldwide- but it’s going to take time. As with our fight with the EU this is too- but bigger. And the EU could still win thanks to some very determined remainers here in the UK. And this current fight is far greater, with many still rigid with fear and believing all the lies.

    3. Sea_Warrior
      October 15, 2020

      I don’t favour a second national lockdown either. Measures must be targeted at the spreaders. I’m sure some will argue that England must follow the example of Northern Ireland – thereby equating one ‘nation’ with another. But NI, in population terms, is little more than a county. I’m often critical of Johnson, and Hancock, but on this point, they’re right. Counties and regions that are acting responsibly should be allowed to get on with their lives.

      1. IanT
        October 15, 2020

        Agreed – and frankly some way of curbing the behaviour of the few who are screwing progress in this problem up for the many.

      2. No Longer Anonymous
        October 15, 2020

        The ‘spreaders’ have it right.

        Those with comorbidities and the very aged should be shielded… if they want it.

        Save the economy. Let the young live their lives.

        The old ladies I visit on my care list have told me to keep visiting. Loneliness is a fate much worse than death.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          October 15, 2020
    4. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      It can only be because he wants chaos and destruction to reign?
      This govt. might as well be done with it and just nuke the whole country.
      If they still have the capacity to do so that is…..

    5. Bryan Harris
      October 15, 2020

      +
      Well said Lester.

      It seems Hancock, and others are afraid, or unwilling, to come up with other ideas.

      I can only agree that we should let this virus take it’s course to let the economy survive.

    6. Hope
      October 15, 2020

      A three month lock down did not work and now the useless govt wants more! The economy dying, Marstons today make it clear who it blames for the two thousand job losses. No scientific evidence to support 10 pm curfew. Evidence it does destroy jobs and the economy.

      Johnson has failed EU negotiations today. He gave up his deadline so it is clear he gives up on every other red line. What an utter disaster he is.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        He is, indeed completely hopeless!

        1. glen cullen
          October 15, 2020

          Not just hopeless but untrustworthy

      2. Fred H
        October 16, 2020

        lots of EU messages to each other today ‘Told you! ending with grinning emoji.

    7. Christine
      October 15, 2020

      Also ask why YouTube is banning any articles that question Government policy or promote the use of cheap drugs to treat the virus. Social Media has become a dangerous tool in brainwashing and manipulating the populous.

    8. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      Why is Matt Hancock pouring scorn on the Great Barrington Declaration? Good question. Also why are some search engines hiding it?

      I assume because the Great Barrington Declaration is exactly the right way to go and sensibly expressed and (like nearly all PPE graduates) he lacks the gumption to see the simple and obvous truth.

      Another truth he seems totally unable to see is that the NHS state monopoly as currently stuctured and funded is rather dire. Hence we have about 5 times as many deaths per head from Covid as say Germany.

      This dire performance does not just apply to Covid but ver many other areas too. Many good people work at the NHS but the system and funding system is idiotic and kills nearly all competition too. Then again Hunt (PPE again) and all the other Health Sectretaries did nothing to sort it out either.

      Even Sir Keith Joseph failed (or did not dare to try perhaps)!

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2020

        Keith Joseph was a weak man.

    9. APL
      October 15, 2020

      Lester Cynic Beedell: “Why is Matt Hancock pouring scorn on the Great Barrington Declaration?”

      Because it exposes his own personal stupidity and the destruction he and his Boss Boris, have wrecked unnecessarily on the British Economy.

      Stupidity and incompetence, and to add insult to injury, they’ve just bunged themselves an extra ÂŁ3grand.

      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mps-to-get-3-300-pay-rise-6qdxx3vjt

    10. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      One does not need much medical knowledge to see why it is almost certainly the best approach from the current position. This given the need to balance all the conflicting preasures and all causes of death. If you lock down again you clearly cause rather more harm than good and it only delays the Covid problem anyway – it clearly does not solve it.

    11. James Bertram
      October 15, 2020

      Hancock, Whitty and Vallance will be replaced if their failed policy of Lockdown is swapped for the evidence-based, sensible approach, advocated in The Great Barrington Declaration; an approach similar to Sweden, and the one that the Trump Administration has accepted as the best way forward.
      Yesterday, once again, Hancock was misleading parliament with utter bull – he even had the gall to propose that Malaria was a virus. [Why our politicians don’t hold him to account, God only knows!]. This is the quality of our Health Secretary. Our Health Minister, Nadine Dorries is even worse – tweeting ‘There is no such thing as Herd Immunity.’ Do they not know how mankind has survived viruses for the past 300,000 years? Do they know nothing? (presumably not).
      The Mail had a good article on this yesterday by Prof Angus Dalgleish: ‘This week Matt Hancock condemned experts who dared question lockdown. Now, after two of them embarrassingly exposed his basic errors, Prof ANGUS DALGLEISH asks… How IS this petulant, shockingly ignorant minister still in a job?’
      SACK HIM.

    12. James Bertram
      October 15, 2020

      Dr Sunetra Gupta gives a restrained, logical response to Hancock’s nonsense yesterday:
      https://www.aier.org/article/matt-hancock-is-wrong-about-herd-immunity/

  13. Sharon
    October 15, 2020

    Sir John

    You are not the only one worries it’s a cover for more state control! As I’ve said before, the WEF are a bit vague about the implementation of the Reset, but reading between the lines it seems likely to be a world introduction of communism. The pandemic giving the opportunity to smash the rich economies down to more like that of the poorer ones.

    The only one thing that seems to have gone wrong is that the trade routes have been disrupted and poorer countries have people dying from starvation not the Virus. This seems something the WHO have woken up to and are speaking up about now… Maybe that wasn’t expected!

    And in richer countries- the people are protesting against the lockdowns….

    Interesting times ahead methinks!

    1. James Bertram
      October 15, 2020

      There seems to be a power struggle between Tedros (Communist/China) and Nabarro (Democracy/West) at the WHO – both advocating different solutions to Covid19.
      Interesting article which I hope Sir John allows to pass moderation.
      https://www.aier.org/article/whats-behind-the-whos-lockdown-mixed-messaging/

      Disturbing that Johnson has increased funding of the WHO by 30% [and seems pro-China on many other matters too]; whereas Trump says it will leave the UN Agency next July.
      https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-un-britain/uk-pledges-340-million-for-who-calls-for-end-to-ugly-rifts-idUKKCN26G35S

  14. Richard1
    October 15, 2020

    Just as the govt need to ignore the shroud-waving group-think coming out of SAGE so they must also ignore arguments, unfortunately put forward now by bodies such as the IFS, that we need tax increases to pay for the costs of the Wuhan virus. The only way out is entrepreneurship and innovation, investment and growth. Not more and more govt. A year of this govts term has been wasted by the crisis. From Jan, outside the EU, we need bold and radical policies to make the UK the go-to destination for entrepreneurs innovators and investors. Rishi Sunak should draw inspiration from the great chancellorship of Nigel Lawson and radically reform the tax system.

    1. rose
      October 15, 2020

      Yes, right up until Kenneth Clarke and William Waldegrave, tax was being simplified and the take reduced as a proportion of GDP, with further reductions planned: then we got 13 years of socialism followed by ten years of inexperience and lack of confidence.

    2. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      It would also just be a little bit nice if the Government didn’t keep saying ‘The Government’ will pay for this and ‘The Government’ will pay for that. It as we have seen with lock-downs etc just encourages some as it is inferred it is Government Money to say ‘give me’.

      It is disingenuous of Government to suggest they have money.

      1. Fred H
        October 15, 2020

        Well if they don’t have any they are making sure they will get yours!

      2. Richard1
        October 15, 2020

        Indeed

  15. turboterrier
    October 15, 2020

    Please Sir John in light of news of possible power cuts could you please confirm to all your green minded readers that it is wind turbines that our PM is backing for his green lead recovery. You cannot make it up. If the sun doesn’t shine then it is just going to get better.
    Can we have people leading and in cabinet who are experienced and qualified enough to fully understand power generation and distribution.

  16. Everhopeful
    October 15, 2020

    How can one have no problem with an incredibly stupid NLP three worder “Build Back Better“ ( what are we…three year olds?) when one is fully aware that NOTHING HAPPENED to necessitate any building back. Except that they are PURPOSELY destroying everything!!
    It all comes from the World Economic Forum. (All on the Internet).
    Would Johnson HONESTLY have come up with all these ludicrous little ditties?
    No wonder he now looks like a stressed hostage!
    The ONE reason he got his 80 seat majority…to get us out of EU…is he now wavering??

  17. rick hamilton
    October 15, 2020

    Indeed. Some politicians love to claim how many jobs they have ‘created’ but in reality these are created by private investors and entrepreneurs, unless we are talking about bureaucrats paid by the taxpayer.

    Unfortunately so many in government (and the media) have never been anywhere near a small business which stands or falls by the monthly or quarterly results and has nothing to fall back on but the personal assets of its owners. How many MPs have ever started their own business and run it successfully and profitably ? Or would dare to try ?

    Small businesses have no voice because those who run them can’t afford the time to sit in endless meetings with woke civil servants droning on about diversity, inclusion and the general unfairness of life.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      October 15, 2020

      +1

  18. Walt
    October 15, 2020

    Thank you, Sir John. So do I.

  19. Ian Kaye
    October 15, 2020

    My question would be has economics as an example of an academic discipline been able to keep up-do date with the rate of change implied by the digital revolution? Given that the latter is largely linear with the exception perhaps of the mass take up of mobile phones greater than could have been anticipated perhaps is it possible for example to provide meaningful statistics regarding productivity given that their has been no comparable revolution in in the economic discipline

    1. hefner
      October 15, 2020

      Do a search along the line of ‘Advances in Economic Theory in the Last 60 Years’ … and choose what pleases you.
      BTW the recent ‘Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’ might fulfill your wish. And if you do not like ‘auction theory’, you can always go to the same prize in previous years.

  20. Everhopeful
    October 15, 2020

    According to The World Economic Forum…
    They want to reinvent capitalism because the pandemic has shown up weaknesses in our system and there will be no new normal but we must expect a domino effect that will keep triggering disruption.
    Honestly just read it.
    I can’t believe that our “leaders” could contemplate going along with such nonsense.
    Just read it. It also explains why BLM marches and destructions were allowed to take place!
    I have now lost faith in every single one of our so called politicians.
    They are purposely destroying our lives, our home, our country, our world. And all this push me pull you rubbish is just another pantomime.
    It is like watching a toddler stealing chocolate off the Christmas tree in plain sight. Crass…but they are getting away with it.

  21. Ian Kaye
    October 15, 2020

    Commensurate not comparable.

  22. Ian @Barkham
    October 15, 2020

    Good morning Sir John

    Looking at the UK from the outside so to say. The situation you find yourself in is that you personally come over as a ‘open world’ free market Conservative, trapped in a left wing controlling socialist parliament. Those that control this country by decree wouldn’t know the virtue or see the advantage of self reliant enterprise society if it punched them on the nose. Until they recognise that we will be trapped in this over taxed ever declining mess that gets more controlling and more expensive by the day.

  23. Fred H
    October 15, 2020

    As many thought all along – – – now on the 15th October :-

    Boris Johnson will decide on the “next steps” for post-Brexit trade talks after an EU summit later this week, Downing Street has said. No 10 said the PM expressed “disappointment” at recent progress in a call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday. Mr Johnson has previously set Thursday’s meeting of EU leaders as the deadline for a deal. Mrs von der Leyen said the EU wanted a deal, “but not at any price”.
    Both sides are calling on the other to compromise on key issues, including fishing and limits on government subsidies to businesses. They are locked in talks over striking an agreement to govern their trading relationship once the UK’s post-Brexit transition period ends in December.

    One term Boris, and the last Conservative Government wobbles onward. I’d mention eunuch – but he clearly isn’t that!

    1. Fred H
      October 15, 2020

      whats wrong?

      1. Fred H
        October 15, 2020

        Sir John – I feared they had taken you in mid protest to the cells in the basement of H of C!

    2. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      The EU Compromise,
      On fishing it is that things stay as they were under EU Control and rules. The UK steps aside and has no say.
      On the level playing field the EU want to control how and what our elected government chooses to spend our tax pounds on. At the same time they get to subsidies the CAP, Lufthansa with 9billion similar for KLM and Air France. The UK steps aside and has no say.
      That was the short version, in a nutshell we can leave the EU but the EU gets to dictate how we work inside our own Country

      That is what the EU is demanding as a Compromise. The UK is meekly suggesting please Sir can we manage some of our internal affairs ourselves

    3. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      +1

  24. Bryan Harris
    October 15, 2020

    The basic problem seems to be that even a Tory government is running with socialist ideology.

    Rather than come up with sensible policies, all too often they fall back on ideas that would have appealed to blair.

    What happened to the innovative party of the right that made Britain great under Thatcher?

    Either this government is listening to the wrong think tanks or it is deliberately taking us deeper into socialism and government control.

    1. Ian @Barkham
      October 15, 2020

      +1

  25. Alan Paul Joyce
    October 15, 2020

    Dear Mr. Redwood,

    “Build Back Better”.

    It’s the central government equivalent of some local council straplines such as “The Best Place To Live, Learn and Work”.

    Vacuous, meaningless twaddle.

    A bit like “Get Brexit Done” which we thought was today but might be ‘tomorrow’.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      It is supposed to be Neurolinguistic.
      ie a cousin of hypnotism and brainwashing!
      Really!!

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      Tomorrow never comes …

    3. APL
      October 15, 2020

      Alan Paul Joyce: “Build Back Better”.

      Better we not have to build back.

  26. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2020

    taken off!

  27. beresford
    October 15, 2020

    Don’t you have a problem with the fact that this ‘Great Reset’ has never been discussed with ordinary people, let alone voted on by them? Have we already entered Mandelson’s Post Democratic Age where everything is decided by big corporations and billionaires?

    1. Anonymous
      October 15, 2020

      Don’t you have a problem with the fact that this ‘Great Reset’ has never been discussed with ordinary people, let alone voted on by them? Have we already entered Mandelson’s Post Democratic Age where everything is decided by big corporations and billionaires?


      it is why they allow Extinction Rebellion to riot on.

  28. Everhopeful
    October 15, 2020

    Not sure if I can do this? Obviously plz delete if prob.
    Top comment on Breitbart…so brilliant I thought.

    Goat of indeterminate age ‱ 21 hours ago ‱ edited
    A little step backwards here, a pirouette, a slide to the left, there, a crafty “U” turn, a rub of the tousled, blond head, and “voila!” the Buffoon has screwed the country, and Brexit, as was his (and his predecessor’s) intention all along. Did he think we might not notice, locked indoors and hiding behind our sofas? How could the formerly Great Britain come to this?

  29. BOF
    October 15, 2020

    Build back better. By whom, the state? The state fails in everything it undertakes.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      “Build Back Better”
      = Reduce Govt Debt.
      Through Stagflation, Tax and Lies!
      And we will be poorer!!

    2. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      “The state fails in everything it undertakes” well it is quite good a growing larger and larger and suffocating/strangling the productive sector. Quite good at parasitic job creation, job exporting, generating damaging red tape, making the tax code increase in size, passing damaging laws, making a mess of energy, education, transport, health care …….., pissing tax payers money down the drain and at looking after the 20% or so that work for it (at the expense of the 80% who carry them).

  30. Andy
    October 15, 2020

    From the BBC:
    “An EU diplomat compared the UK to a toddler who will not eat his vegetables.”

    Brilliant. The only incorrect bit is assuming it is the UK. This is a tantrum is only among the Tory pensioners.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      Why aren’t you out laying your water pipes?
      No stickability.

    2. Richard1
      October 15, 2020

      That’s a good sign. Insults in a negotiation are a sign of desperation.

      1. Edward2
        October 15, 2020

        Correct as usual Richard.

    3. Sea_Warrior
      October 15, 2020

      It’s EU attitudes like that that led to 17.4 million telling Brussels to get stuffed.

    4. No Longer Anonymous
      October 15, 2020

      The BBC totally failed to report on the Hunter Biden scandal today.

      Instead it is more interested in a fly on Mike Pence’s hair.

      It is no longer a source of credible news.

    5. zorro
      October 15, 2020

      He who pays the piper calls the tune Margie! Germany calling, Germany calling!!

      zorro

  31. glen cullen
    October 15, 2020

    What of honour

    What of deadlines broken

    What of the concord between politicians and the people

    Another deadline extended 
.who cares – the people will believe anything

  32. Everhopeful
    October 15, 2020

    How can Hancock claim that the two main tenets of the Barrington Declaration are false?
    How would he know diddlysquat about anything?

    1. James Bertram
      October 15, 2020

      He even thinks Malaria is a virus – an utter fool.

  33. agricola
    October 15, 2020

    not all political thinking is bad. It was politicians who conceived the NHS. The failure was in financing it, and very specifically in the administration of it. many politicians use it as a litmus paper of political morality with which to beat the government of the day, until they find themselves in the driving seat.

    There is absolutely no question in my mind that private enterprise beats nationalisation almost every time. It is only when private becomes a de facto unchallenged monopoly that they then suffer all the weaknesses of a nationalised service. Banks come immediately to mind.

    I would like to see government back off our entrepreneurial activity and their obsession with regulating in detail our lives and the way we are supposed to think within fashionable political norms. To me PC , BLM, and ER are just all fake religions. We have libel laws, all lives matter, and ER is just an anarchic socialist extreme with no recognisable useful purpose. Government should confine themselves to controlling the excesses of human and corporate behaviour. In practise, government and all their varied agencies repeatedly confirm their utter uselessness in this area, and in their glory projects invariably cost us a fortune.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      The NHS is such a comprehensive, predictable disaster that ONLY a green politician could have conceived of it. There was free medical treatment in the U.K. before the NHS you know.

      1. hefner
        October 15, 2020

        No, I don’t know. Can you elaborate, please?

      2. graham1946
        October 16, 2020

        Well, my Mum had to pay half a crown to see the doctor. There were only 8 half crowns in a pound and Dad only earned 4 pounds a week, so not an inconsiderable amount to spend for her, todays value about 15 quid plus any meds prescribed. It’s why people died so young.

      3. Fred H
        October 16, 2020

        no there wasn’t – -you paid or relied on charities or some form of benevolence. Most just put up with the problem or used ages old granny said solutions.

  34. Richard1
    October 15, 2020

    Lock-down is the new green crap. Loved by the left because of the opportunity it affords for limitless statism. Fatuous and virtue signalling in its language – ‘save the planet!’, ‘lives not the economy!’ Etc. Promoted by single issue scientists using shrill language and on the basis of an unfalsifiable (+ therfore unscientific) hypothesis. And useless and damaging in its Effect.

    Yet unfortunately sort of also dragging along some Conservatives, including current ministers, who are psyched out by the shroud waving and by opinion polls. And – obviously – jumped on by low grade opportunistic politicians like Starmer and Khan.

  35. fedupsoutherner
    October 15, 2020

    things that are needed in this modern world just to exist now should not be taxed. Water, food, transport, computers, mobile phones. All are necessary to live a comfortable life. Nearly everything we book or forms that need filling in have to be downloaded. Whereas forms and applications used to be available at the post office they are now your responsiblilty to download at home. It is hard to get by without a computer or mobile phone.

  36. Christine
    October 15, 2020

    Read this article from the Australian Spectator: Dangerous elites planning ‘the Great Reset’ Davos 2021 will launch its own Green New Deal. Be afraid.

  37. Christine
    October 15, 2020

    Samuel Johnson must be turning in his grave. Not content with attacking our history and statues we now see our English language under attack. A phrase that was acceptable yesterday like ‘sexual preference’ has its definition changed overnight by Webster’s dictionary to attack a US Supreme Court nominee. The word ‘misogyny’ has been amended in the Macquarie Dictionary in Australia to emulate the resent attack Gillard made on Tony Abbott. The dictionary has now become a political weapon.

  38. Bryan Harris
    October 15, 2020

    The ‘Great Reset’: Rule by Unelected ‘Experts’ – COVID-Climate Technocracy has arrived – ‘The danger of letting lab coats run the world’ – Special Report

    https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/10/13/the-great-reset-rule-by-unelected-experts-covid-climate-technocracy-has-arrived-the-danger-of-letting-lab-coats-run-the-world-special-report/?mc_cid=9b438a33d2&mc_eid=421f94d1e1

    The COVID-19 lockdowns and suspension of liberties have only emboldened climate campaigners to achieve their progressive vision of having “the masses” lives planned, monitored, and controlled for their “safety” — all in the name of “science.” The very real threat of oppressive rule by unelected experts in government is now threatening to engulf the world due to the ongoing COVID lockdowns and “phased reopenings.”

    ‘Compliant’ public is a grave danger to liberty.’ ”

    Extreme treachery is on the horizon

    1. M Davis
      October 15, 2020

      This should be compulsory bedtime reading for all politicians!

      1. Bryan Harris
        October 16, 2020

        +++

  39. William Long
    October 15, 2020

    I quite agree; the whole thing might have come out of 1984.

  40. ukretired123
    October 15, 2020

    “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” springs to mind.
    You Sir John seem to be a rare gem in a parliament full of MPs with no business experience and real work knowledge too!
    Your books are your excellent track record and pointed out fundamental business dangers e. g. 22 years ago like “Just say No!” to joining the Euro – just the first page says it all. Marvellous that you have soldiered bravely on for the country too!

    1. ukretired123
      October 15, 2020

      See “Europe is my continent not my country” Page 1 . Basic fact.

  41. Original Chris
    October 15, 2020

    It would appear that Matthew Hancock is a devoted follower of Klaus Schwab and The Great Reset. KS is founder of the WEF and Executive Chairman.

    Hancock has been promoting Schwab’s ideas in 2017 and 2018 at Davos. This is all about a 4th Industrial Revolution dominated by AI, and the roll out of 5G is critical to the success of this. Critically, Schwab is promoting the Covid-19 epidemic as a tool for the Great Reset e.g. his presentation entitled “COVID-19 The Great Reset”.

    I fear that Hancock is not the innocent, inexperienced individual that he appears to be, but rather a zealot, an acolyte of Schwab. For this reason I personally think that he is not a wise choice of Minister. Is this another area in which Johnson has been bowled over/”seduced” by individuals whose goals for our country are questionable? Does this explain Johnson’s determination to get the CCP to roll out 5G for us at great speed?

    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-4th-industrial-revolution%E2%80%A6

    “And I’m delighted to speak alongside so many impressive colleagues who really understand this, and alongside Professor Klaus Schwab who literally ‘wrote the book’ on the 4th Industrial Revolution. Your work, bringing together as you do all the best minds on the planet, has informed what we are doing, and I’m delighted to work with you….”

    Looking into Klaus Schwab more closely is very revealing, and quotes from his writings on the 4th Industrial Revolution are worrying to say the least. Such quotes from his writings indicate exactly which way he thinks the world should be going and what we should accept in the name of advancement: a super elite and an inferior rabble. Dangerous thinking I believe.

    I have used information from Gordon Pasha on twitter who states that Schwab describes with some relish how these technologies “can intrude into the private space of our minds, reading our thoughts & influencing our behaviour”. “Those who remain human are likely to become a subspecies. They will, effectively, be the chimpanzees of the future”. ‘

    “The mind boggling innovations of the fourth industrial revolution from biotechnology to AI are redefining what it means to be human”.

    “The future will challenge our understanding of what it means to be human both from a biological and social standpoint”

    “If you are happy with your state as a human then so be it, you can remain as you are. But be warned – just as we humans split from our chimpanzee cousins years ago, so cyborgs will split from humans. Those who remain as humans are likely to become a sub species. They will, effectively, be the chimpanzees of the future.”

    Quote from Gordon Pasha twitter:
    Schwab seems to be hinting at the same future of a superior, “enhanced” transhuman elite separating from the natural born rabble in this particularly damning passage from the 4th IR: ” We are at the threshold of a radical systemic change that requires human beings to adapt continuously. As a result we may witness an increasing degree of polarisation in the world, marked by those who embrace change and those who resist it”.

    1. Stred
      October 16, 2020

      If the transformation of Matty into a superior, enhanced transhuman has been carried out by the borgs, something has gone badly wrong. He can’t even understand his own policies.

  42. Ian @Barkham
    October 15, 2020

    Off Topic/On Topic

    Yet again the UK Government has failed in its promise to the People.

    It would appear everyone other then the UK Government knew the EU would try and hold the UK to ransom. Todays situation update is identical to were we where 4 years ago, NO trade agreement with the EU unless we accept their rule. No other Country has to endure that sort of humiliation.

    The only compromise the EU wants and keeps repeating the UK is not sovereign it is a colony of the EU and will forever stay one.

    There is no such thing as the UK walking because of a mutual understanding dispute, it is just the EU wont accept the idea of a sovereign free democracy able to thrive outside of their control.

    he EU has reneged on every part of these talks and will keep moving the goal posts until the UK Government submits – everyone knows that but Boris. So the UK getting on with life without the EU is not the UK walking.

    1. Andy
      October 15, 2020

      Why are you still so angry? You left the EU.

      You were told that the consequences of leaving would be an end to frictionless trade, more bureaucrats, lorry parks and problems with the Irish border. And all of this has come to pass. Just like you were told.

      You are simply getting what you voted for. Rubbish, isn’t it?

      1. Fred H
        October 15, 2020

        This isn’t what we voted for – and yes it is rubbish.

        1. Martin in Cardiff
          October 16, 2020

          You voted to leave the European Union – nothing else.

          And that is exactly what you are getting, with all that it inevitably involves.

          1. glen cullen
            October 16, 2020

            I do hope you’re right…..can’t wait to go WTO

  43. Iain Gill
    October 15, 2020

    Frankly John I dont know how you dont just roar in tears of laughter at the nonsense coming from the front benches of all the parties in parliament. This country is just a complete and utter joke at the moment. This is ridiculous. The polling outfits have got the mood of the country completely wrong as well.

  44. No Longer Anonymous
    October 15, 2020

    We can’t build back anything with face masks on and social distancing.

    The reports that I’m reading state that CV-19 will always be with us and there is a likelihood that there will NEVER be a vaccine. Duck-and-Cover, the removal of liberties, the punishment of the population for normal family lives will have to be a permanent feature of our lives on present policies.

    People have a 99% chance of surviving the disease

    Most of the 1% who die of it are over the average UK lifespan of 82 years and with comorbidities.

    I say shield the vulnerable and let the rest of us carry on.

    What else am I to conclude but that there is, indeed, a ‘Great Reset’ (a power grab) going on. In view of the forgoing this is not to be conflated with Build Back Better and the conspiracy theorists’ intuitions may be correct even if their theories aren’t.

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      October 15, 2020

      At the time of CV-19 along comes two great pushes in the forms of BLM and Greenism.

      BLM uses an issue that happened in America

      The Greenists ignore the fact that we will already be using less because of the self-inflicted poverty that is about to ravage our country.

      Boris has caved on the EU yet again.

      Could your government possibly be any worse than Labour and why aren’t Tory MPs resigning right now ?

      1. APL
        October 15, 2020

        No Longer Anonymous: “Could your government possibly be any worse than Labour and why aren’t Tory MPs resigning right now ?”

        Far to lucrative, sit at home watching Corri Street and get ÂŁ3grand extra for doing nothing.

      2. Fred H
        October 15, 2020

        I think several million are now forming that opinion.

      3. glen cullen
        October 15, 2020

        Correct – You have to wonder why no Tory MPs are resigning the whip

    2. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      IMO there is NO intention of getting a vaccine ( probably impossible anyway). Of course they want this to run and run.
      And all the masks and social distancing etc etc mixed up rubbish is just a conjurer’s trick to deflect us from the real agenda.( If masks work and social distancing works…then WHY BOTH??)
      Of course Johnson doesn’t know the details of his “policies”. All of it is just for distraction and what does it matter to him if we can not understand the “rules” and get fined?

      I just wonder what would have happened if they had not paid people to support their policies?

    3. Martin in Cardiff
      October 15, 2020

      Strange – neurosurgeons and the like achieve near miracles in face masks, and divers on oil rigs in full aqua kit pull off astonishing feats, way below the sea too.

      And yet you right wingers claim to be incapable of doing ANYTHING with a little bit of cloth on your faces.

      What a feeble, useless shower of wet lettuces you are.

      1. Edward2
        October 16, 2020

        Masks that surgeons and divers use are very different to the cheap useless masks we are being forced to wear.

        It seems to me it is mostly city dwellers and the young that are not wearing their masks and they are mainly Labour voters.

      2. Fred H
        October 16, 2020

        ALL the wet lettuces went in the waste food bin months ago.

  45. Anonymous
    October 15, 2020

    John, tell prince charles not to make political videos pushing this. In reality, the Great Reset is the marxist destruction of many small business men.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      And maybe also the destruction of the remaining thrones…

  46. Pieter C
    October 15, 2020

    It could be argued that the whole Global Warming/Climate Change agenda was conceived after the end of the Cold War to keep us fearful and accepting of ever-more Government interference in how we all lead our lives.

  47. Dave Ward
    October 15, 2020

    “It was not government which provided the cars to liberate many more people with flexible personal transport”

    So why do we have government money (i.e. from tax & bill payers) funding the installation of EV charging points? If EV’s are really (according to their proponents) in such great demand let them do the job.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      They don’t want a free market or to face economic reality…they want a micro managed economy….in order to steal our purchasing power.
      They will say what we can and can’t buy.

  48. Anonymous
    October 15, 2020

    The Covid Action plan on the WEF strategic intel website was live in February when they had already decided covid was going to change everything. This is NOT acceptable John, neither is Hancocks admission they had been working on the Corona Act since January.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      Yet..they ALL accept it.
      On our behalf?

  49. Anonymous
    October 15, 2020

    The Great Reset website predicted the global mass deaths in carehomes in advance but presented it as a good thing as there are too many female carers and it is not fair on them as it is such a terrible job, the globalists believe.

  50. Peter from Leeds
    October 15, 2020

    Many of the great inventions and technology come from initial public money being spent in order to solve a real or perceived public problem. For example the public sewage system put in place to solve a major health problem. More recently the internet was invented to solve the perceived problem of a nuclear strike taking out a computer site (back in the day when computers were few and far between).

    Currently vast sums of public money (our taxes) are being spent looking for solutions to CV19. I just read that Oxford has developed a machine that can test for the virus in 5 minutes! There are bound to be many spinoffs and commercial opportunities in future from public investment today.

    Climate change may or may not be real, but then we did not end up with the nightmare scenario that the internet was designed for, but few would argue that we have not benefitted from that initial public investment!

  51. glen cullen
    October 15, 2020

    Circuit Breaker = Draconian Lockdown

    1. Caterpillar
      October 15, 2020

      Either a Starmer draconian lockdown to destroy everything in one go, or Hancock’s creeping lockdowns to destroy everything more tortuously. To see the news of police handing out fines to businesses that have only recently struggled to reopen after the too long first lockdown is sickening. Hancock and Johnson using the police to accelerate the destruction of lives is sickening, and MPs of all parties stand idly by (some cheering from the sidelines).

      That Hancock and Johnson have set out to destroy the fitness industry in the supposed name of health is pathetic and nasty.

    2. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      = persuading us that the coming vast tax hikes and relentless personal control are actually due to something other than government gross negligence or worse in frittering away OUR money.
      Governments do not make money..they just steal and use our money!
      And they want more of it to prop up their banks and reduce the debts they have run up. They are presently working on ramping up inflation.
      BTW I reckon they want to deglobalise…and they will pretend it is Brexit.

      1. glen cullen
        October 15, 2020

        Correct – People are forgetting that it is this government emergency laws that got us into this mess

    3. Lifelogic
      October 15, 2020

      A lockdown that will just delay the infection slightly and cause more harm than good in the end anyway. This in economic and health terms.

  52. Ian @Barkham
    October 15, 2020

    latest MsM update but out of step with Sir John’s Blog. The UK to suffer electricity shortages in the coming days due to lack of wind.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      I hope to God there is no energy in a cold spell. We needs reality to wake people up.

    2. steve
      October 15, 2020

      See Boris Johnson – he’s full of wind.

  53. Ian @Barkham
    October 15, 2020

    I wish I was making this up! – from Conservative Woman

    – Another owner, perhaps keen to be rid of his petrol car, has applied to install a fast charger, only the second in a street of maybe 15 houses. The electricity company has turned him down because there is insufficient capacity on the local transformer.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 15, 2020

      There!
      Cars for the 1%.
      No one else!!!
      “The Great Reset“
      AKA “The Great Heist”
      And we 99% will be the ones PAYING …like we did WW1, WW2, 9/11, 2008, 2015 and no doubt many other times which have slowly, slowly dispossessed us.

    2. agricola
      October 15, 2020

      Looks like this is the outcome of an ill conceived drive to green, detatched from reality. There are many more inadequate realities to this green cause.

  54. Jack Falstaff
    October 15, 2020

    What matters now is Mr Johnson and Brexit.
    Here he is behaving like a ridiculous parent who tells his offspring of voting age to run out into the garden and hunt for Easter eggs.
    Worse still, none have even been placed there.
    At this juncture most people would find themselves driven to ask about who is in fact looking after who.

    1. steve
      October 15, 2020

      Jack Falstaff

      “What matters now is Mr Johnson and Brexit.”

      Johnson is now an irrelevance. He obviously lied when he said he would take the UK out of ‘negotiations’ with the EU on 15th.

      As for brexit he’s just buggered it up. The only thing that matters now is giving him and his party of gutless wimps the sack.

  55. Mark
    October 15, 2020

    “I worry that build back better just becomes a cover for more state control over our lives.”

    Well yes …some of us have been commenting on this for months – and the concept has been touted by the Green Blob and others for years….

    When will conservative politicians – specifically the current leadership – recognise the woke for the existential threat they present to our way of life.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2020

      They support the threat. Using logical deduction as taught by the great Baker St Detective.

  56. Sharon
    October 15, 2020

    Why has this been kept so quiet?

    https://capx.co/a-chilling-new-bill-risks-putting-the-british-state-above-the-law/

    Magna Carter states that no-one is above the law…why is this being changed?

    On top of everything else that is going on?????

    “Many of the Prime Minister’s supporters voted to leave the EU because of its suffocating legislation and this is not the Brexit Britain they had in mind. If Parliamentary democracy is not to be replaced by an increasingly permanent police state, which we cannot believe the Prime Minister or his Home Secretary really intend, the Government must think much harder at an early stage about the implications of this legislation.

    Boris Johnson and his government promised to tame the blob; are they really going to put it above the law? ”

  57. Fred H
    October 15, 2020

    How long before Westminster Houses are closed? Then triumph – Boris and Cabinet rules.
    The nearest we’ve got to a coup? Ready the Army you Generals!

    1. glen cullen
      October 15, 2020

      Polishing my boots awaiting the call

  58. Lynn Atkinson
    October 15, 2020

    The dingy people have a different agenda altogether. The EU is irrelevant to them. They are claiming the world for an entirely different God.

    1. glen cullen
      October 15, 2020

      Agree

  59. Roy Grainger
    October 15, 2020

    John: How could there possibly be *more* state control over our lives than we have already ? I’ve been told now I’m not allowed to invite anyone at all into my house.

    1. Simon Coleman
      October 16, 2020

      Why do people keep forgetting China? Their social credit system is the end-game of all these restrictions.

  60. Original Chris
    October 15, 2020

    Google the WEF, The Great Reset, Klaus Schwab (founder of WEF and executive chairman), his beliefs, and Matthew Hancock (his government presentation including working with Schwab). I had tried to post the details but it my comment has disappeared.

  61. forthurst
    October 15, 2020

    What is the Great Reset about? It is a rejection of neoliberalism on the grounds that it has enriched the few and failed to enable wealth to trickle down to the masses. What is being offered in its place? It would appear to be international corporatism. Would that be a good thing? Not necessarily.

    Successful entrepreneurs have often wanted to give back some of their wealth to provide a public benefit. This is something to be admired if it is not aimed at a favoured minority.
    Politicians should not rely on benefactors to do their job for them but nor should they sit idly by whilst some enrich themselves in ways that are contrary to any public purpose.

    The banking crash, when thieving banksters, many from Wall Street, caused great distress to the wider economy without being punished either financially or otherwise should have been the writing on the wall for neoliberalism. It prospers when gullible politicians allow themselves to be hoodwinked by economists who lack any communitarian concern as though life were no more than a game of Monopoly.

  62. Freeborn John
    October 15, 2020

    It’s time for Boris to get serious on Brexit and walk away. The EU Council are clearly calling his bluff ; he was asking for nothing of substance only that they negotiate intensively and they would not even agree to that. Instead they say the U.K. alone has to make what they consider the necessary moves, I.e. capitulation on all fronts. The number one problem in British diplomacy is an inability to say No; the belief that there must be some deal and that any deal, even surrender le on all fronts, is better than walking away from a bad deal. WTO trading is and always has been far superior to any deal on offer. The U.K. cannot trust the EU not to reinterpret any agreement we make with them in an extreme manner; we absolutely need independent WTO arbitration or will find for sure that the EU will play silly buggers at every chance with the ECJ always ruling in favour. We can’t have an “independent” British competiton authority that will really be under EU control. It’s time for Boris to walk away and he has to do it this Friday or the EU will be reinforced in their belief he is bluffing and will always cave to any demands they make.

  63. Alpipp
    October 15, 2020

    The conservative media is distracting us with ‘Looney Lefty” stories whilst Looney Boris burns our economy and our society. So here is what happens next Sir John. All regions adopt Tier3 … So it will be a national lockdown. Chancellor will give out a mortgage holiday and rent holiday. These holidays are effectively a default on loans. This is another Credit Crunch but this time at the consumer level. Bank’s balance sheets will be destroyed as will the government’s. So Chancellor will limit the amount of money people can withdraw from their banks. So we end up like Cyprus or Argentina. Suddenly cash machines will only let you draw down 50.00 a day. Watch it unfold …. And the Tory pres is asking us to criticise the looney left. When the country is bankrupt and there is NO private sector to pay off the government’s debt – it is Zimbabwe time and we will all become loonies. (pS. Amazon is private sector but loves state controlled capitalism as Amazon Isa monopoly and just wants to deal with single govs. So all the loonies who say – this is the message seen world “we to from home, shop online” are idiots – you are about to be asset stripped.

    1. Fred H
      October 15, 2020

      and China offers to buy the National Debt, if we agree to learn their language within 5 years.

  64. Bill B.
    October 15, 2020

    The Great Reset is about destroying the world we are familiar with, in favour of green globalist 4th Industrial Revolution technocratic fascism. Only incidentally about taxes.

    It’s clear what the plan is to anyone reading the World Economic Forum’s online material, helpfully called – The Great Reset.

    1. Anonymous
      October 15, 2020

      It’s clear what the plan is to anyone reading the World Economic Forum’s online material, helpfully called – The Great Reset.

      ….
      I have been subscribing to their Strategic Intel alerts since February and it has been like a running commentary on the revolution.

      1. Original Chris
        October 15, 2020

        Unfortunately Sir John will not allow my comment with quotes from Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF, about what he means by the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (of which our Matthew Hancock is apparently a devoted follower). What is planned for us in The Great Reset is hugely concerning, and it should not be swept under the carpet by apparent censorship.

        1. Original Chris
          October 16, 2020

          I withdraw above comment, starting “Unfortunately….”
          as my original comment has now been posted. Thank you.

        2. Anonymous
          October 16, 2020

          What is planned for us in The Great Reset is hugely concerning, and it should not be swept under the carpet by apparent censorship.


          Hitchens won’t mention it either, it is all very strange.

  65. steve
    October 15, 2020

    Sir JR

    What matters now is that Boris Johnson has gone back on his word, as of today, 15th October.

    I find it disgusting, in light of the fact that two British fishing boats were attacked by approximately twenty french vessels, in the English Channel during the early hours of Monday morning. Flairs and oil were fired at the two British boats.

    In summary I have only this to say to the conservatives – bloody cowards, we’re done with you.

  66. No Longer Anonymous
    October 15, 2020
    1. Martin in Cardiff
      October 15, 2020

      No, it’s just being ignored by anyone with a grain of sense.

      Most of the signatures are simply jokes, it appears.

      1. a-tracy
        October 16, 2020

        If that’s so Martin why don’t the BBC check it out and actually interview the real people that signed and get their point of view, not too difficult to trace I’m sure as you’re so confident you can spot the ‘joke signatures’.

        1. Edward2
          October 16, 2020

          Just a handful of bad signatures out of many thousands of experts who bravely signed the document.
          I wouldn’t be surprised if they were done deliberately as an attempt to discredit the 99% of genuine names.

      2. Simon Coleman
        October 16, 2020

        The Declaration is being suppressed. You haven’t done a scrap of research.

  67. XYXY
    October 15, 2020

    IR35 has hammered the incomes – and therefore the tax take – for hundreds of thousands of people who just want to get on and work without being part-time lawyers, looking over their shoulder all the time to see if the tax man is trying to pick their pocket.

    Being expected to pay both forms of NI (and Employers is by far the bigger, being 14% throughout income) is ridiculous.

    Scrap Employers NI. then everyone is just a worker, paying roughly the same taxes – and they can compete with their foreign counterparts on an equal basis too.

  68. Everhopeful
    October 15, 2020

    I suppose that really the question is, how far are you politicians prepared to go with all this?
    Thinking of terrible things in the past how many agencies will you allow to have the right of entry? How much more neighbour snitching will you encourage? How much more power will you give the army on the streets?
    Will you see people’s possessions confiscated on political grounds? People imprisoned for their beliefs/politics?
    How far? Whose orders will you obey? Those of the people who made you or those of whoever is actually in charge?

  69. Ian
    October 16, 2020

    Nothing is going to stop the betrayal of this Nation.

    How this in your face treachery ,Behaviour by those who promised to do our bidding ?

    Well yes you have been , and will continue to Destroy this Nation, simply because we had the temerity to vote to get out of that mess that is the EU.
    You are deliberately destroying Buisiness all over this Country, so that in the end we will not be compleating against the EU

    Will we be aloud another Vote, remember Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, they know all the what was the three parties is now all in the Tory party.
    Given the Establishment in both house’s is all Remainers

  70. Richard
    October 16, 2020

    The slogan”Build Back Better”was rolled out at about the same time by Biden, Boris, Justin Trudeau in Canada, Imran Khan in Pakistan – no doubt elsewhere too.

    So who is telling these governments which slogans to use?
    Why are lots & lots of policies being rolled out around the world in almost identical ways?

    Many governments in supposedly democratic countries now clearly seem to be marching in “Lockstep”.

    1. ab
      October 17, 2020

      Many governments in supposedly democratic countries now clearly seem to be marching in “Lockstep”.


      as Rockerfellow demanded?

  71. Edwin
    October 16, 2020

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12944847/just-0-05-healthy-under-70s-coronavirus-die/#comments

    JUST 0.05 per cent of healthy people under the age of 70 who are infected with coronavirus will die from it, a study has claimed.

    New research from Stanford University suggests Covid-19 infection-fatality rate (IFR) could be much lower than previously estimated.

  72. Simon Coleman
    October 16, 2020

    Build back better is a globalist slogan, used by Biden and originating, I think, in some UN climate change agency. It stands for a complete revolution in our economy and society. Only certain jobs will be deemed useful and only people who consent to becoming digitally-controlled citizens will be allowed the limited benefits that the state will offer.

    1. Anonymous
      October 18, 2020

      Build back better is a globalist slogan


      Marxist slogan

  73. Anonymous
    October 18, 2020

    ‘The Great Reset’: World leaders to harness COVID and pursue ‘sinister’ climate agenda

    https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6199544116001

  74. Anonymous
    October 18, 2020

    Andy is saying Boris is lying about ICU
    Gove judges Andy by his own standards and says he is posturing when we all know he is not.

  75. Adrian Thornton
    October 19, 2020

    Thank you for your excellent blogs, they do seem to be a voice of reason within the Brexit arena, I wish you could put our mind at rest in relation to the Covid issue though.
    The ‘build back better’ slogan is starting to frighten me as not only is it being used by the UK Government, it is also used by Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Imran Khan and now, since winning the election in NZ, Jacinda Ardern is using it too.
    This ‘smacks’ of pressure from some sort of central control and a much wider reset agenda.

    1. Anonymous
      October 20, 2020

      This ‘smacks’ of pressure from some sort of central control and a much wider reset agenda.

      ….
      They have all been reading a script for months, word for word identical.

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