Paying the bills

I see in the press stories about alleged tensions between the Treasury and the PMā€™s Office about the magnitude of future bills and Ā the affordability of the governmentā€™s programme. I agree with the PM that the U.K. should be willing to pay to support the economy, individuals and business all Ā the time some jobs are banned and businesses shut to contain the pandemic. The Treasury largely did this but was unhelpful to some small businesses and the self employed for no good reason and is reluctant to continue the support for the delay in Freedom day. The budget deficit last year was very large but came out well below Treasury forecasts. It is highly likely it will contract quickly as soon as we have a full and vigorous recovery. Threatening tax rises or ill judged spending cuts now will delay recovery and might worsen the deficit.

It is however important the Treasury Ā provides a voice for value for money and for sensible priorities on spending. Letā€™s look at a couple of the alleged battles looming up.

 

The first is the issue of the next upgrading of the Retirement pension. The Conservative Manifesto promised to maintain the triple lock, which says the pension will go up by the largest of Ā 2.5%, inflation or average wages. Most of us Conservative MPs want to keep the promise. This April wage growth hit 8.4%, showing how distorted the figures are by the affects on the base from lockdown and massive shedding of lower paid jobs during the emergency. Most people have had nothing like a 8.4% pay rise. Maybe as we see the next few months figures some of the distortion will unwind, removing the anomaly. Maybe the July Ā figures which will be used for the September pension updating will still flatter.

 

If the Treasury wants Ā to rid itself for one year of the wages part of the triple lock then it needs to tell us why and what it thinks would be a fairer figure. It should consult and trust the public. It should not simply insist Ā on tearing Ā up a Manifesto promise. It would need to set out what it thinks the underlying increase in wages and living standards is adjusted for the distortions on the CV 19 labour market and see if enough of the public agrees before venturing change. Clearly recent figures for wages are not a good representation of a general increase in income which the triple lock was designed to copy for pensions.

We also read that the Treasury is not in favour of a new U.K. ship to help represent us diplomatically and commercially around the world.The capital cost is modest relative to the HMG capital budget and the costs will be spread over several years. The vessel must be built in the U.K. which would generate some offsetting tax receipts. It is strange the Treasury did not sort this out before No Ā 10 briefed all the main outlets and released an illustrative picture. Sometimes you should be bold and spend a bit to boost future business and influence. Such spending would be better than a bigger advertising budget for example. The Treasury could find more offsets.

 

The big changes that come from ending lockdown must result in early and big savings. Ending all the special support measures and cutting back all Covid related spending should make a big difference. Implementing the ideas I and others have put forward to get more discipline and control into quango budgets would also help. Controlling public spending is hard graft and lots of detail. The Treasury needs to work away at raising productivity and getting better value for money whilst not cutting priority spending on health or education or promoting a strong U.K. recovery.

187 Comments

  1. Everhopeful
    June 21, 2021

    Ah well..we can be totally certain that the Triple Lock will go then!
    After allā€¦ today is Freedom Day.

    1. J Bush
      June 21, 2021

      Aye, it probably will. Despite the fact their policies managed to kill off over 100,000 of them over the last 15 months.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 21, 2021

        Exactly.
        +1

    2. Peter
      June 21, 2021

      The U.K. state pension is the worst in the developed world and we have the highest retirement age.

      This is widely known. So remove the triple lock and lose the pensioner vote.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 21, 2021

        +1

    3. Peter
      June 21, 2021

      I donā€™t read much into an early by-election result and I doubt the government will take notice until the run in to the next general election anyway.

      However, the cumulative effects of all these policies might be sufficient to undermine the present Conservative party. This would be a good thing as it would remove the safe option for careerists looking for an easy ride in politics.

      If all three parties – LibLabCon – were completely broken, something better could eventually emerge from the wreckage.

  2. Everhopeful
    June 21, 2021

    How can we have a full and vigorous recovery if we are kept under lock and key?
    And bogus promises are made that cost businesses money..thinking they will reopen on a particular date and shelling out in preparation.
    And what about the businesses that have already gone to the wall?
    And what about the new imprisonment reported to be on the cards in Autumn?
    How on earth can we recoverā€¦ever?

    1. J Bush
      June 21, 2021

      +1
      It would appear this is one of the essential elements of the “great reset” to “build back better” and the plebs should shut up and stop complaining!
      I get the impression the Johnson mob are somewhat frustrated at the resilience of these remaining small businesses. Not enough have gone to the wall! So they will keep ‘finding’ mutants to justify more lockdowns, until they are all but gone, and then they will probably basically ‘outlaw’ the remaining few.
      Cynical? You bet I am.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 21, 2021

        I reckon you are 100% correct!
        Hopefully some businesses will open today anyway?
        They may not have quite subdued us enough for compliance with China.

  3. Newmania
    June 21, 2021

    We have had a long period in which the Government, encouraged by Sir John Redwood and his fellow hollow eyed debt addicts, has forced us all to borrow money to spend on Brexit and ( forgivably ) Covid. This largely accounts for the prodigious poll lead they enjoy.
    The state of public finances is now so serious that retrenchment is unavoidable, and the idea it can be achieved by cutting back on paper clips is a fantasy. Either we must have serious cuts or serious tax rises and it will probably be both.
    As a long term reader of John Rewood`s blog, I known almost all his statistical tricks, and I look forward to seeing the same presentational panache he employed when he was a sensible defender of George Osborne`s so called Austerity. The main thing is that Fiscal sanity is restored , if we go on like this disaster is not far away

    Reply I did not support Osborneā€™s policy and campaigned on my slogan Prosperity not austerity. I will not use any numerical tricks. A strong recovery is the best way to get the deficit down

    1. MFD
      June 21, 2021

      Well said Sir, a good answer to a left wing troll

    2. Bill B.
      June 21, 2021

      Newmania, as long as it’s thought ‘forgivable’ to blow billions of Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£ on paying for measures that ruin people’s lives and livelihoods, young people’s education and normal social relations, with no cost/benefit analysis, disaster is indeed not far away.

      If you care about statistical tricks, look no further than Whitty and Vallance on TV.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 21, 2021

        +1

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      June 21, 2021

      Reply to reply

      Then join us on the march on the 26th without your mask.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 21, 2021

        +1

      2. Peter
        June 21, 2021

        NLA,

        Portland Place? Just donā€™t expect the BBC to report on an event quite literally on its doorstep.

    4. Richard1
      June 21, 2021

      excellent article by Matt Ridley in todays Telegraph on statistical nonsense. He draws attention to the parallel between the focus placed on the most hysterical forecasts for Covid as for global warming. forecasts are mistakenly treated as real-world data, real world data are then ignored when they contradict forecasts and bad policy is adopted as a result.

      That Prof neil Ferguson who has been so wrong on Covid, and who forecast ‘millions’ of deaths from BSE in the 90s (outturn -178), is still so prominent in the govt’s counsels and in the media is remarkable.

      1. MiC
        June 21, 2021

        He did not forecast “millions” of deaths from BSE.

        He said, quite correctly, that since the level of exposure of the population to the prion was very high, the latency period was unknown, and the incidence of nvCJD in relation to exposure was also unknown that it was *possible* that there could be very large numbers of dead.

        Try to grow out of the Infantile Absolutism.

        1. Peter2
          June 21, 2021

          MiC
          Not just wrong on BSE
          Do some research before you resort to your own ” infantile absolutism”

    5. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @NewMania

      The state of public finances is now so serious that retrenchment is unavoidable

      Yet, weirdly, that is not the case. We are in a new world of a base rate of 0.1% and the Bank of England printing money to buy up government debt on the secondary market – and the government paying itself interest on the debt. Lewis Carroll would approve of this new world.

      1. acorn
        June 21, 2021

        One day you lot will understand how a fiat currency economy actually works; I should live that long. You need to understand the difference between the fiat currency ISSUER (government Treasury) and the currency USERS (the non-government private sector).

        The UK’s fiscal “unit of account” is called the Pound Sterling. These are born brand new every day the government spends. Every day HMRC taxes the USERS when they spend, and sends those units of account back to the currency ISSUER to be executed. Taxes are not recycled.

        The bit of the Treasury that gives birth to Pounds and executes them when they come back from HMRC is called the National Loans Fund; or, as some call it, the magic money tree. It has the unique ability to create Pound Sterling deposits in individuals bank accounts as often as it likes. It would like those individuals to spend those Pounds quickly and not save them where they can’t be taxed.

        The more you save the bigger the currency ISSUER’s outstanding “units of account”. Fortunately the ISSUER can wait for ever to get its Pounds back. So don’t expect your children or your grandchildren to be in any hurry to pay back the deficit Grandad created. Hopefully by then, they will understand how a fiat currency actually works and how it should be used to maximise the output from the resources available in our economy.

      2. Dennis
        June 21, 2021

        Has anyone heard that the UK’s financial sector is too big which depresses the economy and it is estimated that since 1995 to around 2015 the economy has lost Ā£4+ trillion?

    6. Lifelogic
      June 21, 2021

      A strong recovery requires a much smaller state, a bonfire or red tape, a sound currency, low inflation, cheap reliable energy, far less green crap, no net zero carbon, easy hire and fire, related planing, lower simpler taxes, a competent health care system, police who tackle and deter real crimes …

      No sign of any of this from Boris or Sunak, the complete reverse in fact.

      1. Lifelogic
        June 21, 2021

        And no more lockdown!

    7. acorn
      June 21, 2021

      Newmania, there is no crisis in public finances. The government is not going to run out of Pounds Stirling to pay any bill presented to it in its own currency, Pounds Sterling. The only worry it has is if it injects too many of its Pounds into an economy that has run out of capacity to deliver goods and services, inducing inflation.

      Have a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/timeseries/bkqa/pusf?referrer=search&searchTerm=bkqa Look at what happened in August 2008 when the Treasury was forced to inject Ā£2,000 billion into the Banks while holding the rest of the economy down to Ā£1,000 billion. Ā£3,000 billion in total. Households had no idea what was going on and nobody was going to tell them.

      Then have a look at the cost of Covid from Feb 2020 to Apr 2021. Ā£431 billion so far. The only debt the Treasury has to worry about are those it holds in foreign currencies, particularly US Dollars, like some South American countries.

      1. Peter2
        June 21, 2021

        Ah the Zimbabwe School of Economics
        Keep on printing.

    8. Original Richard
      June 21, 2021

      Newmania, Brexit will save us.

      We will continue to be able to elect and remove those who govern us, unlike those who live in the EU, a situation which will only get worse as the EU expands eastwards and the QMVs of the net recipients are always larger than those of the net contributors.

      Brexit will enable us to reduce the Ā£100bn/YEAR trading deficit we currently have with the EU. In addition, we will no longer be major contributors to an EU budget which is used to develop competitors’ infrastructure and subsidise corporates to move their factories out of the UK.

      We will be able to plan ahead our country’s institutions and infrastructure by knowing our population size whilst as a member of the EU with open borders this is not possible and is likely to increase enormously as the EU continues its expansion.

      1. MiC
        June 21, 2021

        Note to rational people.

        This contributor actually believes what he has written, it appears.

        1. Peter2
          June 21, 2021

          Why not, you do MiC and you post your nonsense 20 times a day.

  4. turboterrier
    June 21, 2021

    When departments start to hold back funding it is upto those want to see more financial support to prove that the support requested has been well budgeted for and any waste issues have been properly addressed..How many ministers can say that all matters regarding waste have been fully addressed within their remit?
    The taxpayers have got to see that we are getting value for money when all the demands made will be met by us. If all the vanity projects that keep being proposed are properly costed and going to bring real value to UKplc then maybe it is worth the hit. But they never are and never have been. The new Britannia like HS2 should have been completed years ago, now the world has really changed and moved on and the ideas and technology are out of date. The ship could be a showcase for hydrogen propulsion and British technology in that field, but our competitors have already come out of the blocks and are sprinting. Too little too late comes to mind.

    1. Lester
      June 21, 2021

      TT

      Why not good old fashioned Fossil Fuel?

      Hydrogen requires an immense amount of electricity to produce, is very dangerous.. the Hindenburg springs to mindā€¦.

      1. Bryan Harris
        June 21, 2021

        Lester +10

      2. nota#
        June 21, 2021

        @Lester – that’s exactly why the UK is one of the only developed Countries that is not perusing Hydrogen and is relying on batteries who’s components according to the UN are produced by children and slave labour. Of course batteries are not charged by electricity.

        1. Lester
          June 21, 2021

          Nota#
          And what is wrong with Fossil Fuel?

          Why all expenditure on alternatives?

          Global warming/climate change is a myth

      3. nota#
        June 21, 2021

        @Lester – the problem there is Transport for London has been comfortable using Hydrogen for years along with the Mayors office. Even Edinburgh’s transport network now have vehicles having knocked up over 100K miles on Hydrogen. Its just Boris’s desire to ‘virtue signal’ his desire for batteries that is astray from reality – the headline is mor important than the substance.

        1. Dennis
          June 21, 2021

          I remember some years ago that Reykjavik had one hydrogen bus – any news how many now and how it’s working out?

      4. Fedupsoutherner
        June 21, 2021

        Lester. Reading Turbo’s previous posts I understand he is all for continuing with fossil fuels but seeing as every party in the UK is adamant we have to cut out fossil fuels altogether is there any other real alternative than hydrogen to run our vehicles? It’s got to be better than electric and will be more popular providing the costs can be kept to a minumum. Who wants to wait for hours for your car to be usable again?

        1. Lester
          June 21, 2021

          Fedupsoutherner

          The whole question of global warming/climate change is a myth!

          Fossil fuels are great!

          1. MFD
            June 21, 2021

            +1

      5. Mitchel
        June 21, 2021

        Talking of fossil fuels,European natural gas prices(TTF one month fwd) hit a twelve-and-a-half year high last week.

      6. Lifelogicc
        June 22, 2021

        Hydrogen is just a very energy inefficient battery as we have no hydrogen mines or wells. Electricity to create hydrogen from water, to compression & expensive storage, then converted back to electricity or burnt as heat is a hugely inefficient overall process.

  5. agricola
    June 21, 2021

    The Treasury is not a centre of enterprise, nor does it understand the concept. It is a leech on the back of anyone trying to be enterprising. It taxes every effort to be enterprising and death in the final resort. Much is done at the behest of government who hold the key. Ask this government whether they wish through the Treasury to control anf feed on the population while giving poor value for money and they will of course deny it, but that is the reality of what they will do.

    A ship called Brittania or the Duke of Edinburgh could be a floating Crystal Palace, advertising UK enterprise worldwide, but do not expect a Treasury, who have never sold an apple from a barrow on a wet Saturday, to rise to the occassion. Do not allow them praise for supporting the economy during Covid. They merely borrowed on political instruction, large sums, Ā£34,000 per capita by report that Joe Public will ultimately have to repay. No sign as yet that government will cut its own spending or has any real wish to create an enterprise culture, either of which could go a long way to reduce the balance of payments and the debt. Covid will come and go but the wet hand of the Treasury will remain, never having acknowledged a better way in thought or deed.

  6. DOM
    June 21, 2021

    With all due respect this is Keynesian nonsense. In effect, a State driven politics that sees the taxpayer as the financier of party interest and a political State rather than the financier of an apolitical, non-partisan State focused on delivering important public services to the end user.

    It is obvious to most on here that John’s party couldn’t give a rat’s posterior about the taxpayer and care only for abusing the taxpayer in whatever way it can to advance the interests of his party.

    The public debts built up by both main parties are evidence to their determination to buy public compliance at all costs.

    Reform doesn’t pass the lips of many Tory MPs for reform involves a conflict with Labour’s public sector and that would damage Tory party interests.

    John’s party has taken a decision to protect party above private person by passing on all costs to the civilian in higher taxes and obliterated liberties and freedoms. I am sorry, but that is despicable, vile and deplorable

    It’s very telling that the explosive proliferation of a form of politics obsessed with race and gender has happened under John’s party. That is Tory party capture by cultural Marxists and the Labour aligned identity lobby on a scale that will undermine this nation and our freedoms.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 21, 2021

      Exactly.

      But increasing tax rates from the current levels (we have the highest taxes for 70 years and generally appalling and declining public services too) will slowly kill the tax base and this raise less tax not more. The Net Zero, a government enforced religion will make this even worse.

      1. Lifelogic
        June 21, 2021

        Matt Ridley today in the Telegraph is surely right as usual.

        ā€œFlawed modelling condemns us to lockdown.
        On Covid and climate change, a preference for forecasts over real-world data is costing us dearlyā€

        Not just sensible modelling either but clearly modelling by group think fools, crooks, con artists &/or people with clear political agendas or vested interests in grants, jobs or other. Done often by people with a record of very many proven duff past modelling errors.

        1. Christine
          June 21, 2021

          +1

      2. Lifelogic
        June 21, 2021

        So this is what the gov are considering it seems – reducing the pensions lifetime allowance from a little above Ā£1 million to Ā£800,000 or Ā£900,000, lowering the point above which extra 55% tax charges kick in and or restricting tax relief to basic rate. This make pension contributions rather pointless if you are going to be in higher rates at drawdown.

        “Our job is to keep people out of poverty, not to enrich the middle classes,” said a senior government source familiar with the proposals, which are still at the exploratory stage.

        It is not government enriching anyone you damn fool – it is government mugging and and robbing the middle classes then pissing it down the drain on salaries and pensions for idiots like this deluded “senior government source”!

        1. graham1946
          June 21, 2021

          Most people do not earn much more than a million gross for a whole lifetime of work, let alone have a million or a million and a half to put aside for old age. With that sort of money, why do you want a pension, other than as a tax reducing vehicle? If I was a youngster starting now, with a choice, no way would I start a pension scheme just to get some tax advantage, the risks are too great and the insurance companies and banks are no longer trustworthy. I’d save and keep control of my own money, even with an ISA for example. The ‘professional’ investors have a terrible record. When I was in my prime the insurance companies paid out decent pensions for say Ā£100,000. When I came to retire that had been blown and now you’d be lucky to get Ā£4,000 per year for that investment. The tax may not be paid when putting in the contributions, but it sure as hell will be when you start to draw. In an ISA it would be drawn down tax free and who knows what the rates will be in years to come?

          1. Lifelogic
            June 21, 2021

            The problem with starting a pension is the government keep moving the goal posts. But now with “workplace pensions” you almost forced to fund a pension and your employer is too.

          2. MiC
            June 21, 2021

            With the pathetic annuity rates in recent years Ā£1 million might well have given you a Ā£25k pension with widow’s benefits etc. at times.

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          June 21, 2021

          Well said L/L and Dom

    2. agricola
      June 21, 2021

      Well said DOM. It leaves a hole in UK politics that was similar to the hole in the drive to Brexit, first filled by UKIP and then by the Brexit Party. When you look at the speed with which the Brexit Party filled the vaccume in EU parliamentary politics at a crucial time, it indicates that there is time to close the gap berween UK politics and UK people.

    3. MiC
      June 21, 2021

      What is a “cultural Marxist”, please?

      1. MiC
        June 21, 2021

        I mean, does it follow the same semantic morphism of “vegetarian atheist”, “musical mathematician”, “sociable venture capitalist” etc.?

      2. MiC
        June 21, 2021

        Or is it just another nonsense like “physical trombonist”, “electrochemical conjurer”, “political dog-walker” etc.?

        1. Micky Taking
          June 21, 2021

          Or ‘compulsive nonsense writer’, ‘irrational verbal diarrhea-ist’ even ‘paranoid psychosis sufferer’. ?

          1. Peter2
            June 21, 2021

            Martin should change his name again from MiC to TwentypostdailyMartin

        2. No Longer Anonymous
          June 21, 2021

          Or Starmer Prime Minister, MiC.

          Labour slapped into outer space, not because the Tories are good but because of sneering from the liberal elite.

          Having said that, Boris has now been rumbled and is a liability, it seems.

          His breaking of the Freedom Day promise whilst living it up at the G7 with one rule for them and another for the rest of us (with masked up proles in attendance in the background) is a disaster politically, economically and for freedom.

          I expect this was the straw that broke the camel’s back in Amersham and Chesham and why the by-election was such an unexpected thunder bolt (another one for your list of morphisms.)

      3. Mike Wilson
        June 21, 2021

        @MiCk

        A ‘cultural marxist’? What could that mean? Not withstanding what Marx actually wrote and stood for, generally ‘Marxism’ is regarded as a system where the state controls and runs everything – particularly the means of production and, of course, the distribution of wealth.

        A cultural marxist is someone who believes their view of the culture we should all adopt and live by is absolute and not open to challenge. Or, to make it more simple for you, a ‘cultural marxist’ is someone who imposes their views on you and refuses to consider that any view different from their own has any validity.

        I think you are the perfect example of a cultural marxist. So, if you want to see what one looks like, stand in front of a mirror and marvel at your own superiority.

        1. MiC
          June 21, 2021

          So, nothing whatsoever to do with anything that Marx wrote then, just an ignorant invention of the Right, a label, for attaching to people, but with no evidence as to what their intentions might be anyway, like “traitor”, and the rest of the groundless slurs.

          Thanks.

          1. Peter2
            June 21, 2021

            MiC
            Your reply actually proves Mike Wilson is right.
            Hilarious.

          2. dixie
            June 22, 2021

            Someone offers a considered reply and all you can do is vomit your usual slurs and rubbish.

        2. dixie
          June 22, 2021

          +1

  7. Sea_Warrior
    June 21, 2021

    My sea warrior’s pension only has a single lock: inflation – and that should be good enough for anyone with the public finances in such a mess.
    I read the Sunday Times with mounting anger. I would have thought that the Cummings-induced chaos, evident in the staffing of the OneWeb decision, would now be reduced. But no, it looks like the government remains completely dysfunctional. Boris needs winkling out of No 10. And Sunak has ample grounds to resign on a point of principle. This conservative can’t remember a time when we were governed more badly.

    1. MiC
      June 21, 2021

      Can you *never* just calm down?

    2. MWB
      June 21, 2021

      Your sea warrior’s pension will be a lot better than the state pension, which is the worst in the developed world.
      I thought we were supposed to be the world’s 5th or 6th richest country. Where’s it all going ?
      Being spent on silly vanity projects or on immigrant benefits perhaps ?

      1. Sea_Warrior
        June 21, 2021

        I can’t think of a single one of my elderly relatives who is having to live off the tate pension alone – probably because they all worked, and have occupational pensions as well.

        1. MWB
          June 21, 2021

          Yes, I worked for 40 years and have a very good pension, but some people do live off the state pension alone.

      2. Lifelogic
        June 21, 2021

        Or net zero lunacy or gold plated state sector pensions for people “working” from home.

      3. Mike Wilson
        June 21, 2021

        @MWB

        Being spent on silly vanity projects

        Like Ā£200 million on a silly boat for royalty and Boris to preen themselves on?

  8. Lifelogic
    June 21, 2021

    To pay the bills we need to stop pissing money down the drain. Things life HS2, lockdown, new zero all need to go for a start. About 50% of civil servants and gov. could go as most do nothing of value and so many do positive harm.

    As to the triple lock then working on an annual basis (of wage increases or inflation) creates anomalies but the principle is fair. You really need to use at an inflation, wages and a 2.5% index figure this since the system started. But I note they are cutting the pension bill by no longer paying at age 60 or 65 so all ready they are cheating on the deal in another back door tax) Elsewhere Sunak is continuing the private pension muggings (started by the dire Gordon Brown and continued/increased by Darling, Osborne, Hammond, Javid and now Socialist Sunak) with his contribution restrictions, frozen lifetime limits and 55% over limit taxes. Needless to say DB schemes such as MP have more generous rules. One rule for you another for the state sector pensions you pay.

    We already have the highest taxes for about 70 years. Increasing rates further from here will not increase the tax take it is more likely to make the UK uncompetitive and decrease the tax base. Especially if they stick to the insane Net Zero expensive intermittent energy policy.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 21, 2021

      The state must however have saved rather a lot of pension outgoing due to the many Covid deaths (augmented by dumping infected people into care homes, denial of NHS intensive care treatment to the majority who died and the negligent gender discrimination in the vaccination order by over 1000).

      100,000 deaths perhaps 10 years early on average saves gov. up to about Ā£7 billion on the state pension and perhaps about another Ā£2bn on state sector gold plated DB pensions. Almost enough to pay for recent increases in the costs of the moronic HS2 project!

    2. Lifelogic
      June 21, 2021

      Net Zero CO2!

  9. Nig l
    June 21, 2021

    You sound like a businessman turned politician. Shame there arenā€™t a lot more. And in other news the cost of HS 2 has risen by over Ā£1 billion, more money peed down the drain, a report says WFH will savage city centre economies yet this woke government seems to think thatā€™s ok or doesnā€™t have a coherent policy.

    And finally from a sample of 24000 people returning from amber countries, zero Covid variants have been found meaning quarantining has been a total waste of time. So much for the rubbish spouted by Shapps.

    I fear this government is looking increasingly shambolic.

  10. Old Albion
    June 21, 2021

    “Most people have had nothing like a 8.4% pay rise”
    Certainly most public sector workers haven’t. Not MP’s though, eight pay increases in the last ten years. Notably Ā£7000 P/A in 2015.
    It’s alright for some !

    1. Joshua
      June 21, 2021

      Plus the Ā£10,000 per MP for setting up of working from home.

      Reply I am working on the same computer and link that I had pre covid

  11. Ian Wragg
    June 21, 2021

    Of course the Treasury don’t support the building of a ship to promote Britain. It is stuffed with euro centric people who if Brussels proposed it they would be most enthusiastic..
    Freedom day delayed and already we are searching for the Epsilon version for the next excuse.

    1. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @Ian Wragg

      Of course the Treasury donā€™t support the building of a ship to promote Britain.

      Oh pleaseeeeee – seriously? What other country goes round with a little boat with flags on to promote their country. Why do we need to promote our country. Half the bloody world already wants to live here. If our goods and services are good enough – other countries will buy them. If not, having Boris or ‘her majesty’ in port on a little boat that will be dwarfed by an decent billionaires boat, will be simply embarrassing. Do we not have anything better to spend Ā£200 million on? Hey, maybe we could just not spend it and not add that to ever growing debt pile for our great, great grandchildren to repay.

      1. Stred
        June 22, 2021

        How will sending woke royalty on a posh boat impress landlocked countries, or when docking it in ports which are not capitals? The only thing that foreigners will be impressed by is our wastefulness and stupidity.

    2. ĪµĻ†Ī½ĪµĻ
      June 22, 2021

      On 16 June, there are already variants up to Ī».

  12. Lifelogicc
    June 21, 2021

    ā€œIt should not simply insist on tearing up a Manifesto promiseā€ well the manifesto promises that need tearing up are many – start with the green crap and HS2. Sunak has already broken the manifesto tax promises with his slight of hand and backdoor increases in Income tax, National Insurance and VAT. Plus attacking entrepreneurs, increasing corporation tax and council taxes hugely and raiding pensions savings yet again. Just cut out all the gov. waste mate there is so much of it to cut.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 21, 2021

      I had not realised that is was a “Cast-Iron” pledge from Boris on (27/11/19) rather like the Cameron con trick. This cast iron can be so brittle it seems.

      “BORIS Johnson today unveils a cast-iron pledge to freeze income, VAT and National Insurance if he is re-elected as Prime Minister”.

      1. Lester
        June 21, 2021

        Lifelogic

        Cast iron is well known to be extremely brittle!

      2. Hat man
        June 21, 2021

        So now we know, Lifelogic. He will never be reelected ‘as Prime Minister’, so we can forget that pledge.

        The way things are going, who would want to be a Conservative MP standing in the next election?

  13. Alan Jutson
    June 21, 2021

    Rather than starting from where we are, Government should rethink and start again with a clean sheet of paper.

    It could be an opportunity to reset Government thinking on the whole range of taxes, benefits and the like, but this is unlikely, so I guess it will be tinkering around the edges again, with waste still rife, and Quango’s still alive and doing rather well !.

  14. Roy Grainger
    June 21, 2021

    Re the Ā£200m ship: “It is strange the Treasury did not sort this out before No 10 briefed all the main outlets and released an illustrative picture.” The newspapers suggest that the Treasury weren’t told about the plan, so couldn’t “sort it out”, and in any case the PM can simply overrule the Treasury. For example the Treasury have briefed that some Covid support packages will be phased out in July irresepective of unlocking, but they won’t be, when the lockdown is extended again to August, and then September, and then March 2022, the support packages will be too.

    Reply Unlikely Treasury unaware of such a newswrthy item

  15. Sir Joe Soap
    June 21, 2021

    Well there’s an opportunity right now to either press a reset button for enterprise or the Carry on Spending button.

    1 Thatcherite instinct says the triple lock was folly anyway, so why argue the toss about wage or price inflation? Just get a realistic inflation measure for basics, which the state pension was supposed to cover, and stick to that. Probably 6-8% at the moment anyway.

    2 The 6-8% inflation level leads to an indexation argument, whereby indexation relief should return to capital gains tax.

    3 Borrowing needs to be labelled a failure of government rather than a positive result in voters’ minds. Increasing interest rates, which hopefully will be forced on this government shortly by aforementioned inflation, should do that job for us.

  16. Bryan Harris
    June 21, 2021

    It may seem fashionable for the Treasury to raid pensions, but they should stick with promises made. The reason why the triple lock was put in place was due to the poverty of some pensioners and the pathetic pension they pick up.

    Those who had to stay at home during lockdown will have had a very slight experience of what it means in today’s Britain to be an impoverished pensioner. Apart from the boredom of not leaving the house too often, even if you had the opportunity for a day out and everything wasn’t closed, it would have been too expensive.

    Pensioners are a deprived species in the UK, pottering around from day to day, trying to find something useful to do, unable to manage the experience or cost of excursions. With age comes physical problems, and I don’t see anyone ready to help pensioners with their gardens or other jobs around the house they cannot do. Instead they have to save up, forget any days out, and use their pathetic income to pay others to do the things required just to keep things orderly.
    In other words pensioners have little chance to enjoy life, and live day to day as the world becomes ever more expensive for them.

    Nobody, certainly not pensioners should be penalised for the debt incurred by government — Tax rises are certainly not the way to balance the books — The debt has to be paid off by government initiative to make us grow and be profitable. Anything else would just be passing the buck.

    Any more lockdowns and of course all of this becomes irrelevant as businesses will fail and our debt will become completely unmanageable. If we are to survive as a nation, we must have an alternative to the new normal lockdowns.

  17. Enigma
    June 21, 2021

    Sunday Telegraph 20th June 2021. Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said he would not let a small, vocal minority undermine our freedom of expression.
    A free and diverse media and the right to dissent make a healthy democracy.
    Across the West our values of tolerance and freedom of expression for which previous generations fought and died are being undermined by this small vocal minority. He would not stand by and watch that happen.

    This is the same Oliver Dowden who said social networking sites must do more to police the spread of anti-vaccine and anti-5g ā€œpropagandaā€ and suggested that spreading ā€œliesā€ about these topics online could become illegal, and that social media companies should take down this material.

    This is because there is an official narrative on vaccines and 5g (and lockdown) and anyone who disagrees with this narrative ā€˜spreads propagandaā€™, ā€˜tells liesā€™ and must be silenced. Many doctors are speaking out about their concerns about the as yet unapproved vaccines currently being rushed out, but their voices are being silenced. In March 2021 Judicial Review proceedings against 5g were lodged in the High Court in what will be a landmark case, yet we are forbidden to talk about it.

    It is OK for pharmaceutical companies, the NHS and government to spread misinformation about these topics because they fit with the official narrative, but not OK for anyone else to use their freedom of expression. What an insult to those previous generations who fought and died, and what a hypocrite Oliver Dowden is. Can he not see that he is part of the small vocal minority and that perhaps it is not so small after all as it has clearly taken over the government.

  18. glen cullen
    June 21, 2021

    Financial Times reporting that the cost of HS2 is forecasted to increase again by Ā£1.7bnā€¦ā€¦we must be a very very rich country

    1. Alan Jutson
      June 21, 2021

      Glen

      I just wonder who is going to use it.
      Why would people live in a high cost area like Lond0n, to travel to a low cost area with lower wages to work in Birmingham.
      Yet again it will be used the opposite way around if used at all, I suppose it depends upon the cost of the fare and how that cost compares to existing routes.

    2. nota#
      June 21, 2021

      @glen cullen – yes very rich. ‘virtue signalling’ is always without cost. Cost analysis has no place in this Government. I think it is a spin off from the war against Covid were you chuck everything at it, turning into we can do the same for our ego trips.

    3. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @glen cullen

      Just Ā£1,700,000,000? Just the one thousand, seven hundred – million pounds. What a bargain.

      I have an image in my mind I cannot shake – the lads all clocking off at the end of a hard day digging with their giant excavators – and all traipsing outside the site gates to the line of Rolls Royces and Bentleys owned by everyone working on HS2.

      1. glen cullen
        June 21, 2021

        Well I suppose the money’s got to go somewhere……this governments printing so much !

  19. Andy
    June 21, 2021

    The Triple Lock is the most obscene waste of money. It is a fact that pensioners are the richest demographic in this country. Sure – there are some poor pensioners. But many are comfortably off. And who wouldnā€™t be comfortably off when youā€™ve bought at least one massive house – now worth several hundred thousand pounds – for Ā£1.59 back in 1972. ā€œIt was a lot of money back thenā€¦ā€. CHANGE. THE. RECORD. And then they get gifted almost a couple of hundred quid a week from the state just because they are old. It is completely obscene.

    This government merrily cut huge amounts of spending to the young. It wonā€™t, for example, spend what needs to be spent on school catchup. Consigning hundreds of thousands of children to the scrap heap. It will not help the many self employed people – millions have had nothing. It has axed swathes of intentional aid – literally -killing hundreds of thousands of mostly poor brown kids in other countries in the process. But woe betide if granny doesnā€™t get more of my cash she wonā€™t be able to afford her 7th cruise of the yearā€¦

    It is obscene.

    1. Bryan Harris
      June 21, 2021

      Andy – Your understanding and comments are obscene.

      The Triple Lock is the most obscene waste of money.

      I would like to see how you manage on the paltry income some pensioners get, should you reach retirement age – I’m not talking about the ones with gilded pensions, but your average worker…………….. You’d be squealing like a fat pig running away from a butcher if you had to live as pensioners do with a distinctly risible income.

      1. Dave Andrews
        June 21, 2021

        So do you advocate piling debt on to the next generation to pay for it?
        Sure, you should get something for all the years you paid tax in, and a bit more if only the government didn’t waste so much on vanity projects and an excessive public sector.

        1. Bryan Harris
          June 22, 2021

          @Dave Andrews

          So do you advocate piling debt on to the next generation to pay for it?

          Whatever gave you such an idea? That is what blair and subsequent governments have done in piling up the debt – I certainly do not go along with that – See my main post.

          Nobody, certainly not pensioners should be penalised for the debt incurred by government ā€” Tax rises are certainly not the way to balance the books ā€” The debt has to be paid off by government initiative to make us grow and be profitable. Anything else would just be passing the buck.

    2. Lester
      June 21, 2021

      Andy

      I challenge you to survive on the state pension?

      You make sweeping unfounded assumptions with zero evidence, I think that you need to reveal what drives your apparent hatred for the elderly?

      Some insight as to your circumstances would enable us to judge you!

      1. Micky Taking
        June 21, 2021

        Oh God NO! – we get far too many whingeing posts as it is.

    3. SM
      June 21, 2021

      Andy, may I just take up one of your outrageously histrionic comments, the one alleging that hundreds of thousands of mostly poor brown kids are dying because the UK is cutting Foreign Aid?

      A S African politician (ANC Party) has been doing an in depth analysis of the desperate state of health care in the Eastern Cape Province. Among other multiple horrendous examples of extreme corruption at administrative level from top to bottom, he discovered that one lawyer had been kept on a retainer for 3 YEARS (during which time he had not done one shred of work) but had been paid more than Ā£3000 – yes, three thousand pounds – EVERY DAY, 5 DAYS A WEEK, except for standard holiday periods.

      I don’t relish the idea of needless infant deaths any more than you do, but you could try and apply your venom to where it might do more good.

    4. Dave Andrews
      June 21, 2021

      It’s worse than that. Not only have young people had their opportunities cut (for the sake of a disease that doesn’t affect them much), but they will have to saddle the cost of the increased national debt for decades to come.
      Why not ration pensions and benefits from surplus?

    5. Cheshire Girl
      June 21, 2021

      Andy: You say, CHANGE THE RECORD.

      How about taking your own advice!

    6. Peter2
      June 21, 2021

      I suggest you try your policies in a political manifesto and see if you get elected young andy.
      PS
      People pay into pension funds for decades to get a pension.
      Either via State National Insurance contributions or via private pensions or via a pension developed from contributions made in a workplace pension.
      To say the cash is gifted is ridiculous.
      PS
      Are you really a business owner and therefore an employer, because your posts on this subject show a complete lack of knowledge?

    7. Roy Grainger
      June 21, 2021

      But you supported closing schools didnā€™t you ? So pipe down.

      1. Andy
        June 21, 2021

        We needed to close schools to stop even more people dying. The Tory governmentā€™s failures killed 128,000 people – most of them from your generation. Is that not enough?

        1. Peter2
          June 21, 2021

          Look at the data andy.
          Very few under 40’s have died.
          And hardly any schoolchildren.

          1. steve
            June 21, 2021

            P2
            I will say this – Boris Johnson let the virus into this country. First allowing flights from Wuhan, then allowing flights from India.

            And this – 128,000 people have died.

            Go figure.

            Andy is not wide of the mark.

        2. Peter2
          June 22, 2021

          Steve
          He is wide of the mark when he wants schools closed, because the number of school children who have died is extremely low.
          All the vulnerable groups have now been vaccinated.

    8. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @Andy

      CHANGE. THE. RECORD.

      Oh yes, matey. Please, please DO change your record.

    9. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      It has axed swathes of intentional aid

      Only the aid where the intention was for gangsters running governments in certain countries (no names, no pack drill) to buy more Mercedes limos and, of course, better guns to protect themselves from ‘their people’.

    10. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      But woe betide if granny doesnā€™t get more of my cash she wonā€™t be able to afford her 7th cruise of the yearā€¦

      Look, squire. I haven’t had a cruise for 2 years. I had to cancel April 2020’s cruise due to your hysterical Covid reaction! In the meantime, your money in my bank account is building up quite nicely. The wife and I are looking at the old ’round the world’ cruises at the moment. We won’t be here forever so we might as well enjoy your money while we can, eh?

    11. Original Richard
      June 21, 2021

      Andy :
      “It is a fact that pensioners are the richest demographic in this country.”

      I guess this is the case in all countries simply because the elderly have worked for more years than the young and in the meantime have paid more in tax and possibly saved along the way.

      So I don’t know what sort of social/political system you have in mind to change this.

      Perhaps some idealised form of communism or in fact slavery where any personal wealth is not allowed?

    12. Original Richard
      June 21, 2021

      Andy :
      “And who wouldnā€™t be comfortably off when youā€™ve bought at least one massive house ā€“ now worth several hundred thousand pounds ā€“ for Ā£1.59 back in 1972.”

      According to the Nationwide Building Society the average house price in Q1 of 1972 was Ā£6008 and by Q4 was Ā£7880.

      So not only was it not Ā£1.59 (or Ā£15.90 or Ā£159 or even Ā£1590) but young people were seeing house prices rising far faster than wages with Q4 1972 showing a 42% increase on Q4 1971.

    13. Original Richard
      June 21, 2021

      Andy :
      “It has axed swathes of intentional aid ā€“ literally -killing hundreds of thousands of mostly poor brown kids in other countries in the process.”

      I see no sense in providing aid to make the wealthy in poor countries even wealthier or aiding a war torn country to triple its starving population from 30m to 90m in 3 decades.

  20. oldtimer
    June 21, 2021

    Government spending is out of control. It needs to be curbed. Re the triple lock it would be wrong, in my opinion, to raise pensions by 8% if wages are up by 8%. The formula is a prescription for national bankruptcy. No doubt if wages do go up by this amount, fiscal drag will succeed in raising income tax by a few Ā£ billions too.

    1. Alan Jutson
      June 21, 2021

      oldtimer

      The cost of the pension rise even if it was 8% would be minuscule compared to other spending, and given how low pensions are, it would either be spent or would increase income for many above the personal tax allowance threshold, so some tax would be gained from it.

      Given we have one of the lowest Pensions in Europe it would be yet another policy failure to renege on the so called triple lock !

    2. Micky Taking
      June 21, 2021

      Perhaps state pension should be frozen for the next year.

      1. Mike Wilson
        June 21, 2021

        @Micky Taking

        Perhaps state pension should be frozen for the next year.

        Perhaps the state should be frozen for the next year.

        1. Micky Taking
          June 21, 2021

          I’d prefer the State, meaning Government, was thawed, found to be past sell-by date and thrown away.

  21. William Long
    June 21, 2021

    We also hear thet the Treasury is considering a ‘Raid’ on pension saving, but surely further impairment of our pension system is the very worst thing it can do. People need to be confident that they can retire reasonably comfortably, or they will just keep working to the detriment of the prospects of the next layer down.
    If the Treasury is considering forcing the ditching of a manifesto commitment, it should simply increase Income Tax. If we must pay more Tax it is the honest and straightforward thing to do; then everyone will be affected and able to see what is happening, but because it is honest and straightforward no politician is likely to do it.

    1. Joshua
      June 21, 2021

      More tax so that people are working for 6 months each year to fund a criminally wasteful government. Shove it.

      1. Lifelogic
        June 21, 2021

        @Joshua +1 this while delivering an NHS that has up to 10 million waiting for procedures, operations, consultants and scans. Any dying while waiting for the dire communist NHS. Other public ā€œservicesā€ rather dire too. Endless thefts of Catalytic Converters it seems.

  22. MiC
    June 21, 2021

    If John’s party would do something about getting proper occupational pensions for people then that would greatly ease the burden on the State.

    They manage this in most of the near Continent, so why not here?

    1. Micky Taking
      June 21, 2021

      What should they do, provide some examples of measures to encourage ‘proper’ occupational pensions.?

      1. MiC
        June 21, 2021

        They could copy what is done in more equitable countries, but pigs might fly.

        Chicago School economics dictate maximum worker insecurity and decent pensions are counter to that.

        1. Peter2
          June 21, 2021

          MiC
          Does it dictate what you claim?
          Any facts on that?
          One fact is that nearly all modern companies provide good pensions for their staff.

        2. Micky Taking
          June 21, 2021

          Like in Greece you mean, where very few over 55s ever bloody work?

          1. Micky Taking
            June 21, 2021

            mind you very few under 55s work either!

  23. formula57
    June 21, 2021

    So for some of your colleagues the Triple Lock undertaking that looks after our old age pensioners can be repudiated but the foreign aid budget cannot be touched? There are going to be more Chesham and Amershams to come, are there not?

    1. Alan Jutson
      June 21, 2021

      +1

    2. Joshua
      June 21, 2021

      Doesn’t matter. The Uniparty always wins and the places remain the same.

      1. joshua
        June 21, 2021

        policies not places

    3. nota#
      June 21, 2021

      @formula57 – we have to get used to and accept the double standards of the Political Class. They now see them selves as the law dictators(their made up laws) and not the servants of the people.

  24. No Longer Anonymous
    June 21, 2021

    Ending lockdown will not result in ‘savings’ but in the end of *costs*.

    The Indian variant is rampant in this area yet we don’t have people saying “Oooh. I had a really nasty bout of that Indian variant the other week.”

    Its usual symptom is that you feel absolutely fine with it and wouldn’t know you had it but for the test. No-one I know has got ill with this and still no-one I know has died of CV-19.

    Freedom Day is today and this government is now illegitimate as far as I’m concerned. They are choking large parts of our economy to death.

    We did everything that was asked of us and got the death and hospitalisation figures down but they moved the goal posts yet again.

  25. Lets Buy British
    June 21, 2021

    OFF TOPIC
    Sir John,
    France and Spain are complaining that the UK may be about to give energy contracts ( onshore wind turbines I think ) to those UK manufacturers who can manufacture the bulk of the equipment in the UK and employ mainly UK citizens thereby breaking the terms of procurement processes outlined in the FTA with the EU.
    France is offering tax and other incentives for UK financiers to move to Paris. Why has this not been challenged as a form of state aid or under level playing field rules.
    With regards to the above energy issue should the UK govt not be so naive in suggesting that it may offer the contracts to UK companies but rather concoct a process whereby UK companies receive financial assistance to help them win contracts or just flatly state that contracts are being awarded to UK companies on the grounds of national security ( France has threatened to cut our electricity supplies ).
    Could you comment in a future post ?
    Thanks ColinB

    1. MiC
      June 21, 2021

      The CI are not part of the UK.

      Therefore no one in France has threatened to cut “our” electricity supplies.

      1. Lets Buy British
        June 21, 2021

        Perhaps we are reading different reports but I am given to understand tha France threatened the UK in order to obtain better terms on fishing ?

        1. MiC
          June 21, 2021

          A person in France – not “France” – suggested cutting power to a Channel Island over a fishing dispute.

          1. Peter2
            June 22, 2021

            Not just “a person in France” MiC
            More nonsense from you.

          2. Lets Buy British
            June 22, 2021

            I’m talking about the FTA negotiations not the recent spat with The Channel Islands

    2. nota#
      June 21, 2021

      @Lets Buy British, agreed it appears moral wrong that taxpayer money gets paid into the ‘Treasuries’ of foreign powers with out first seeking a UK source, then in not factoring in taxpayer money lost overseas.

      In reality goods sourced in the UK are cheaper when the taxpayers taxed paid(going back to the treasury) is set against that being a direct loss to the UK treasury.

      1. Lets Buy British
        June 21, 2021

        Hi. Your narrative is not clear.
        UK manufacturing creates jobs, tax revenues, control and economic stability for the UK.
        Alternatively we can just farm our manufacturing out to one of several countries in the unlevel playing field EU where labour costs and oblique state aid apply.

  26. ukretired123
    June 21, 2021

    Thank you once again for your unfailing mission to keep everyone ‘s feet firmly on financial ground Sir John with the real priorities to fire up the economy enthusiastically!

  27. nota#
    June 21, 2021

    No one envies the Treasury its task. They are faced with a tax system that is a relic of a by gone age, with so many tweaks, exceptions etc it has become unfair for all.

    Then we have a PM determined to foist his ‘Left’ and barmy ‘green’ agendas that were never in any manifesto on to a Parliament and the People of the UK he(the PM) just doesn’t understand if you don’t create wealth you cant afford his bizarre ideology.

    Then as everyone keeps reminding them we have HS2 as a glaring example of waste – the money saved by cancelling that could go to improving services for every one. It is starting to look like a project to pass money to the ‘boys’ and pure ‘vanity’. According to the engineers involved at best this project can save 10 minuets of time from a terminal in the west of London and a station north east of Birmingham – it doesn’t go centre to centre that’s another journey. So in reality it will take longer, it will keep the Japanese treasury happy it will keep the developers and their foreign workers happy , it will reward the UK taxpayer with debt.

    The real fear as this Government has form, the necessary claw back will be unequal, it will not take from every sector equally and proportionally. As with the tax system generally it rewards those that can escape at the expense of those sitting ducks that cant. So while most of us can understand the need, we fear the discriminate punishment that will be handed out just so this Government can have friends.

    If only we had a Conservative Government

    1. nota#
      June 21, 2021

      @nota# – elsewhere we have the Boris Boat/Ship/Yacht, a cool 200 million with 5 million required to run it. At the same time the Royal Navy is short of ships and crew to keep up with Government commitments. I suppose instead of expecting the Royal Navy to man it Boris could play Captain and the illegals could man it and it all could be paid from the magic money tree that isn’t the taxpayer.

      Priorities, priorities, priorities, lets create wealth give back to the taxpayer, give the taxpayer a chance to breathe and get back on track, before we even have ‘Virtue Signalling Dreams’ of the Left coming out of Downing Street. A Government that serves the people, all the people of the UK would be a good start.

      1. Micky Taking
        June 21, 2021

        The last one had 40 staff all the year round.

      2. dixie
        June 22, 2021

        Why not spend the money on increasing the utility fleet, eg coastguard or FPV and flag the occasional naval vessel as the royal yacht as needed when it is needed.

  28. J Mitchell
    June 21, 2021

    I think the Treasury is right to be cautious about a new UK ship to be used as a global marketing tool. Those who advocate for it recall the power of the Royal Yacht Britannia. It worked because it was the Royal Yacht. A marketing ship will not work; there will be no special cachet or lure. Therefore the new ship must be a new Royal Yacht. However, will the Royal Family sign up for this? There will be very many pointing out the unfairness of it, etc, etc. It will become a stick for the Republicans to use against our Monarchy. The damage was done when Blair decommissioned the Royal Yacht. Those advising the Royal Family will probably sensibly counsel against a new vessel. Perhaps the money would be better spent on a new ship for our depleted navy.

    1. SM
      June 21, 2021

      +1

    2. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @J Mitchell

      Perhaps the money would be better spent on a new ship for our depleted navy.

      What a distorted view of the world. The idea that our navy needs ships! What on earth are we going to do with them? Patrol?

      Far better to BORROW and spend Ā£200 million on a ship honouring the memory of a minor royal – and which Boris can cavort around on as he cannot afford a yacht of his own.

    3. Andy
      June 21, 2021

      Ā£200m on a Brexit barge. What a waste of money.

      Genuinely – the rest of the world thinks you are all bonkers. Itā€™s 2021. Nobody cares that you can build a tiny ship.

      1. Peter2
        June 21, 2021

        Cheaper than a President.

        1. hefner
          June 22, 2021

          How much is a President? According to gala.fr (12/05/2021) in 2020 E. Macron earned ā‚¬15,203/month (ā‚¬182,436/year).
          In 2020, Mr Johnson got Ā£81,932 as a MP plus Ā£75,440 as PM, which with a ā‚¬/Ā£ exchange rate at 0.85 makes the two salaries very similar. Die Kanzlerin gets more, Ā£266,220/year.

          As far as I know Germany or France do not have ā€˜un petit bateau pour faire des ronds dans lā€™eauā€™.

          1. Peter2
            June 22, 2021

            I didn’t make myself clear hef.
            It was a very short post.
            Cryptic almost.
            I was trying to say that whilst a new Royal Yacht is expensive it isn’t very much different to the total costs of Presidents around the world who have palaces, huge numbers of staff, ships, yachts, planes, helicopters and much more at their disposal.
            South Africa’s President has spent far more on his personal residence for example.

  29. Micky Taking
    June 21, 2021

    If the Government had been following sensible, nay prudent, financial restraint in coming to terms with our economy – examples cancelling HS2, stopping Brittania-mk2 ships, moving out of Westminster, cutting numbers in H of C and H of L then I would support a reduction of say Ā£50k three years running in the Pension lifetime allowance. But until that happens not a chance.

  30. Sea_Warrior
    June 21, 2021

    Forgot to mention the Royal Yacht! I support the idea, if the yacht has a defined war-role, if it is available for Her Majesty’s use (when she wants it), if the cost isn’t met wholly from the Defence budget, and if the ship is built in Britain (anywhere but Scotland, which is getting far too much of the shipbuilding cake). Put me down for Ā£100 if a fund is to be established to pay for part or all of it. Rule Britannia!

    1. glen cullen
      June 21, 2021

      So why is everyone calling her ‘ the national yacht’, I wonder if she be manned by the Royal Navy

  31. nota#
    June 21, 2021

    The way out of the Governments self made mess is for it to become a Conservative Government, understand fiscal proberty the idea that it is prosperity that creates wealth. Wealth creation comes from the People not the Government.

    When we last had a Conservative Government, they went along way to letting people have their own money, treating them as equals. The rewarded the country with growth and prosperity. The was no ‘virtue signalling’ nonsense, there was no bureaucratic for nightmare industry and to just to live here. We came close to having a Government that above all respected and trusted the people.

    Things are never perfect, but a proper Democratic Conservative Government can get closer to it than the fanciful metro left that rules both Government, the HoC and HoL.

  32. Christine
    June 21, 2021

    Iā€™m sorry but I donā€™t agree with the building of a new yacht in these troubled times. It sends out completely the wrong message having royalty and politicians swanning around the world in luxury. Your party is becoming the party for elites with one rule for some and another rule for others. People are getting very annoyed about this. If you continue in this vein you will lose both the red and blue walls in the next election.

  33. Christine
    June 21, 2021

    Politicians seem to be of the opinion that voters agree with all their manifesto pledges. No, a manifesto is a basket of ideas. I doubt any voter agrees with all of them. Our only choice is between the different baskets, we cannot vote on the individual items. This is how political parties slip in commitments that the people donā€™t want like the ludicrous percentage of GDP for foreign aid. Boris is a fool to be pushing Net-Zero. As soon as this manifesto commitment overtakes the others voters will desert his party in droves. It will become his Poll Tax moment.

  34. villaking
    June 21, 2021

    Sir John, your reluctance to “tear up a manifesto promise” sits in marked contrast to your support for tearing up the manifesto promise on the level of overseas aid. That you justified simply by using the vast spending on ruinous lockdowns as a reason for the cut. The same justification can be used for cancelling the triple lock. The financial pain of the lockdowns has hit those of working age the worst whilst protecting the older section of the population the most. Of course our pensioners need to contribute in these circumstances.

  35. Denis Cooper
    June 21, 2021

    Off topic, when a protestor says on TV that she would give her life in the fight against the Irish protocol then perhaps Boris Johnson should wake up and pay a little attention to that, rather than continuing to assume that he can just walk all over the Northern Ireland unionists to avoid any possible trouble with extreme republicans at customs posts and other installations on the land border.

    As warned by Leo Varadkar in October 2018:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/taoiseach-uses-copy-of-the-irish-times-at-brussels-dinner-to-emphasise-border-issue-1.3667789

    “Taoiseach uses copy of ā€˜The Irish Timesā€™ at Brussels dinner to emphasise Border issue”

    Customs posts which no longer exist and will not be reinstated without the agreement of the EU:

    https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/10/enacted

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/concern-at-womans-claim-duringbrexit-protocol-protest-in-newtownardsshes-willing-to-give-her-lifein-fight-against-irish-sea-border-40560424.html

    You can see the “PEACE OR PROTOCOL?” banner in the video.

    Apparently militant unionists used the SS Clyde Valley to run guns in 1914.

    Do not anybody say that this is the result of Brexit, it is down to Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

  36. Mark
    June 21, 2021

    I rather got the impression that Sunak anticipates some statistical prestidigitation on the measure of average wages, with the new measure becoming a National Statistic, miraculously lower than CPI. We must remember that the same trick has already been played on the RPI, both in supplanting it by the CPI with all its hedonistic adjustements, and in fiddling with the calculation of RPI itself, since it is still required for some index linked bonds etc.

  37. A. Headhunter
    June 21, 2021

    The Treasury is right to be cautious and it is up to other departments to make the case for expenditure. For my part I am content that the budget for International Aid be lowered to 5% in the light of our own exceptional circumstances. That there is now talk of abandoning the ‘Triple Lock’ manifesto commitment is a bit of a worry in principle: I have checked various government websites for a particular set of figures and, for all three of China, India and Pakistan in 2017 (the last year for which all three figures are published) we gave nearly Ā£500 million in aid. I know this figure is de minimis in the scheme of things, but why are we giving anything to these nuclear-armed powers? Particularly in the cases of China – which is implacably opposed to our Western values system – and Pakistan, who sold OUR nuclear weapons technology on to Iran and North Korea? Hopefully once it is fully integrated into the Foreign & Commonwealth Office the remains of DFID can be rationalised so that, were aid is granted, it has some reciprocal benefit to the UK and can include such things as military and emergency assistance – all things the UK taxpayer underwrites.

  38. Everhopeful
    June 21, 2021

    A friend is the treasurer of a club.
    He had arranged a large meeting, involving much organising and expenditure.
    The meeting was to be held soon after the much vaunted Freedom Day promised by Johnson, but before the newly mooted release date ( as if!).
    Deposits on all necessities not refundable.
    Soā€¦this is ok is it?
    How many others made arrangements based on that unspeakable manā€™s word?

    1. dixie
      June 22, 2021

      I run a couple of clubs and have made no arrangements for “large scale” meetings or expenditure which assume the lifting of current restrictions for the foreseeable future.

  39. Mike Wilson
    June 21, 2021

    While you allow council tax rises of 5% EVERY year, without fail, you need to increase the state pension accordingly.

    As for a new bloody yacht for the Queen to use and Boris to strut his stuff in – NO! We cannot neither afford, nor need, such outdated, colonial nonsense.

    I have plenty of experience of the public sector. The simple fact is that money is pissed away like drunken sailors by all public sector organisations. The only way to control this is to reward those in charge of departments if they get their budgets down by not spending money in such a profligate way. Why has the mayor got a car? What an absurd waste of OUR money!

    1. agricola
      June 21, 2021

      Mike,
      As a business tool I would open it mainly to SMEs avoiding members of the CBI who can afford their own overseas promotions. For our Monarch it would be a useful entertainment centre when overseas. All in all a mobile Crystal Palace selling the UK to the rest of the World.

    2. Micky Taking
      June 21, 2021

      The Mayor of London is doing an exceptional job of clearing the roads. Went to visit my son yesterday, only just north of the S.Circular, from September it will cost me Ā£15. He went to collect a 13 year old from a party in a ‘cars banned road’ in Dulwich, a few months ago in the dark- result Ā£65 fine..
      Of course he wants a car laid on – make him drive every bloody mile – from the N.Circular thru’ C.London to south of S.Circular – preferably rush hour when buses and cabs fight to get the pedestrians.

  40. ChrisS
    June 21, 2021

    As a recipient of the State Pension I would agree that an upper limit should be put on the inflation increase this year. Circumstances are exceptional and the rise in state pension should be limited to the real increase in wages. To give us anything like 8% would be ridiculous and cause huge resentment. Few intelligent pensioners will disagree with that.

    On other subjects, the planning rules do not really need changing. If the government brought net migration to an end, the shortage in housing units would be no more than 20,000 units a year, based on the figures for inward migration over the last decade. A policy of “one in, one out” should be introduced. All those companies that whinge because they no longer have an endless supply of low-paid Eastern European workers need to modernise their factories with efficient new machinery and retrain their existing workforce to use it.
    It’s good to see that Baroness Dido Harding is proposing the ending of the NHS’ reliance on oversees nurses and doctors, if she gets the job of running the service. Let’s hope she does !

    1. Mike Wilson
      June 21, 2021

      @Chris S

      If the government brought net migration to an end

      Sorry, which country are you living in? Which government are you referring to? You cannot possibly mean the UK and the Tory government which has allowed and encouraged net migration of the order of 300,000 a year for the last 11 years. They LOVE immigration. They NEED immigration. It is the ONLY way they can get GDP up – so useless are they at everything. Your comment made me smile. ‘Bring net immigration to an end’. You are having a laugh.

      1. Micky Taking
        June 21, 2021

        Stop and reflect. Who drives the taxis, delivers the parcels, often is your GP, certainly the majority of nursing support, care home workers, agricultural workers, even the professional footballers…

  41. agricola
    June 21, 2021

    Much talk today of Pensions and triple locks. The value of a pension and its comparison with other EU pensions should take into account what you can buy with a common unit of currency. Lifestyles are also relevant, buy or rent accommodation for instance. Comparisons are therfore difficult.

    Having said all that UK pensions are low. Approximate comparisons are as follows.
    UK Ā£8,767.20 PA
    Ireland Ā£11,128.00
    Netherlands Ā£13,563.68
    Denmark Ā£20,715.24
    All have been converted from their base currency. In the UK anyone with the above as a sole income can claim an extra called Income Support.

    Maybe in the UK it would be better to pay everyone a much more generous basic pension, scrap the complexities of Income Support and for those with substantial private pensions on top there is income tax. Adopt a KISS principal, government and its servants seem to thrive on complexity, and I would contend that complexity deprives too many of their just deserts because asking is demeening. It is all part of my contention that the tax book is too long, seven volumes I believe and excessively complex. Anyone who fully understands taxation could precis the complete seven volumes. There is a task for you SJR.

    1. Peter2
      June 21, 2021

      Great post agricola

  42. nota#
    June 21, 2021

    The MsM today is stating that a Government White Paper on energy needs, shows the UK will have to buy 3 times the energy it currently purchases from the EU to maintain the UK grid. That would appear to be without meeting the demand of battery powered cars.

    No wonder the EU thinks they have the UK and its industries over a barrel.

    Were is the planning to get us out of this trap? Oh I forgot, the UK is to get rid of it existing money earning production as it has to sacrifice for a ‘virtue signal’ of bowing to the metro left wing green mantra, to be on message with a few of the kids that are well ‘just entitled’, will never need to earn as the world provides. The alternative plan is of course to return to be completely controlled by Brussels – which is why we have not been permitted to leave.

  43. Iain Gill
    June 21, 2021

    Lets hope all the British rock stars are allowed to tour the world and make their traditional large sums of money, and pay some of it in taxes back here.

  44. Bryan Harris
    June 21, 2021

    Now that Hancock has come out with his famous:

    ā€œno duty of care to people who don’t take the vaccineā€

    Can we assume he is planning on turning our country into an apartheid?

    This is truly a disgusting thing for a minister to suggest, and he has to go – Nobody should be denied health care based on such a frail argument given that vaccines are harming so many people.

    1. Lester
      June 21, 2021

      Bryan Harris

      + 10

    2. Micky Taking
      June 21, 2021

      What about illegal immigrants, and tourism visitors? all are getting free treatment and have been for years.

    3. DOM
      June 21, 2021

      So a taxpayer who refuses to comply will be denied NHS treatment by a now politically charged NHS working with the now utterly Socialist Tory party to assert total control by restricting access to essential services. That’s the politics of totalitarianism under Mao, Hitler, Stalin etal.

      Labour and their allies are a cancer and a poison but the Tories embrace of authoritarian barbarity is beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime.

      1. Bryan Harris
        June 22, 2021

        Indeed – Even if Hancock’s words do not become law there will be some that will implement this grotesque idea

  45. glen cullen
    June 21, 2021

    Freedom day death rate = 5
    Past week death rate = 10, 9, 19, 11, 14, 6

  46. agricola
    June 21, 2021

    It must be summer. The humble octopus has been lined up to join Mensa. Humble or not, face to face I found them quite agressive, they are not into the rights of clams and mussels either.

    As a seat of great intelligence they are deemed to be in need of legal protection. They had better discuss the finer points of this around the Mediteranean. It will need more than the court of fishy rights to remove Pulpo Gallego from the menu.

  47. steve
    June 21, 2021

    JR

    Talking of debt, I think it would be helpful if the government forced all credit card and other personal debt companies to wipe off all debt, or at least make usury illegal. Doing so would give millions of people the breathing space they surely deserve.

    The government should also abolish bus lanes and other mechanisms by which local councils mug people.

    1. hefner
      June 22, 2021

      ā€œYou may say Iā€™m a dreamer,
      Youā€™re likely the only one,
      I hope some day youā€™ll wake up,
      And realise you had been oneā€.

      Apologies to John Lennon.

  48. David Foot
    June 21, 2021

    The UK standard pension doesn’t cover food and rent, to be at the level of the French pension first we need to double the UK Standard Pension, same to be at the same level as the Spanish pension.
    If the UK standard pension wanted to touch the Dutch one we would have to tripple it!
    So the tripple lock needs to remain until this ridiculous distrotion has been sorted out.
    If the tripple lock is applied to gold plated pensions of the politicians and civil service that is totally greedy and there is money to be had to pay the debt!
    Then there is the tax exemptions, these should not apply to the higher pensions either, that would be the only way to get money from pensions, the standard pension of the UK is lowest of Western Europe, it is a distortion, it is a disgrace which needs fixing not making worse.

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