Public spending review

This autumn will see a major public spending review. There will be the usual pressure for higher sums for the NHS, for education and other crucial services.There will be some good cuts to announce , as the subsidies and support payments needed during lockdown fall away. There also needs to be some detailed work done on problem areas where expenditure has been rising in ways that are not offering value for money or reflecting preferred policies and outcomes.

I will start examining some of these areas. They include the need to get better control of our borders to cut the costs imposed by illegal migration, as the government seeks answers through new legislation and policing. There is the big question of what should the railway look like post pandemic if as many think there will be a big decline in peak hour commuting which has been the high volume staple of the passenger business.  Whilst the government is wedded to HS2, a very expensive project, there remain other pressures on capital spend to examine. There is the issue of how much money should be spent on housing subsidy at a time when the housing market is awash with private money.Do we need to subsidise the provision of homes given the way we offer financial help to those who cannot afford the homes on offer without benefits?

We need to look at the issue of how much the UK state buys from abroad, and whether there could be cheaper procurement from UK sources when you take into account tax flows on the businesses producing the items. We need to ask why the UK is still sending so much cash to the EU after we have left, with insufficient push back on the EU’s view of the cost of the Withdrawal Agreement. Your thoughts on areas where  reductions in spending could happen would be welcome.

252 Comments

  1. lifelogic
    July 30, 2021

    Well HS2, Hinckley C, Shit Hill at Marble Arch, the circa 50% of the state sector that deliver no real value or do positive harm and largest of all the net zero carbon insanity. Bonkers in CO2 terms, environmental terms, energy terms, economic terms and insane politically top. Cost will be well over ÂŁ1 trillion and for zero benefit.

    Make people pay for the NHS (combined with tax cuts) and thus encourage some real and fair competition in healthcare to the appalling at best second rate NHS.

    1. lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      Tax breaks for private school fees too, so as to encourage more to pay for their own children, thus cutting education costs for the state and improving education standards in the process too.

      1. Peter
        July 30, 2021

        Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has decided to allow jabbed tourists into the U.K. with no quarantine. There are no reciprocal arrangements for British tourists visiting foreign lands.

        Illegal immigrants don’t need to bother with any jabs. No suggestion of forced vaccines for them either.

        At the same time we are getting covid passports by the back door. ‘No jabs no jobs’ will be next along without removal of freedoms if you refuse vaccination.

        More (deliberate?) mismanagement around covid.

        1. John Hatfield
          July 30, 2021

          In the meantime in one of the most jabbed-up countries Israel, infections and death rates are on the rise. Same with Jebel Tariq, aka Gibralter.

          1. Micky Taking
            July 31, 2021

            aka Gibraltar.

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          July 30, 2021

          So if those in charge in the USA don’t see fit to reciprocate what about their own citizens who visit the UK for a month or more? Are they just going to be allowed to go back home? If they can, why not us?

    2. No Longer Anonymous
      July 30, 2021

      I estimate that I pay ÂŁ5k a year to the NHS.

      It will be nearly six months post incident by the time I see a doctor (any sort of doctor) about an acute knee injury.

      Imagine what sort of health insurance I could have got for me and my family for ÂŁ4k pa with ÂŁ1k given to the NHS for our ambulance/casualty cover.

      We did not ‘save’ the NHS. It WAS shut down by Covid.

      1. Hope
        July 30, 2021

        NLA,
        No, mass immigration and incompetence. The dopey govt’s answer give it more money!! How about cutting back room staff to pay for more front line staff ie doctors nurses, mid- wives, radiographers etc.

      2. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        Indeed and ministers outrageously say people were “have not been seeking medical help”. No the NHS and GPs were largely shut or hiding. Plus over 25% of people who died of Covid were actually given it by the NHS after admission for other conditions. Plus only a tiny percentage of people who actually died of Covid got any NHS intensive care treatments at all from our envy of no one NHS.

        1. Micky Taking
          July 31, 2021

          The truth is often uncomfortable reading, isn’t it!

      3. Adrian T
        July 30, 2021

        Government ineptitude and propaganda – not Covid

      4. John Hatfield
        July 30, 2021

        “We did not ‘save’ the NHS. It was shut down by Covid.”
        Or because of Covid?

    3. Peter
      July 30, 2021

      Record volume of lifelogic posts today.

      And he hasn’t even started on PPE graduates yet.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        July 30, 2021

        And your problem is?

      2. Iain gill
        July 30, 2021

        I like lifelogic

    4. Peter
      July 30, 2021

      Get rid of all the overcharged, and often useless, consultancy work and contracts to the chumocracy paid for by our taxes. ‘Track and trace’ is not fit for purpose and it cost a fortune. Worthless IT provision for the NHS was another huge failure.

      Get some transparency on such contracts and put a cap on how much consultants can be paid. There is no point in shedding staff only to squander the savings on these people.

      You all know the villains of the piece so I will not name them, but they have a finger in every pie. Their failures are ignored and they get even more lucrative work as time progresses.

      1. Peter
        July 30, 2021

        We need the equivalent of the 19th century Northcote-Trevelyan Report on the civil service for the new quasi-civil service of favoured providers and pals.

        Northcote-Trevelyan introduced civil service exams and promotion on merit. It encouraged ‘integrity, propriety, objectivity‘ and no partiality or disloyalty between one elected government and another.

        So we could start with complete transparency on costs and terms of engagement. No more hiring people over the phone with no records of who exactly authorised the contract. A summary of work done at the end of the contract term and a report on success or failure. After that a decision on whether the provider should be offered government work again. Compensation clauses for the taxpayer to claw back money spent on dismal failures.

        1. Lester_Cynic
          July 30, 2021

          Record volume of posts from Peter today!

      2. Iain gill
        July 30, 2021

        The crap IT in the NHS, and rest of the public sector, is mostly due to the crap people in the public sector and the way they procure things. It’s far less the fault of the consultancies they hire, who are often forced into certain ways of working by the misguided public sector.

    5. Hope
      July 30, 2021

      NHS failed to prepare for the pandemic, it failed the nation. The country forced to makeup for the incompetent senior management!! It’s management should be mocked, sacked and radically changed. Not given titles!!

      1. Iain gill
        July 30, 2021

        Correct

    6. oldtimer
      July 30, 2021

      Yesterday a man from the Met Office said, on BBC TV news, that Britain had warmed by 0.9 degrees comparing 1960-90 with 1990-2020, the 30 year periods used to judge climate changes. He did not say if the comparison was based on an identical number and location of weather of weather stations. If it was identical that would be a valid comparison. If it was not identical then the Met Office should publish both lists and data, with their respective latitudes and altitudes, so that any difference in temperature caused by these different locations can be calculated. As it is published by the Met Office it should be made publicly available. My understanding is that in temperate zones, temperature will drop by c0.74 degrees C for each degree of latitude further north (about 111km) and that it will drop by c0.66C for each 100m increase in altitude. As Lands End is at 50.0657 degrees N and John O`Groats is at 58.4457 degrees N and there are significant changes in elevation in between there is obvious scope for differences in the result if based on difference sets of weather stations. We know that the set of weather stations used to measure global temperature was changed in 1990 (the University of East Anglia reduced is set from over 4000 to around 1200 (with only about 200 being identical weather stations). When asked by the HoC Select Committee to measure if effect of the change (as part of its climate gate email investigation) the UEA said it could not do so because it had destroyed its old records. Perhaps the Met Office is more rigorous in its record keeping of UK weather records? We need to know. ÂŁ1 trillion and more is being spent because of the global warming argument. Would you please ask the responsible Minister for the facts to be published on how the two 30 year calculations were made and then compared?

      1. SM
        July 30, 2021

        +1

      2. hefner
        July 30, 2021

        ot, do you know that the Met Office has a service ‘Contact the Met Office’ to answer this type of questions. I guess you should try it: metoffice.gov.uk and then report to us.

        1. oldtimer
          July 30, 2021

          The question will carry much more weight, and is more likely to get a satisfactory reply, if it is posed by a Member of Parliament to the responsible Minister. That is why I posed it here.

          1. hefner
            July 31, 2021

            ot, your answer makes a lot of assumptions: that along the chain of interactions MP to Minister to MetOffice to Minister to MP all people involved understand the questions and the answers and report them truthfully. Given what happens in any game of Chinese whispers I would not be 100% sure of the quality of information finally reaching me.

          2. Peter2
            July 31, 2021

            Surely your claim will also apply to old-timer contacting the Met Office who may pass his question to several different people to answer.

          3. hefner
            August 1, 2021

            P2, indeed, but one could imagine that ot’s question as he had originally stated it (about which stations are used in building the climatology) would be understood by the MetOffice people in charge of this particular HadCRUT.5.0.1.0. (11/12/2020).

      3. Alan Jutson
        July 30, 2021

        +1

      4. Peter2
        July 30, 2021

        Old Timer have a look at woodfortrees.org
        A very good site with lots of data on global temperatures.

        1. hefner
          July 31, 2021

          P2, indeed.

        2. hefner
          August 2, 2021

          P2 or E2, how much progress you have made in finding websites with relevant information in these last few months after you were endlessly needled because of the essentially vacuous content of most of them. Keep on the good work, soon you will actually know what you are commenting about. You might even move to a C or even C+ grade.

  2. lifelogic
    July 30, 2021

    Cutting red tape is a win, win saves the government money and make industry more competitive and profitable. So what do we get yet more of it.

    Women must get two in five board seats, listed firms told by the FCA (the idiots who gave us on size 40% personal bank overdraft rates).

    Companies to face ‘comply or explain’ rules on diversity under new proposals in bid to make boardrooms match society.

    1. lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      I suggest they use the following explanation.

      1. Women with decent science and maths degrees and qualifications are rather thin on the ground. Even now it is only about 1 women for every 4 men and higher still in older age groups and at higher levels.
      2. Women statistically are more likely to work part time and or take career breaks so tend to have less experience at any given age. They often choose jobs that fit in with children (teaching for example is hugely female esp. Junior School)
      3. Women on average (and esp. once they have children) make very different work life balance and career choices they are less likely to work long or inconvenient hours, work on oil rigs, travel and work away from home, commute long distances, work as refuse collectors or on construction sites. Even at A levels languages have about 4 to 1 women. Physics, Further Maths, Computer Studies more like 4 to 1 men.

      This FCA proposal is blatantly anti-male discrimination and should therefore be illegal. It is also hugely damaging companies like ours should clearly just employ the best person (or machine or robot) for the job in question.

      1. 37/6
        July 30, 2021

        The local Fire Service was on the news a few weeks ago about sexual ‘inequality’ and their solution for it. A female fire fighter was on the TV, “I can’t do nights because of the menopause so the Fire Service have accommodated me so I that I now only do day shifts.”

        Well. I see this in my own industry too, I’m afraid.

        So…

        Child bearing age, that’s no nights and no weekend work for women while their kids are young and then they hit menopause and it’s no nights again.

        Who do they think is picking up the slack ? And I still don’t see women out on road gangs working through the night in the pissing rain or digging ditches.

        Equality ???

        When they recruit women to my own trade I say “Yay. More overtime opportunities and shortages in my favour.”

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 30, 2021

          37/6 We’ll I’m a woman and I TOTALLY agree.

          1. No Longer Anonymous
            July 30, 2021

            Thanks. It’s all true.

          2. No Longer Anonymous
            July 30, 2021

            Ooops !

      2. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        Or perhaps better still:-

        We did not meet the FCA’s 20% women target because the Company decided to recruit the best people for the job. This rather than discriminating against men as the FCA (surely illegally) wanted us to do. This was fairer and clearly better for the company, its customers, shareholders, the UK economy and our employees.

      3. MWB
        July 30, 2021

        LL +1

    2. lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      I note that in 2019, 75.8% of school teachers were women. So are the Gov. going to ban recruitment of female teachers until this becomes 50/50 or is it only “boardrooms” that must be made to match society for the dopes at FCA? Will they do the same by banning male recruitment of say refuse collectors, oil rig workers or front line Construction workers which are over 9o% male? Should do wonders for these industries.

      1. 37/6
        July 30, 2021

        It’s been annoying but – because of so called ‘equality’ recruitment – there have been constant shortages of labour in my own industry, despite masses of training and recruitment.

        I have made a tidy fortune from it. Either working overtime or demanding extra for being bumped on to unsocial shifts that weren’t mine.

        The NHS suffers the same. Vast amounts of training given to those who knew all along that they were going to be part-timers.

      2. MWB
        July 30, 2021

        LL +1.
        No wonder boys are reported to underachieve.

        1. hefner
          July 31, 2021

          MWB: why that? Please elaborate a bit more.

          Personally I had the best Further Maths course in sixth form from a lady teacher who always tried to give examples and then exercises to be solved at home following what to most of us was looking as very theoretical lessons with not much relevance to the ‘real’ world. Mainly thanks to her I went on doing maths and physics at Uni for some more years. And my year 13 was in 1967-68.

    3. Iain gill
      July 30, 2021

      If matching society was the aim there would be far more white males with working class accents on TV. The most under represented section of society, compared to their actual proportion of society.

  3. David Peddy
    July 30, 2021

    We need to review HS2 .The costs appear to be running out of control whilst the need for it seems to have diminished
    Meanwhile the need for investment in railways in the north is paramount
    I am glad to see the government supporting BAE and the Tempest aircraft project
    The government needs to release the Cumbrian coal mine project
    The government needs to support investment in battery and hydrogen technologies

    1. Lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      Cancel now not “review” it made no sense whatsoever when started by Labour and post Covid make even less sense. True they have idiotically (or even corruptly perhaps) pissed ÂŁbillions away on it already but it is still far better to cancel it. They government should not fall for the sunk cost fallacy (as the foolish Tony Benn did with Concorde – though not as dire as his appalling son Hillary).

      1. David Peddy
        July 30, 2021

        You are correct

    2. bigneil - newer comp
      July 30, 2021

      HS2 costs are not out of control – we were blatantly lied to from the start. Same with every big project.

      1. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        +1

  4. Ian Wragg
    July 30, 2021

    We could start by taking a leaf out of Trymps book. UK first.
    I don’t understand why the police and local councils have to buy top of the range BMW. When you go to Europe all the public service vehicles are local.
    We are using French steel to build nuclear subs, this is nonesense.
    When taking into account the cost, social costs should be included not just the headline price.
    Cheapest isn’t always best value for the UK taxpayer.

    1. SecretPeople
      July 30, 2021

      +1

    2. glen cullen
      July 30, 2021

      Agree

    3. Hope
      July 30, 2021

      Ian,
      How about the mobility scandal? People used to get given blue standard vehicles. Now they are given top of the range cars provided by the taxpayers!

      No detention centres for illegal immigrants, four star hotels!! Johnson and his party has lost the plot.

      Education an utter disgrace. Other countries that followed our education system from the 1950’s at the top, group centred baby sitting spiralling towards the bottom.

    4. Fedupsoutherner
      July 30, 2021

      Couldn’t agree more Ian.

  5. ColinD.
    July 30, 2021

    Re ‘cheaper procurement from UK sources’ this should be allied with consideration of : jobs created or preserved, apprenticeships created, strategic skills reserve within UK, reduced dependence on foreign imports especially from China (a country which could restrict exports with serious consequences to the West). At a minimum, Government policy should be encouraging second sourcing from within UK.

  6. turboterrier
    July 30, 2021

    My thoughts are very basic. Until government and local authorities clamp down on the way that projects once passed for commencement, the original costings just fly out of the window.
    Infrastructure, warships, power stations and net zero the list is endless.
    Prove to the taxpayer you have tried and tested controls in place to ensure VFM on how the project will be managed and audited phase by phase.

    1. UKretired123
      July 30, 2021

      Many ideas are not proven with basic joined up thinking expecting others to pay for them. When floods occur do electric cars give their drivers a shock and stop or does the shock hit them financially later…

  7. DOM
    July 30, 2021

    Is the NHS still providing seminars to their employees regarding the Marxist Critical Race Theory that assets that white people are innately evil? And you consider taxpayer funded spending on this NOW political organisation ‘a crucial service?

    Your party’s lost its mind. It’s become psychotically obsessed with repositioning itself to the left of Labour. Most voters can’t see it the Tories sly shape shifting but people who comment on here can.

    Let me tell you what’s gonna happen to the NHS and how it will access to its services no doubt working with your party in government. It will use access to healthcare as a SOCIAL AND POLITICAL WEAPON to assert compliance and control. This will happen as it now does in China. Indeed Macron has already suggested such a move

    The public is being held to ransom because your party in government refuse to confront the power of the destructive left that now control all public sector organisations. The march of the Gramsci progressives through the halls of power and the State has been extraordinarily successful to the point where it even controls the actions of Tory Ministers and Tory PMs

    1. Lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      Exactly.

    2. Jim Whitehead
      July 30, 2021

      DOM, +1, Excellent exposition of a sinister and ever developing trend that is becoming evident to some but ignored by far too many who aught to know better and serve us better.

    3. Fedupsoutherner
      July 30, 2021

      Brilliant post Dom.

    4. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      +1
      Oh sooo true.
      And they have used our Christianity and democracy as weapons against us.
      They have bamboozled and persuaded idiot liberals into compliance.
      So NICE and FAIR.

    5. Iago
      July 30, 2021

      Agreed, it is sickening to watch.

    6. Barbara
      July 30, 2021

      Dom

      Nail on head

  8. Sea_Warrior
    July 30, 2021

    A lot of your arrows here have hit the bulls-eye, Sir John. You’ve identified a number of areas that receive too little attention. Housing benefit is a (selfish?) concern of mine. It seems that too much is being given to too many. Here’s a simple example. My home is flanked to two others. One is worth some ÂŁ330K and the other about ÂŁ285K – so, beyond the immediate reach of two doctors working at the local hospital. Both homes are let to people who, with the best will in the world, would never be able to afford to purchase them. Looking at the immediate area, it is on a downward slope as the proportion being BTL’d has reached some 50%. So I wonder how many of these lets are being financed by the local council. And query whether someone unable to make their own rent should be living in a marina development. Of course, national government bears most of the responsibility for the ‘housing crisis’ but may I suggest that MPs should have a chat over tea and biscuits with their local councils to find out where the money is going.
    I also believe that the ‘triple-lock’ and the high levels of government support for rich people’s pension contributions are indefensible for the rest of this parliament. Our benefits are too high, dragging in the World’s poor, and so are our taxes.

    1. MiC
      July 30, 2021

      Yes, a large part of people’s taxes are going straight to private landlords.

      I would make renting a property for profit a require a planning application. The character of whole neighbourhoods is being seriously damaged by this.

      1. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        Great plan let’s let all tenants live on the street and keep the houses empty, plus push up rents hugely by restricting supply!

      2. Lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        Well yes they get rent but the landlord has to buy to house, maintain it and perhaps pay interest on the mortgage and does not have use of the house as that benefit goes to the tenant! It is like saying much of benefits go straight to Tesco, Asda or British Gas yes but the tenant gets food and fuel for it!

        1. hefner
          July 31, 2021

          Oh, poor Calimero, how I pity you LL, having all these properties to ‘manage’, having to deal with the rents then with tax advisors and HMRC. How tough a life you must have, hardly anytime to comment on Sir John’s website.

      3. Peter2
        July 30, 2021

        MiC
        A lot of these rents go to housing associations and charities and local authorities that put roofs over people’s heads.
        It’s your obsession of private all bad but state all good.
        Your proposal would end with huge numbers homeless.

        1. MiC
          July 30, 2021

          No, it wouldn’t.

          It would, if phased in gradually, lower rents and property prices generally and have the reverse effect.

          I’m a landlord, incidentally, though my tenants get a very good deal – I don’t really need the money tbh.

          1. No Longer Anonymous
            July 30, 2021

            Then release your property on the market so that young people may get on the ladder.

            And Englishman in Wales doing this for the fun of it ???

          2. Micky Taking
            July 31, 2021

            The champagne socialist admits…

          3. MiC
            July 31, 2021

            Nah, Brain’s Bitter for me mate.

        2. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          That’s no response to my post MiC
          Is it just all private landlords you want restricting, or is it only Local Authority landlords you want to remain?
          How would your return to Council only landlords stop a resulting huge reduction in available rental properties?
          Have you really thought this through?

          1. hefner
            August 1, 2021

            Why should anyone wants to answer your questions? This is Sir John’s website not Peter2’s website. You’re just a contributor, rarely bringing a new angle on a subject: Some here are so much better at discussing topics than you are. Overall a C- and I am generous.

    2. Lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      I agree with much of this but as to “the high levels of government support for rich people’s pension contributions” these have been attacked hugely with a 55% tax and now very low lifetime limits and contribution limits (wrongly in my view – it has caused many (doctors for example) to retire early ). It is not really a “tax relief” anyway just a “tax deferment” as you pay tax at up to 45% when you draw the pension down. If you remove higher rate tax deferment you make investment in pensions rather pointless for many people.

  9. dixie
    July 30, 2021

    Spending review? Any review needs to be much more meaningful than that.
    Why should the NHS be given more money when at a time it was needed the most it withdrew medical and dental services in a claimed pandemic? We have been failed badly by that institution, at the cost of lives, and still are being failed.
    Far from performing a “spending” review which I imagine will follow the same “Business as usual” rails as any other before it there needs to be a drains-up existential review.
    The question is would any amount of money be appropriate without radical changes of focus, management and structure.
    The same needs to be asked about the public sector generally where they continued in secure employment, providing reduced services and increasing taxes while the rest of us were left to rot.

    1. Dave Andrews
      July 30, 2021

      The bigger problem for the NHS is it is over-subscribed treating lifestyles diseases, such as obesity and its negative consequences, drink, drug and smoking disorders and I suspect a good chunk of mental health problems are in fact self-inflicted. Relieve the NHS the pressure of these and they will find it much easier to cope.
      A society only produces so many suitable candidates for nursing and medicine. If these are insufficient because the excess demand is too great, the NHS has to turn to less suitable candidates to fill the posts. Consequently the service suffers, catastrophically for some who are treated.

      1. Everhopeful
        July 30, 2021

        Let us hope that you never need care for over consumption of raw carrots or for injuries sustained when exercising!
        Too many people is what ails the ghastly NHS.
        Yet still they come.

      2. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        Dave Andrews,

        I have come up with an explanation as to why all the young people I know who have died were of healthy weight and lifestyle. I have known not one with a shocking BMI to die young since the ’90s.

        The NHS do not pay the conscientiously fit their due attention. They were concentrating on the self-inflicted ill who were visibly obvious candidates for diabetes, coronary etc and were put on pills and regular screening.

        Doubtless I will be put to the back of the queue for knee surgery behind Mr Couldn’t-give-a-Toss because I have paid ÂŁ150 for a physio, adhered religiously to her advice on diet and exercise and made a 95% recovery with my own efforts. (Exactly the same injuries the Ben Shepherd has been treated for and Dr Hillary says are ‘nasty’)

        That said, a lot of sports injuries end up on the NHS (mine was DIY) but the deaths (and this is what I’m talking about) among the young in this vicinity always seem to be of people of good weight and lifestyle.

      3. NickC
        July 30, 2021

        The biggest problem with the NHS is that for the last 18 months it has been the National Covid Service.

        1. Micky Taking
          July 31, 2021

          It was more of a National Covid Disaster Saga.

    2. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      I’m still waiting for my NI REFUND for the past months!

    3. graham1946
      July 30, 2021

      The NHS did not withdraw treatment, the hospitals were still working, even with Covid shutdowns. My wife had an emergency operation during the pandemic, (and I had some treatment too) but I was not allowed anywhere near her except to collect her when it was discharge time. People needing treatment in her ward were coming and going all the time. The parts of the NHS that were shut down were GP’s and dentists agreed, but these are private contractors, not run by the NHS. Even now, after the so called release day, our doctors have stated on their website that they will continue a ‘locked door’ policy and only be doing phone and online consultations, unless they require you to visit as a result. No date for normal service is offered and I expect this is going to be permanent. On-line bookings are still cancelled and the only way even to get a call is to join the 8 am scramble, which will most likely result in no consultations available.

      1. graham1946
        July 30, 2021

        A further indignity offered by GP’s. I needed a blood test and was told to collect a form from the surgery. It was pouring with rain and I had to speak to a receptionist through a small window and stand in the rain whilst she found the form and handed it out by opening the window a crack. This is not the NHS, but private enterprise. I have never known doctors so afraid in my life.

      2. Philip P.
        July 30, 2021

        Graham, a widely-reported study recently published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia reports an estimated one and a half million cancelled or postponed operations in England and Wales during 2020.

        That’s quite a lot of withdrawn medical services, as far as I can see. To claim as you did that only GPs and dentists were shut down seems to miss out a million or so people refused hospital treatment. Although it’s very good to know that you and your wife were not among them, I think their experience is what should concern us.

        The comparison may not be exact, but in the last full year of NHS England data before the pandemic (2018/19), about 90.000 elective operations were cancelled for non-clinical reasons.

      3. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        Nope. People are dying of withdrawn treatment and diagnosis as we write.

        5 million treatments behind schedule.

        That’s a fact.

        1. graham1946
          July 30, 2021

          And what caused it? The Chinese virus most recently. Before that until 2010, the waiting lists were coming down and everyone had treatments, within I think, 18 weeks. We could even get GP appointments then. Now many have left the profession or retired early. Then came the genius George Osborne who was going to balance the books by 2015. He made many cuts in services but still managed to spend more in five years than Labour did in the previous 13 years. The Tories re-organised the NHS in 2012 and made it worse and employed many more administrators, reduced the number of beds to save peanuts. They are currently running at 100,000 shortage of clinicians with a bigger workload. How do you think your firm would work like that and with clinicians filling in forms all day to satisfy amateurs? It does need another re-organisation, but please God not be politicians, especially Tories who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. You sound as though you think the NHS was not working, but with relatives in it, I know what has been happening. And no I am not a Labour supporter, but was a Conservative until Cameron came along. These are some more relevant facts for you to consider.

      4. Micky Taking
        July 31, 2021

        You can trace all these ills (pun intended) back to the separation of GPs and surgery services into private business from NHS, poorly monitored and reported on. Care Homes may be investigated and closed, but similar issues with GP businesses go largely unreported.

    4. No Longer Anonymous
      July 30, 2021

      The NHS’s method for getting waiting lists down will be to wait-it-out and allow people to die of everything, so long as it is not CV-19.

      When I said “defeating Covid will be at ALL costs” I meant ALL costs. That includes your liberty and your very identity (masks.)

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        July 30, 2021

        And your life in some cases.

  10. lifelogic
    July 30, 2021

    The Marble Arch Hill has cost ÂŁ2 million+ for a pointless & temporary hill smelling of refuse. Plus traffic disruption too. About the same as building 20 permanent small houses for people. So why exactly did Westminster do it?

    1. Lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      A large Heltah Skeltah ride would have been far cheaper, more fun and far preferable.

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        That’s twisted.

    2. Andy
      July 30, 2021

      It’s a Conservative council. Conservatives don’t spend money on people. But at least you have a mound.

      1. NickC
        July 30, 2021

        The problem – at least one of the problems – is that the Conservatives won’t stop spending money on people. But the wrong people. Such as cultural marxists, gender ideologists, CAGW doomsters, and public sector employees. And on wheezes like battery cars, windmills, gender ideology, Chinese nuclear power plants, HS2, etc, etc, all to buy off people like you – but out of my pocket.

      2. Peter2
        July 30, 2021

        How do they manage to do that andy?
        Remarkable claim.

      3. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        Unlike the dung heap you sit upon thinking it’s the moral high ground.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 30, 2021

          Self made dung heap.

  11. Mark B
    July 30, 2021

    Good morning.

    This autumn will see a major public spending review.

    This is nothing more that a way for the Government to tell us how wonderful it is by spending more. Yes, the NHS will get more and, yes the service will little improve but CEO’s salaries and benefits will increase. Same to with local and devolved governments’.

    The only thing that will impress me, is if the government can actually manage to achieve a balanced budget. But with the PM throwing other peoples money around like a drunken sailor just so he can be more liked, I very, very much doubt it.

    1. Sharon
      July 30, 2021

      What is not mentioned is all the costs of the green agenda that will be passed on to the consumer via high electricity bills and vat.

      I agree with all those who say the Conservatives have lost the plot. Any true conservatives are wholly outnumbered by the mammoth number of control freaks that make up the blob et al!

      1. NickC
        July 30, 2021

        Sharon, The government predicts that “net zero” by 2050 (a binding legal requirement) will cost roughly the same as World War 2 cost us (pro rata) – about ÂŁ2 trillion. But everyone knows that government estimates double or triple or more when the final bills are in – witness HS2 which has tripled, and the fat lady hasn’t even sung yet. So I cannot see net zero costing less than ÂŁ6trn (3 x WW2) if we’re lucky. And the technology doesn’t even work yet. Pity Andy’s children – and mine!

    2. Old person
      July 30, 2021

      Forget about the balanced budgets, what I would like to see is an Act of Parliament forbidding the government from borrowing any money.

      Then they would be forced to balance the budgets thus avoiding the risk of (hyper)inflation.
      Using inflation by design to claw more in taxes from GCT and IHT is plain wrong.

      If someone down your road gets into difficulty with their mortgage, you would not expect the rest of the road to bale them out.

      Simple arithmetic follows.

      Cost of Covid $3.4bn
      Cost of 6 type 45 destroyers ÂŁ6bn (of which only one is operational)

      Unbelievable, enough said.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        You would not expect the rest of the road to be able to vote to prevent some of their neighbours from using a whole range of local facilities that they had enjoyed since 1973 either, but you seem to think that brexit is OK for some reason.

        1. Old person
          July 30, 2021

          Who mentioned Brexit. Like it or not, it was the result of a referendum. At least it came close to a democratic result despite the lies, fear factors, slogans on buses, and propaganda from both sides.
          By the way 33% voted not to join the Common Market in 1975 (on a turnout of 64% in the first UK wide referendum). And, as I remember, shopping soon cost more – the cheap wine promise never materialised. The only other UK wide referendum was for the 2011 Alternative Vote – rejected because the voters were not that interested in another flawed voting system.

          I live in the Tewkesbury Parliamentary Constituency.
          This constituency (at one time part of Cirencester as well) has returned a Conservative (or Unionist) member since 1885. It’s comforting to live in this so-called democracy.

        2. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          What a very bizarre response MiC
          Old Person never even mentioned Brexit, so why did you make up your statement…and I quote:-
          “but you seem to think that Brexit is ok for some reason”
          More made up nonsense from you MiC

        3. Micky Taking
          July 31, 2021

          and there was us ordinary voters thinking the ‘B’ word was over.

    3. Hope
      July 30, 2021

      Johnson has proven he is incapable of running his own finances let alone the country! How many times has his party covered his overspending ie wallpaper, holidays and even his food!! When caught he pays it back. How about the conservative thought of taking personal responsibility?

      This shower of a govt and party has shafted the prudent, strivers, savers who have struggled to provide for their families while being hammered in taxation to provide for the wasters, freeloaders and bureaucratic quota filled public services.

    4. James1
      July 30, 2021

      You are maligning drunken sailors. Drunken sailors don’t have access to taxpayers money.

  12. Maylor
    July 30, 2021

    Quote, ” They include the need to get better control of our borders to cut the costs imposed by illegal migration,”

    Also, the ongoing costs of supporting the illegal economic migrants who are already here and who we seem unable to deport ?

    1. Andy
      July 30, 2021

      What costs?

      Illegal migrants are illegal. They don’t cost you anything.

      Maybe you mean asylum seekers. Seeking asylum isn’t illegal. And they also don’t get benefits.

      Pensions, on the other hand, cost us ÂŁ100bn+ a year.

      1. jon livesey
        July 30, 2021

        Illegal immigrants are being housed in hotels at enormous costs. And no, young male hale and hearty arrivals are not “asylum seekers”.

      2. Peter2
        July 30, 2021

        Asylum seekers do get benefits andy
        You have been told this claim of yours is wrong several times before
        Check for yourself on .gov and stop getting things wrong

      3. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        I’ve just quit the RNLI because family members are far more likely to be injured by one of their uninsured/unlicensed imported drivers than they ever are by a rip tide. Your family too.

        Paying your ÂŁ40 a month yet ???

  13. MiC
    July 30, 2021

    Hayek certainly seems to have taken a back seat for now.

    His ideas appear to fall apart when confronted by war, natural disaster, epidemics and the rest.

    The fact that his ideas would increasingly appear to contribute significantly to making these things happen too may well prove fatal for this baleful doctrine, and not before time.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 30, 2021

      Complete drivel – but I do read that LSE Class War (Marxist?) students demand the university bans all private school students, eradicates free market economist Friedrich Hayek from the curriculum, no platforms speakers (the sensible ones I assume) and want to introduce minority quotas for staff.

      Clearly these people simply do not understand economics and want people chosen for political and diversity reasons rather than quality or ability.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        There are – as far as I can see – no marxists contributing to this site, nor materially to British politics at all.

        So why the repetitive obsession?

        Not a single MP nor any represented party proposes the abolition of private property.

        1. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          What about Labour’s desire to eliminate public schools?

    2. William Long
      July 30, 2021

      + 1
      Anyone taking any sort of State employed job, including, and perhaps particularly, MPs, should have to prove he has read and understood ‘The Road to Serfdom’.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        It’s a book based on one man’s theory, not fact.

        You seem to have a similar attitude to what some religious fanatics have to their sacred book.

        This happens again and again.

        Read another book. And then another…

        1. Micky Taking
          July 31, 2021

          It was you who mentioned fanatics…

    3. Richard1
      July 30, 2021

      it seems you cannot actually have read Hayek’s writing.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        I have – on the other hand it seems that you have either failed to read or misunderstood everything else.

        And there is rather a lot of it.

    4. NickC
      July 30, 2021

      Well, Martin, I would much prefer to live under a government that followed Hayek’s principles than one which copied Marx’s ideology. But each to his own, I suppose.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        There are an infinity of alternatives in between those two silly polarised arrangements.

        I’ve seen some Straw Men in my time, but boy oh boy…

        1. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          Because you prefer the Marxist pathway rather than a free open economy.
          Come on Marty admit it.
          Dont be shy.

  14. Alan Jutson
    July 30, 2021

    Why do we only have a spending review once a year, appreciate that perhaps an annual budget has to be set out in some form, but households and business review and check spending constantly, and if it starts to get out of hand, then a decision is made to either stop purchasing a product or service, or seek and alternative immediately, not in a years time.
    Seems to me these annual budgets are just a green light to spend that amount, no matter if the goods or work are required or not.
    Perfectly understand a wage review should be made on an annual basis.

    1. SM
      July 30, 2021

      +1

    2. turboterrier
      July 30, 2021

      Alan Jutson

      Oh so true. How many times have we heard towards the end of the financial year “if I don’t utilise all my budget they will reduce it next year”
      Turn it around. Bonuses for saving money and introducing continual improvement. Daily, weekly, monthly team briefs, the people at the coal face can stop waste as it happens. Another office favourite when things are discovered going wrong ” could have told them that it was bleeding obvious”
      Never nothing new is there?

  15. J Bush
    July 30, 2021

    Given the way France is not just failing to halt/manage the illegals jumping into dingy’s, but is actively aiding with escorts/deliberately turning a bling eye, why hasn’t this remuneration to them been stopped/a refund demanded?

    If the Johnson regime are of the opinion this waste of taxpayers money must continue, change the method under which this remuneration is paid and make it paid in arrears, based on daily basis achievement.
    Achievement in no crossings results in remuneration.
    Failure to halt the crossings results in no remuneration.

    The taxpayer has a right to know why they are expected to pay twice.
    1. To Macron
    2. Then paying again for the illegals upkeep

    And why are undocumented illegals allowed entry, they are hardly fleeing from a war torn country?

    1. SecretPeople
      July 30, 2021

      +1 I agree, performance-based payment. Or penalties for allowing unvetted fighting age men reach our shores.

  16. Andy
    July 30, 2021

    HS2 will cost ÂŁ100bn. That is a lot of money.

    But it is a multi-generational project. It’ll be used not only by your children and grandchildren but by THEIR children and grandchildren too. It will still be here in 2121, 2171 and beyond – carrying passengers in the same way we still mostly use railways built by the Victorians.

    In this country a project even vaguely ambitious gets moaned about. The M25 was moaned about. Where we would be without it? HS1 was moaned about. Heathrow T5 was moaned about. The Jubilee Line extension was moaned about. The 2012 Olympics were moaned about. Crossrail has been moaned about. They have all been a success. HS2 will be too.

    The ÂŁ100bn price tag will be paid back over generations. Meanwhile your pensions cost us more than ÂŁ100bn per year and the rest of us get nothing from then. Axe state pensions save ÂŁ100bn+ a year.

    1. MWB
      July 30, 2021

      More moaning from London !
      There should nothing more for Loondon until the northern areas of England have had some investment.

    2. Richard1
      July 30, 2021

      Of course there is debate on major projects and all will have some opposition.

      But none of the projects you mention had anything close to the opposition to HS2. And rightly so as they were by and large well thought through, positive NPV projects. HS2 is not. It’s supporters have back-solved into increasingly spurious justifications which do not stand up even to cursory analysis. HS rail is already obsolete and will certainly be so by the time HS2 opens. It’s yet another example of public money wasted at the behest of shrill and righteous posturing designed to shut down rational debate.

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      July 30, 2021

      It isn’t a multi-generational project.

      Railways will be obsolete by then.

      Very realistic Virtual Reality is on its way.

      1. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        +1

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          July 30, 2021

          Thank you, Lifelogic.

          Both of my boys worked on it during their Master’s.

    4. NickC
      July 30, 2021

      Andy, But by axing state funded of education we could save much more – ÂŁ150bn+ a year. And much more quickly too, because to end the contracts the state would need to give pensioners a 30 year notice where new parents would only need 6 years.

    5. Adrian T
      July 30, 2021

      ÂŁ100bn sounds like a bargain next to ÂŁ37bn for test and trace. Which budget did that come out of?

      1. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        Amazing test and trace could spend so much, so quickly and deliver so little of any value.

        Very hard to believe it was not essentially corrupt or breathtakingly incompetent, but perhaps they can explain?

    6. Peter2
      July 30, 2021

      It will obviously swop current cash for an eventual asset Andy.
      That is true.
      But there is a thing economic experts call the opportunity cost.
      In other words what alternatives could that huge sum of money have been spent on.
      And there is, I would argue, a long list of such projects.
      PS
      Will HS2 have many passengers?
      The business plan said wealthy business people need to get to meetings quicker.
      But post CovĂŹd most meetings are done on t’internet

    7. Mike Wilson
      July 30, 2021

      No-one will use HS2. It will be too expensive for most people. It is the biggest white elephant yet.

      You can only axe my state pension if you refund enough of the tax and NI I paid over 48 years and retrospectively invest it in a fund. You can’t seriously be suggesting that current pensioners who, all their working lives, paid the pensions of those older than them should now be deprived now it is their turn. That would not be fair, would it.

      Mr. Redwood, I am surprised you allow this ageist hate speak.

      1. turboterrier
        July 30, 2021

        Mike Wilson
        I am surprised you allow this ageist hate speak.

        I must admit I am very much with you on this one Mike. At times I find it hard to believe that comments like this get past the moderator.

        1. John C.
          July 30, 2021

          Look upon him as someone who likes to stir up older people, especially contributors to this blog. Every time you rise in anger no doubt makes him smile in pleasure. It’s his hobby. Best thing is to laugh at his absurdity, or mock him for his blatant cheek . It is up to Sir John to finish with him, but I suppose he allows him as proof that he believes in free speech.

      2. Dave Andrews
        July 30, 2021

        So what’s happened to all that tax and NI you paid? Surely there would be a surplus for the pensioners of today? But no, it was all spent by borrow and spend governments according to their election promises, voted for largely by those same pensioners in their gullibility.

      3. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        They are not axing it. They just keep delaying it so most people will be nearly dead before they start to pay out.

      4. Fedupsoutherner
        July 30, 2021

        Mike, I agree with your last sentence. Andy posts are full of bile towards pensioners.

      5. Iain gill
        July 30, 2021

        Don’t worry they will raid private pensions and sell off vulnerable people’s houses to fund waste by the state.

    8. Cheshire Girl
      July 30, 2021

      Andy:
      It was inevitable that you would have a go at Pensioners again. Every comment you make ends the same.
      Every time I read your comments, it makes me more determined to accept an increased pension, even if such as you, have to make a contribution.

      I’m not a greedy person at all, having started full time work at 15, but I am fed up with people such as you, blaming all this Country’s problems on the older generation.

      1. graham1946
        July 30, 2021

        He hasn’t done any service yet. He said he has a degree so he only started paying in at about 23-25 years of age. His degree was paid for by the older generation. He won’t have to pay so much in either to get his pension as they only want about 30 years now as against the 44 years I had to pay and actually paid for 50 years.

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        July 30, 2021

        Well said Cheshire Girl.

    9. John C.
      July 30, 2021

      Axe Andy and save us the precious seconds he wastes as we skip on to the more sensible contributors.

    10. jon livesey
      July 30, 2021

      “Axe state pensions save ÂŁ100bn+ a year.” That’s a crazy suggestion. Retired taxpayers already paid for their pensions. And they have to live. Since they assumed they would get a pension, you will have to give them an income one way or another.

    11. Original Richard
      July 30, 2021

      Andy :

      Apart from the cost of HS2 already being well above ÂŁ100bn, it is based upon the out-of-date technology of steel wheels on a steel track and hence extremely expensive to build and maintain.

      Furthermore, its high speed makes it fuel hungry and hence very ungreen (and noisy) as well as being a completely useless form of transport when we have pandemics which are likely to occur again in the future. And no-one living along the track can use it.

      A better historical analogy for HS2 would be to compare it with the relatively short period of time that canals were used for industrial transport – despite the massive investment in them – and which were quickly replaced by the better technology of rail and then by roads using far cheaper and more flexible ice vehicles.

      The future will be roads with small, individual self-drive vehicles.

    12. Micky Taking
      July 31, 2021

      You miss the point in the criticism Andy, as usual.
      The common denominator in your list was the great value provided from the infrastructure by those projects. What value by HS2? a ‘we’ve got one too? boast’. Pity the nature, design and use will be oh so ancient by the time it gets to be used between 2 large cities, ignoring the rest of the country. And who benefits? A few thousand gaining a predicted 20 minutes, in reality less. Still used in 150 years time? Possibly to house the Party bosses to protect them from the radiation above.

  17. Narrow Shoulders
    July 30, 2021

    Start with the obvious – foreign aid to include costs of illegal immigration and other refugees ringfenced at the start of each year plus a substantial amount for repatriation to a supported camp in Africa (for all arrivals whose provenance is unclear).

    Introduce ÂŁ10 deposit for each NHS appointment and give this money to the NHS.

    Cap on executive salaries and a complete review of pensions.

    Slash compliance costs for diversity budgets by removing the need to comply, let the cream rise not the preferred.

    Restrict translation costs.

    Scrap HS2 and Green subsidies, if they they are worthwhile they will sustain themselves.

    Reduce the number of MPs and the number of patronage posts.

    Reduce the number of Lords.

    Slash money given to charities, let the public pay if the cause is worthwhile.

    Close all tax loopholes by simplifying the tax code (tax giveaways are spending).

    Invest in post school training.

    1. J Bush
      July 30, 2021

      +10
      The fact you have to raise these obvious points, merely demonstrates how myopically thick the career politicians are.

      IMO only people with at least 10 years experience of working in the private sector and have a successful track record can apply to be considered for election.

    2. turboterrier
      July 30, 2021

      Narrow Shoulders
      Translation costs?
      When working and living in Spain there are no interpreters unless you bring your own and pay for them. No forms with translation. Just the reminder that you are in Spain so learn the language or supply your own interpreters. Cannot really argue with that.

    3. Fedupsoutherner
      July 30, 2021

      Narrow Shoulders. Rather than charging people ÂŁ10 a time for a NHS appointment wouldn’t it be better to charge all foreigners for treatment on the NHS? At the moment millions are getting away with expensive treatments like giving birth, cancer, aids etc. Some people have complex medical problems which necessitate many appointments and this could be a serious problem for those on low incomes. Life is hard enough for some already without introducing charges which could affect their long term health. I agree with all your other points though.

    4. Know-Dice
      July 30, 2021

      NS I can’t fault any of those proposals.

      And as a FYI in relation to the BBC and diversity

      The corporation’s director of creative diversity, according to its annual report, earns £267,000 a year for working a three-day week

      How can that be justified?

      1. lifelogic
        July 30, 2021

        +1 massively over paid.

    5. SecretPeople
      July 30, 2021

      I especially support your first and last points.

    6. Cheshire Girl
      July 30, 2021

      Agreed.

  18. formula57
    July 30, 2021

    “… to get better control of our borders to cut the costs imposed by illegal migration…” – Home Secretary Patel allowed c. 400 to arrive last weekend (can she reach 500 this weekend?) so any budget needs at least to cover the equivalent cost of a new small town annually, ignoring those who arrive during the week.

    1. J Bush
      July 30, 2021

      If Patel & Co are going to continue this stupidity, the funding must come out of the FA budget. And the budget must not have any mid-year or year on year rises because they overspent.

      And if they don’t like it, tough. Politicians need to learn to manage and stay within the budget limit, or pay for the difference out of your own pocket!

    2. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      Sorry to repeat this

      Unfettered immigration=No borders=No nations=No citizens=No rights=No votes=No democracy.
      What we see is what they want. Dancing to the globalist agenda.
      And has it occurred to anyone else that South Africa has a huge migrant problem. Some head for Europe other for SA. Aided and abetted. A bit like a biblical clearance.
      Why? Resources?

      1. SM
        July 30, 2021

        It’s worth taking a look at the state of affairs in a great many African nations – multiple civil wars between tribes, between gangster groups, between political groups attempting to pull down a dictator (and usually establish their own), between religious groups. South Africa has had the same Party running Government since Mandela, and often proudly proclaims its links to Communism and Communist-run countries elsewhere across the world … and it is on the point of collapse. Can anyone wonder why people want to leave such countries and come to places they only know from films and tv programmes?

        1. Everhopeful
          July 30, 2021

          Very true but one wonders who foments the trouble.
          Central Africa I think is extremely rich in copper, diamond, gold, graphite, ilmenite, iron ore, kaolin, kyanite, lignite, limestone, manganese, monazite, quartz, rutile, salt, tin, uranium
.all very sought after.
          Tempting don’t you think? Just persuade those who should benefit from the riches to leave.
          Look how successfully our govts manage to create tension, if not downright violence between groups. Always divide and rule.
          And as I pointed out the migration is not just to Europe. South Africa has many newcomers.

  19. Brian Tomkinson
    July 30, 2021

    The profligacy of this government has been something to behold but few seem to question. The cabinet apparently found the magic money tree that they previously claimed didn’t exist. Once we had a real Conservative government that abolished the ‘closed shop’ whereby membership of a trade union was obligatory to be employed in certain companies. We now have Boris Johnson trying to force people to be ‘vaccinated’ in order to keep certain jobs. They seem to have got into office by false pretences. Perhaps you know who the real puppet masters are? How you can support these people is a mystery and grave concern.

    1. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      Agree 100%.

    2. Iain Moore
      July 30, 2021

      Yes we are going to have to find some Imodium or something to treat Johnson’s fiscal incontinence

    3. Iago
      July 30, 2021

      ‘Perhaps you know who the real puppet masters are? How you can support these people is a mystery and grave concern.’

    4. Adrian T
      July 30, 2021

      Absolutely.

  20. No Longer Anonymous
    July 30, 2021

    Why is the PM deaf to business demanding that Track and Trace is dropped ? This ridiculous situation is squandering the vaccine success and crippling the country’s recovery.

    Or is that the point ? We’re not allowed to recover before the EU.

    1. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      Ducks walking and quacking!
      He don’t want no recovery?

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      July 30, 2021

      A record number of pings yesterday. Utter madness.

      1. Alan Jutson
        July 30, 2021

        F S

        It’s not the pings that are the problem, it is the policy of mandatory self imprisonment, even if you test negative and have had two jabs which is the problem.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 30, 2021

          Don’t the two go hand in hand? More pings more people isolating and off work?

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      July 30, 2021

      As Richard Littlejohn correctly points out today:

      – congestion charging hikes for Covid are being kept

      – masks on tubes are being kept

      – Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (roads blocked with planters) are being kept

      – empty cycle lanes restricting traffic to be kept

      – priority to bicycles being brought in (imagine the insurance scammers now !)

      – 30mph e-scooters on pavements being brought in by stealth…

      Does this government actually want the country to get back to business or not ?

      I took a bus the other day. My normal 20 minute journey took 1 hr 10 minutes, 5 minutes late and I missed a train – I had forseen this and had aimed to get the train an hour later – but this meant setting out two hours earlier than I would by car. I’m not an anti bus snob but why did the bus have to go into every close on every council estate it passed, picking up very fat people with front-bottoms ? Couldn’t these buses just stop only on the major routes in the lanes dedicated to them ? Then more people would actually use them and others would get a little bit of exercise too.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        With thousands of new cases every day, and the possibility of a new mutant, vaccine-immune, more lethal strain arising at any moment, well, yes – of course.

        For what, exactly, are you hoping?

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          July 30, 2021

          MiC

          You are a totally stultifying person.

          People would die of the amount of air you sucked out of a room despite Covid.

    4. Bill B.
      July 30, 2021

      No Longer Anonymous – You ask why. I think it’s clear. Big companies can cope with the ‘pingdemic’. Amazon and Big tech aren’t troubled if they have some staff off, they have enough others to take over the work.

      Small and medium enterprises are hit badly, on the other hand. Some of them won’t make it. Then their business can be bought up cheap, if desired, by the big operators. This is the point.

      After the last 16 months, you surely don’t think this government cares about SMEs.

    5. Adrian T
      July 30, 2021

      Recovery is not an option until we are fully vaccinated and trapped with Digital ID’s,
      then the BIS can enforce CBDC’s – result, One World Government.
      We won’t need Politicians any longer, we will own nothing and be happy (those that survive the ‘cull’ of course).

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        July 30, 2021

        We don’t need politicians now !!!

        They are today’s miners.

  21. Sakara Gold
    July 30, 2021

    If we really want to save money, we could make a start by scrapping the MoD in its entirety and allow the armed forces to buy their kit ready made on the open market.

    We have spent in excess of half a billion pounds and 7 years developing an upgrade for the Army’s Warrior APC – and then Johnson scrapped it in the latest round of defence cuts, masquerading as an SDSR. We have also spent about ÂŁ10 billion on six Type 45 destroyers for the RN, five of them are laid up and the whole class has never worked properly. They have no antiship missiles to defend themselves, nor a torpedo launch capability. A complete waste of money. Originally the RN needed 12 of them.

    Another example is the Army’s Ajax Armoured Vehicle program, which has cost about ÂŁ7.5 billion over 8 years, it also does not work properly. Recently the Defence Select Committee reported that the prototype vehicles cannot reverse over obstacles more than 20 centimetres high, personnel must wear noise-cancelling headphones when operating them and that the Household Cavalry Regiment “cannot conduct effective collective training” in them due to vibration issues

    The list of defence procurement cock-ups, cost over-runs and lack of effective financial control by the MoD is disgraceful. I could make a case to privatise warfare completely and give responsibility for the defence of the realm to the private sector. The government could issue a requirement, say “destroy country X’s nuclear bomb program with no blowback”, the private sector would produce a fixed-price quote and we could let them get on with it. Sunak could print the money necessary.

  22. Everhopeful
    July 30, 2021

    Yet still the order goes out to fly the EU flag!
    We must thank the EU for so kindly returning a little of our money to fund various no doubt crackpot schemes in our cities.
    We left did we?

    1. glen cullen
      July 30, 2021

      not yet

  23. Bryan Harris
    July 30, 2021

    Is it going to be a review based on Thatcherite principles or socialist ones?
    If we are to see one that follows current trends that damage the economy, destroys business and taxes us even more then I’d say try another way… for we are sick of having our money stolen so that the government can throw it in any direction they care to.

    Now is the time to get back to the fundamentals of running a state, to concentrate our resources on what is best for the people of the United Kingdom.

    That means putting a stop to all wasteful spending and subsidies – No more wasted on politically correct projects – No more wasted in trying to achieve an impossible goal of net zero, and most Definitely no more cheap meals in Westminster canteens.

    With all the money spent and wasted on covid it is time ministers were held to account while Parliament itself should make sure money is targeted – not blasted out like a scatter gun.,

  24. Everhopeful
    July 30, 2021

    Might be wise to see what the outcome of this long-planned, mandated mass vaccination campaign is before worrying about how to spend more hot cash.
    Mass vaccination during a pandemic is not reckoned to be such a great idea.
    The first smallpox vaccines rolled out with great enthusiasm in 1700s led to huge spikes in deaths.
    Herd immunity was later obtained by vaccinating just a few vis polio in Africa. That changed!
    But then, no doubt all politicians studied virology, immunology etc etc along with politics and basket weaving so all will be fine!
    And I doubt they have even heard of yellow cards, VAERS or side effects.
    And how wonderful
the West has “levelled down” in line with the third world in terms of epidemics. Just wait and see more results of “neglected” waterways and the craze for dambusting to let fish swim free!

    1. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      Ooooooh
      Notable exception to what I said about politicians. Have a look at Sir Graham Brady’s interview with NF about govt imprisonment of population.
      PLUS Dr Colin Axon a SAGE scientist has pointed out the futility of mask wearing ( mosquitos and chain link fencing).

    2. Bryan Harris
      July 30, 2021

      +1

  25. agricola
    July 30, 2021

    It is much easier to identify areas where money is failing to be spent than areas where money is being wasted. In the latter case HS2 has been allowed to develop its own momentum to the point where it is probably too expensive to stop it.
    London and large cities are spending a fortune waging war on the motorist private and commercial while the green lobby in Downing Street are in the process of eliminating the toxic effect of vehicles apace, which is what the war on the motorist is supposedly about. I suspect the big cities are grabbing cash while they can.
    End the cost of deliberate killing of road users on our so called smart motorways which are just the opposite and death traps.
    The press is constantly full of the ways the EU is trying at every turn to punish the UK for Brexit, halt all payments to them on the grounds of failing to fulfil a contract.
    Possibly the most important thing HMG could do would be to concentrate on facilitating the creation of wealth, and moving the mindset of the population to the principal of self sufficiency. Government doing almost anything are a proven force of incompetence, the more they are removed from peoples lives the better are those lives.

  26. Andy
    July 30, 2021

    We won’t recover as well as the EU because of your Brexit. It isn’t a hard equation. Brexit costs you and your country a lot of money. I have never considered the costs worth the marginal benefits of sovereignty over sausages.

    Enjoy your shortages.

    1. jon livesey
      July 30, 2021

      “We won’t recover as well as the EU because of your Brexit.” Since we grew faster than the EU for the past thirty years, it is impossible to argue that EU membership by itself was a real economic benefit.

      Now, *trade* was a benefit, but now we have trade with the EU without the costs of EU membership. That’s a win-win for the UK.

    2. MiC
      July 30, 2021

      European Union membership was unbearable for John’s regulars.

      As part of the nation they had to pretend to like foreigners and to acknowledge them as equals.

      The strain was just simply too much for the poor dears.

      1. Peter2
        July 30, 2021

        We like foreigners MiC
        Stop playing your sadly predictable race card.
        It’s the EU we don’t like, not Europe.
        Nor it’s people.

      2. Jamie
        July 30, 2021

        MiC .. it’s not really like that.. generally speaking Engliah in the main are shy reserved and are comfortable in their own company. On the other hand Scots
        Irish are extroverts completely different they throw caution apply whicheverway.. they welcome the foreigners

      3. Micky Taking
        July 31, 2021

        What are you and the boy wonder if not regulars?

    3. Peter2
      July 30, 2021

      Check your figures andy
      UK growth is already higher than the EU
      Unemployment is also much lower here.

    4. No Longer Anonymous
      July 30, 2021

      No matter.

      I was on a table of lasses telling me how gorgeous I was this evening.

      I don’t eat sausages. They’re not good for you.

  27. BW
    July 30, 2021

    Stop funding Charities. Charities are just a business by a direness name. You only need to look up what the CEO is on. Stop funding Stonewall and get them out of our schools.

  28. Andy
    July 30, 2021

    Ian Blackford – the SNP leader in Westminster – has raised the issue of Tory Brexit visa rules preventing some school exchanges. We credit the Brexitists with very little of worth – they have, after all, massively harmed our country. But although many are rabidly anti-foreigner I doubt many, if any, voted Leave to end school exchanges.

    They may have voted leave to keep out dinghy people who, amusingly, they now can’t keep out. But to end school exchanges? Tell us Brexitists – is this what you voted for and, if not, when will you fix it?

    1. Alan Jutson
      July 30, 2021

      Andy

      Why should school exchanges stop because of Brexit, they used to take place before we joined.
      Have you ever thought it may be your ever so friendly EU that is doing its best to try and punish us, which is the problem.
      Sausages last night were wonderful, much better than the French ones I cook when on holiday over there, and I have tried very many varieties.

      1. MiC
        July 30, 2021

        Even if your daft accusation against the European Union were true – they have far bigger fish to fry – who could blame them anyway?

        You Leavers should not have disgraced the country to the extent that any decent entity might well reckon that it owed it no favours.

        The problems, from empty shop shelves to the one that Andy describes are 100% down to YOU.

        Now own it.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          July 30, 2021

          Hey.

          You took part in a vote in which your X was a pledge to honour the result of the vote.

          If you took part in the slappety-slap of English people during the long-road-to-Brexit (and there were umpteen warnings that it might happen) then YOU own it.

          Treat people like shit then they act like shit.

        2. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          Where are these empty shelve Marty?
          I went to two well known supermarkets this week and no empty shelves.
          You making things up again?

        3. Fedupsoutherner
          July 30, 2021

          MIC. Please stop. I’m laughing too much. You and Andy can’t stop moaning like children over Brexit and pensioners. Someone should make a comedy with you two as the stars. What tripe you both talk. Like two old women over the garden wall.

          1. Micky Taking
            July 31, 2021

            or over the washing line…..except all they talk about is the dirty washing….never gets clean does it?

        4. Peter2
          July 30, 2021

          Give us examples of how the EU are working to make these student exchanges easier MiC

    2. John C.
      July 30, 2021

      Yes, I voted especially to forbid school exchanges. Noxious things.

    3. jon livesey
      July 30, 2021

      Blackford? You have to be joking. His entire job is to invent terrible, catastrophic things Brexit has done to Scotland, and he fabricates as much as some people here.

      If Blackford told us two and two make four I would want a second opinion.

      1. Micky Taking
        July 31, 2021

        That man, always makes me think about Charles Kennedy and the damage done to the poor man.

    4. Peter2
      July 30, 2021

      This is a story in the Guardian andy.
      It just says EU students will need a passport to travel to the UK
      Wow is that it?

  29. bigneil - newer comp
    July 30, 2021

    Tell us how much has been spent over the last decade on how many “arrivals” have come, hands out, and contributrd absolutely NOTHING. And still they come, still they are waved in. Once here they will NEVER leave – apart from a holiday back to show how good the UK is to them.

    1. Cheshire Girl
      July 30, 2021

      Big Neil

      And to encourage others, to join them here.

  30. oldwulf
    July 30, 2021

    I made a contribution to the 2020 spending review in connection with charities. A precis of the contribution is -charities are state aided as are many of their unpaid volunteers. Is it time to look at the trading practises of charities, particularly if they compete against “normal” businesses. We need a strong private sector to pay for public and charity sectors.

    From what I have learned it seems to me that the degree of accountability/regulation/policing of charities does not reflect the substantial amount of taxpayers money which they receive. How much of our taxes should be diverted away from our public services into the hands of charities is particularly important in the current climate.

    I accept there are more fundamental considerations to charitable giving, which were touched on by the BBC:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml

  31. ukretired123
    July 30, 2021

    Wow SJR has broached a minefield here and where do you start with a cop head. I agree that we seriously need to be realistic and my preference would be to harshly scrutinise the Civil Service for a start.
    Why should they not reflect society in a business case Cost Benefit analysis – coincidentally just like today when Honda Swindon closes down for good after 36 years taking with it another 10,000 workers in the supply chain?
    Rather expect more Civil Servants and paper based bureaucracy growth industry instead of actually reflecting reducing headcounts like the Private Sector has done by the Digital Revolution and Internet Revolution taking place post Ww2.
    Where have these people been hiding ? Under a cosy rock it seems totally out of touch except with Brussels HQ.

  32. ukretired123
    July 30, 2021

    Errata this tablet adds extra words unexpectedly like cop instead of sore head!

  33. Lester
    July 30, 2021

    John Redwood, surely your remarks are intended as satire, because they bear no reality to the situation that’s facing us daily

    More funding for the NHS?

    Because they’ve made healthcare unavailable? have you tried seeing a Doctor recently, if you manage to get through all the propaganda about the dangers posed by the virus, every aspect of our healthcare has suffered, dentistry, ophthalmology, I’ve not had my Glaucoma checked for 18 months

    1. Bryan Harris
      July 30, 2021

      +10

    2. Iago
      July 30, 2021

      You should move heaven and earth to get it checked. I’ve just lost a hell of a lot of my sight by not getting myself checked for nineteen months (and my pressures used to be very stable). Once gone, it does not come back.

  34. agricola
    July 30, 2021

    Why does the UK government suffer so much muddled thinking and erratic behaviour regarding international holiday travel
    The double vaccination gives a high degree of immunity or a vastly reduced chance of debilitating symptom or death. That said, why are double vaccinated people hampered from travel to and from green and amber destinations. They are no more likely to get a touch of Covid in Benidorm than in Brixton HMG behaviour is causing chaos.

  35. Martin C
    July 30, 2021

    Stop all financial incentives for reporting Covid 19.

  36. Mark
    July 30, 2021

    I see that Mr Shapps is contributing another ÂŁ338m into his traffic jam creation schemes. His latest wheeze to alter the Highway Code to give priority to pedestrians at all times will presumably be seized on by XR to appoint followers to block as many roads as they can by standing in the middle of traffic. Idiotic.

  37. NickC
    July 30, 2021

    Reductions in spending?

    1. Scrap HS2;

    2. Scrap all compulsory “net zero” programs;

    3. Scrap all subsidies to so-called “green” projects;

    4. No welfare payments at all to all migrants until they have paid NICs for 15 years;

    5. Charge all immigrants for use of schools, NHS, and infrastructure until they have paid NICs for 15 years;

    6. Exit the NIP which is destroying the UK, and costing ÂŁbns;

    7. Reduce the payments to the EU to the amount suggested by the Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (ICAEW) report of June 2017 (between £5bn and £15bn, depending on assumptions, net), not the £40bn+ demanded by the EU; reduce the amount for every difficulty the EU puts in our way;

    8. Ensure the EU knows that for every act of EU spite, the UK will retaliate – EU belligerence is not going to end until we stand up for ourselves;

    9. Tow the illegal migrant boats back to French waters – what are the French going to do – fire at migrant boats?

    10. Get fracking for gas in Lancashire and build natural gas fired CCGT generators – the cheapest clean electricity.

    There’s plenty more where that came from.

    1. glen cullen
      July 30, 2021

      I like all your 10 points

    2. turboterrier
      July 30, 2021

      NickC
      Absolutely brilliant. What parliamentary seat will you be standing for? Are there any more at home like you? Your country needs them

    3. UKretired123
      July 30, 2021

      Very interesting indeed!

    4. Fedupsoutherner
      July 30, 2021

      Now there are some great ideas Nick.

  38. Will in Hampshire
    July 30, 2021

    My suggestion is that HMT needs to make clear to the MoD and FCO that much of the Strategic Defence Review is unaffordable and needs to be revisited. A tight focus on dominating air & sea space around the British Isles, with appropriate protection against cyber and space domain interference, should be sufficient. Sensible commitments in respect of our NATO obligations can be made within this context, such as leading on anti-submarine operations in the Atlantic and reinforcing ground operations in Norway and Iceland if required.

  39. Mike Wilson
    July 30, 2021

    MPs’ salaries and pensions.
    Attendance pay for House of Lords.
    Reduce by at least half the size of the Lords.
    Public sector pensions to be reduced.
    Cancel HS2
    Cancel the new royal boat
    Remove vast layers of bureaucracy in the NHS
    Stop sending money to the EU
    Make it illegal for public sector to procure from abroad
    Everything on this list:
    https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste-factbook

    Health warning: Some items on the Taxpayers Alliance web site may make your blood boil.

    Mr. Redwood – the answer, always, is for government to stop spending our money frivolously, carelessly and to make wilful and culpable waste of public money a criminal offence.

    1. turboterrier
      July 30, 2021

      Mike Wilson
      make wilful and culpable waste of public money a criminal offence.

      Mike, it would create some work that’s for sure in building enough prisons to hold them all. They are only wasting/spending our money so it doesn’t matter. Dismiss them all and re-employ them under a PBR (payments by results) contract. I am sure there would be more than a few that would earn a heck of a lot of money. As for the rest Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

    2. DavidJ
      July 30, 2021

      +1

    3. UKretired123
      July 30, 2021

      Amazing!

  40. glen cullen
    July 30, 2021

    If the governments public spending review is anything like the HS2 spending review(s) we’re in trouble

    1. turboterrier
      July 30, 2021

      Glen Cullen

      +1 Well and truly in the mire Glen.

  41. Bryan Harris
    July 30, 2021

    With the government conceding that they must keep the triple lock on pensions, the word is that they will claw most of this increase back by taxing it off OAP’s.

    How’s that for sly treatment of this most long suffering group, already paupers by comparison to how the elderly are treated elsewhere?

    This is certainly not what Thatcherite economics demands

    1. Everhopeful
      July 30, 2021

      +1

    2. Lester_Cynic
      July 30, 2021

      Bryan Harris

      Surely the government aren’t going back on their promises about the triple lock on pensions?

      But they’ve always treated the electorate with absolute respect, they were assuring us recently that they had no intention of introducing vaccine passports, you’re not telling me that they’ve changed their minds?

    3. jon livesey
      July 30, 2021

      “The word is” How’s that for conclusive evidence?

  42. mancunius
    July 30, 2021

    HS2 must go – an outdated white elephant that can easily be replaced by universal fast fibre broadband, and selective upgrading to some regional rail lines.
    The personal attendance business meeting is dead. Long live the more concentrated workflow and greater leisure time that will result.

    1. UKretired123
      July 30, 2021

      Agree the digital economy has greener credentials unlike Hs2 and the EU Strasbourg gravy train circus.

  43. DavidJ
    July 30, 2021

    The NHS should not be given more money to squander for an often mediocre service. It needs reform.

  44. Original Richard
    July 30, 2021

    The problem is that it appears that no-one working in the public sector or for large corporations ever gets sacked for incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, misbehaviour or even criminality.

    1. UKretired123
      July 30, 2021

      Spot on!

  45. jon livesey
    July 30, 2021

    Just to be clear, merely reducing spending is not going to drive economic growth. That’s a housewife-level way of thinking about economics. Growth is based mainly on two things – skills and investment.

    Economic growth takes strategic spending by both Government and private business.

  46. Iain Gill
    July 30, 2021

    any idiot can come up with popular spending increases, and popular tax decreases.

    the real skill is coming up with popular tax increases, and popular spending decreases…. I could list several dozen of these easily, but the chances of our political class coming up with any of them is next to zero, and that is the underlying problem.

  47. Ian Stafford
    July 30, 2021

    What worries my is the fear that what is going to be cutback is Defence, just when we need to build it up.

    1. Micky Taking
      July 31, 2021

      We need to concentrate on effective equipment, training, cyber skills and aspects of possible future conflicts’ needs. Stop the competing budget grabbing by the separate services, and no more spending on trophy items.

  48. Rhoddas
    July 31, 2021

    You asked for how to reduce expenditure, here are some key standard business optimization activities:

    Capital Expenditure:
    Vanity projects – listed by your great readers/contributors – bin them
    Everything else needs a demonstrable business case, with either savings or increase in turnover/profit.
    Nationalising to GB Rail = Labour policy, did no-one notice this just sneaked through? Why?
    Like the idea of Energy independence, lets use those British Rolls-Royce mini nuclear reactors instead of Chinese/French tech, as they are tried and tested kit as reliable adjuncts to our sustainables. Can’t have the belligerent EU threatening us again to cut off the power like they did with Switzerland and Jersey too. China has become fundamentally malign and belligerent to virtually every other country, why would we want to trade with them sustantially on a forward basis?

    Operating Expenditure:
    Scope creep of Government – we thought Tories favoured light touch Goverment but the reality is invasive control aka the Nanny state. Strip out woke areas, diversity jobs and far too many leftie quangoes!
    Staffing pyramids = flatten manager/staff ratios and correct rate for the job/experience level needed.
    Make pensions affordable, gold plated career average salary schemes are now often worth the same ÂŁÂŁ terms as the salary; compared to private industry this is grossly unfair, levelling down I know, but summat has to give.
    Automate processes, reduce staffing, use more tech.
    Performance Management – remove poor performers/jobsworth correctly using formal HR processes, offer retraining, but if it fails, why should taxpayers pay?

    Supply Chain Management
    French have been doing this really well for years – they have distance mileage/km criteria to mark down Bid/tenders for products coming from far away – carbon/greenhouse gases assessments used to protect local/French businesses. Overhaul procurement rules generally…

    Fraud/Bad Debt
    Much has been said about cronyism in Pandemic contracts, need to nail this with some prosecutions.
    Furlough Fraud, Business Loan Fraud et al have been absolutely horrendous, probably the biggest fiscal failure of HMG ever, even beating Test and Trace spend. Getting this money back will also cost time and people and many many prosecutions, MoJ will never cope, backlog already years.
    It should be reported alongside the ONS C19 statisitics. Substantially avoidable imho.

    WA/NIP:
    Where UK PLC and Government are incurring increased costs due to the pedagogical procedures of the EU’s interpretation of agreements, designed to punish us for have the audacity to leave democratically, we should measure/track these costs and deduct them from the WA settlement.

    FTAs:
    Keep up the fantastic work Ms Truss… reduces costs to UK people and businesses.

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