There is no such thing as an independent Central Bank, owned as they are by governments on behalf of states or the EU. It is possible for Central Banks to call the shots on interest rates, credit,Ā banking and money supply for periods without government interference, but in the end these are all issues that may come to matter to politicians andĀ the public. When they do governments replace Governors, change the remits, change the legislation or the rules which control them. Under Mr Brown as Chancellor then PM the Bank of England accepted a change ofĀ inflation target, and during the banking crash was effectively rightly overridden by the government to cut interest rates at the height of the troubles. Substantial changes were made after the 2008 banking crash by the incoming Coalition government . Even during periods of apparent independence there is usually behind the scenes agreement.Ā Chancellor Mr Osborne inĀ the UK chose a new Governor of the Bank of England who shared many of his views. The Bank obligingly saw independently the Remain campaign in the EU referendum that followed as the right answer and produced inaccurate pessimistic forecasts of what would happen if Leave won. The current Fed Chairman is at one with Treasury Secretary Yellen over running the US economy hot. The Fed has a dual mandate on employment as well as inflation and is always expected to work with the Administration of the day.
The doctrine of independence is most advanced in the case of the European Central Bank. It should be much easier there, as no single state or national government can bend it to its will or appoint a new Governor. In practice the ECB works closely with the EU Commission and is understandably an advocate and enforcer of more EU integration. They came to see they needed to take extraordinary action that German opinion would not like to head off Euro crises and allow the continued financing of the deficit countries.
Nonetheless most establishment figures and mainstream political parties claim Central Banks are independent. This means the politicians in office or seeking government positionsĀ have to refuse to comment on a wide range of economic instruments from interest rates through cash and liquidity levels to credit policies and bank regulations, leaving these to a so called independent Bank. It is a shock to the system if a senior government figure does venture any public criticism of a Central Bank. Their efforts at behind the scenes influence have to beĀ done invisibly.
That is what makes the decision of Germany’s CDU party, the party of Mrs Merkel that claims to welcome EU integration, all the more remarkable. Mr Merz, runner up candidate to lead the CDU and the new Leader’s chosen expert on economic matters has been critical of ECB policy. He thinks the ECB is allowing too much inflation. He shares the Bundesbank Chairman’s fears that German inflation is heading for 5%, an unacceptably high figure to them. He thinks the ECB should stop buying so many bonds, facilitating yet more borrowingĀ by the deficit states of the Union at low rates of interest. Like it or not ECB policy has become an important tension in the German election.
September 3, 2021
Good morning.
He is playing to the crowd / voters, much like Mr. Barnier (France) is doing with regards to immigration.
As I said in a previous piece – No matter who you vote for, the EU (Commission) always wins. But hey, try telling that to our Remainer Trolls.
September 3, 2021
Well, the EU Commission certainly beat the Brexitist clowns that you sent to negotiate for us.
Nobody who voted remain is responsible for the economic, political and diplomatic disaster that the Brexitist fools have imposed on our country. That would be entirely the fault of people like you.
September 3, 2021
Andy :
āWell, the EU Commission certainly beat the Brexitist clowns that you sent to negotiate for us.ā
Our Remainer Conservative Party elected a Remainer PM, Mrs. May, who sent a hard Remainer, Sir Oliver Robbins KCMG CB , to negotiate our exit from the EU.
Our Remainer Parliament, Civil Service and even Judiciary did all they could to stop Brexit or weaken our negotiating stance through legislation.
So if you feel that Brexit is an economic, political and diplomatic disaster then I think you need to blame the original Remainer negotiators.
September 3, 2021
Too right Original Richard. It was tge remainers who did the deal. Not a leaver.
September 3, 2021
āThis is all a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe.ā
Nicholas Ridley MP secretary of state for industry July 1990.
Poor man then had to resign for telling the truth – before the wisdom of his words sank in.
One bank fits all? Well it suited the Germans so the others could just lump it. Hence economic crises in The Mediterranean EU countries.
Plus attempts to foist Cultural Marxism and mass immigration from the third world on traditional nations like Hungary and Poland. Britain, sadly, is more susceptible to this sort of stuff.
September 3, 2021
It was a silly and insulting remark by Nicholas Ridley and quite untrue itās no surprise he had to resign.
September 4, 2021
What happens to those who expect freedom of speech, and use it in accord with general public feeling? Answer – They are forced to resign. Some democracy -innit !
September 3, 2021
To a certain extent I agree with your comments in that itās this governments fault, it didnāt negotiate well and didnāt in good faith implement the referendum nor our departure from the EUā¦.because they where all a bunch of remainers
September 3, 2021
When, after extensive consultation, it is clear that a proposal would not pass the European Union Parliament, it is modified until it appears that it would, or it is withdrawn.
If you want a real rubber-stamping parliament on the other hand, then look at the UK’s.
The Tories have a majority of eighty, consisting of largely eager-to-please newcomers.
There, absolutely, you have it.
September 3, 2021
And this comment is from a guy who regularly claims that a majority of eighty means absolutley nothing thanks to our voting system.
Either a majority of eighty is significant, because it enables the majority to get the legislation they voted for at the last election, or it is meaningless because it does not. In our case, it does.
To say that Parliament is a “rubber stamp’ because it enables the majority to get what they voted for is idiotic.
September 3, 2021
@Jon Livesey
Well, it isn’t really. The government is run by the Prime Minister, a few cabinet ministers and a few civil servants. The average Tory MP (and Labour MP) simply does what they are told. How often does an MP rebel? Answer – rarely and then, often, only once. They face deselection if they don’t do as they are told. I think it is perfectly accurate to say that our parliament rubber stamps the legislation the government introduces.
September 3, 2021
Not eager-to- please, they are hoping to keep MP on their cv.
Sadly the johnnie come latelys will crash and burn back to earth at the next GE.
A massive shudder in ‘the force’ will shake the Party to its very foundations.
Time running out and probably lost supporting this joker, clown, any number of descriptions fit – but tragically PM doesn’t.
September 3, 2021
Meanwhile, in the UK it seems there will be an increase in tax by the government under the cover of paying for āsocial careā.
September 3, 2021
+1 – transparency and accountability comes to mind
September 3, 2021
Mark B :
Agreed.
Remaining in the EU, where decisions are made by those we did not elect and cannot remove and hence cannot influence, is truly a journey into the unknown.
September 3, 2021
The EU has 33,000 unelected Civil Servants, the UK has 420,000. In fact, it would be difficult to find a senior bureaucrat in the EU that wasn’t either directly elected; indirectly elected; or, appointed by someone who was elected at EU Parliament or Member State government level.
Reply Yes the EU has the top officials. All the workers implementing EU policy have to be on the payroll of the member states
September 3, 2021
That is pure EU propaganda that we have been hearing for decades. It simply misses out all the multiple levels of civil servants in EU member states who do nothing except implement EU policies.
September 3, 2021
Surely some kind soul will make clear to Mr. Merz that the pass was sold a long time ago and the ECB will accordingly take no notice?
September 3, 2021
Dear Sir John
Isn’t it about time the European Central Bank had its name corrected to the European Union Central Bank? One might have thought the EU itself would want this.
September 3, 2021
I welcome all division in the EU and all instances of the Union underperforming the UK. Despite the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has decided to treat us as an enemy.
September 3, 2021
Ah ā¦ somebody in another country criticises something to do with the EU and the Brexitists squeal with delight. āLook our failed project is working!ā Except it isnāt.
From the huge shortages of products and staff to the collapse in exports of food to Europe to the self imposed border in NI to the tsunami of pointless bureaucracy everybody the world over can see that Brexit is a disaster. A policy by – and for – fools.
September 3, 2021
The only unpatriotic fool I can see is …………….you.
September 3, 2021
Andy, “Latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggested there are between 1.6m and 2 million people furloughed, at least half of whom are working some hours each week. Since the start of August the stateās contribution has been cut to 60%, with employers expected to contribute 20%.”
Furlough ends at the end of September, these furloughed people who have no expectation of returning at the end of September need to be applying and taking the jobs available now, 1.6 million available workers is a huge number the state is currently supporting when work is available!
September 3, 2021
Did you see financial services exports to the EU are up Compared to the comparable quarter pre-Brexit and Pre-covid? And massively up to non-EU. That isnāt what you were saying at all was it. You said they would be massively down.
September 3, 2021
And this comment is from a guy who told us this week that we know absolutely nothing about the EU, backed up by his Tweedle-dum who was boasting that he “had German”.
The EU is going to be there, at least in the short term, and it is going to go on presiding over zero growth and eight to ten percent unemployment year after year – about twenty years so far – so of course we are going to comment on it.
The EU is still an export market, so UK commenter have a completely legitimate interset in its progress, or lack of it.
By 2030 the EU will have declined so much compared to the rest of the World that it will be down to about 35% of our trade, so perhaps we’ll take less notice then.
September 3, 2021
And implemented by foolish remainers. Just the kind of rubbish deal someone like you would negotiate being a staunch remainer.
September 3, 2021
Shocked to guess you are going hungry. Not from where we sit or shop however.
You really need to emigrate Andy. You know, the sunny uplands across the Channel.
September 3, 2021
Inflation is to a significant extent influenced by workers’ ability to secure pay rises, though other factors can easily prove to be more influential.
This would suggest that employment and trade union law should be common to all using the central bank.
As it stands, these are almost wholly sovereign matters for member countries.
If it had been as I suggest – that is, European Union formulated – then I doubt that many UK workers would have voted Leave, and have thrown away the enormous improvement that this would have been over the unjust mess which passes for such law here to this day.
September 3, 2021
In the FT yesterday an article says pay rates are rising in the UK.
Wage inflation doesn’t always lead to general inflation sometimes it can lead to job losses as many of your EU friends and compatriots can contest as big companies moved jobs from higher wage Countries to Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.
September 3, 2021
Yes, I agree, and I allowed for your observations in “other factors”.
September 3, 2021
MiC
Since brexit,wages have risen at the fastest rate for a decade says the Guardian
Your Project Fear predictions were for rises in unemployment and wage reductions.
September 3, 2021
I personally made no such predictions.
Can you please cite someone who did?
Thanks.
September 3, 2021
Wow, you think that “you personally” are Remain? I’ll bet that “you personally” didn’t invade Iraq, either, but that does not get the Blair Government off he hook.
September 4, 2021
MiC
It was the central claims of your Project Fear throughout the referendum campaign.
Don’t you remember ?
Recession, higher unemployment, lower wages house price crash, chaos at Dover, no medicines…the list went on and on.
The negative campaign was why you lost.
September 3, 2021
Deny deny deny.
Run away run away.
What is it with you lefties?
September 4, 2021
Just quote someone on the Remain campaign who made those predictions.
September 4, 2021
Just try to remember the name of a remain campaigner and you have your answer.
September 4, 2021
Tripe, Peter.
September 5, 2021
Your history revisionism is so typical of remainers, who like you, are now desperately denying that their failed campaign was based on Project Fear.
September 3, 2021
“As it stands, these are almost wholly sovereign matters for member countries.”
That is a total and very elementary error. The EU member states may have sovereignty in Public Library opening hours, but they emphatically do not have monetary sovereignty because they do not have their own currencies.
The amount of the euro that is created , interest rates and inflation are completely under the control of the ECB, not the member states.
In fact, so helpless are the member states that the famous “euro crisis” of the mid-2000s was caused by those member states trying to exercise monetary sovereignty that they did not have. The PIIGS allowed their domestic inflation go above what they ECB allowed, through wage inflation, but the ECB did not allow the euro to fall – as a national currency would have – and the result was a crisis of diverging levels of competitiveness that almost broke the euro up. And this was well and carefully explained at the time to anyone who care to pay attention.
But thanks, MiC, for saying this. It shows that there is an entire level of the structure of the EU and its working that you simply do not understand technically. It’s another chunk of the EU that you just enthuse over without really knowing what it means.
September 5, 2021
You’re mistaken again.
September 3, 2021
Germany is said to be the worldās top saving nation.
The German people wonāt be too thrilled by inflation and determinedly low interest rates.
The ECB is happily keeping rates so low as to be virtually non existent.
Low interest rates since 2008 to āstimulateā the economy.
Can anyone say it is working?
September 3, 2021
ECB bond buying does not induce inflation because all it does is shift investor holdings from Eurozone national government debt to the ECB balance sheet, nothing changes fiscally at street level. Bond buying (QE style) stuffing banks with liquidity (cash reserves), has little to do with monetary inflation, currency depreciation, or bank lending. As Mosler said, bank lending is never limited by reserve requirements. Inflation is caused by Treasury deficit spending. There are no tools in the ECB or any central bank locker, that can reverse the deflationary forces caused by the austerity measures mistakenly applied since the 2008 crash.
The Eurozone needs the ECB to be converted to a Federal Treasury (currency issuer) under Eurozone member state control. It then needs to operate like the US Treasury and its FED bank does for the fifty states that use the federal currency.
September 3, 2021
+1
September 3, 2021
Low interest rates since 2008 has distorted savings and stolen wealth from prudent savers who either put up with below inflation interest rates on their life savings or risk other investments. Those who chose the housing market were deliberately ostracised and demonised by this administration to tax and regulate them to get them out of the market. This frees up more houses for their mass immigration project. I read yesterday that growth of our GDP can ONLY be gained by immigration or productivity per person. We know what the former conservative party chose and remains wedded to it. Who’s going to vote for more of this? Doctors appointment? School places? Congestion? Building on our green belt? Attacks on our English culture and heritage? We need radical change and a right of centre alternative.
September 3, 2021
+1
Utterly dire isnāt it?
September 3, 2021
“Germany is said to be the worldās top saving nation. The German people wonāt be too thrilled by inflation and determinedly low interest rates.”
If the Germans save a lot and then keep their savings on the form of currency, instead of investing them in inflation hedges, then they must be very dumb indeed.
Not that they are alone in this. People holding currency and also complaining about inflation, are very common.
September 3, 2021
QE is only possible with the active connivance and encouragement of governments. It has provided them with a short term fix but over time it is inflationary as we are all now discovering. Mr Merz is not the first in Germany to complain about the ECB’s bond issue machinations. But his boss until now, Mrs Merkel, was compliant with them in the past. She even went so far as to say they would have no impact on German cost of living or the government’s financial obligations as she agreed to kick the can down the road. It looks as if she is getting out of office just in time.
September 3, 2021
It is immediately inflationary.
Look what has happened to asset prices such as residential property.
September 3, 2021
Can you and acorn get together MiC
September 4, 2021
Read the specifics of what Acorn says, and contrast those with what happened here and in the US.
September 5, 2021
He says greatly increased money supply and government debt can be created out of thin air without causing inflation.
You say it will cause inflation.
Yet you are both on the left of politics.
September 4, 2021
Our inflation figures do not include residential property – but I think that they properly should.
September 3, 2021
What germany wants, germany gets. Was always so.
September 3, 2021
It was clear enough for years that what was good for the Bundesbank, legendary for its adroitness and prudence, was good for Germany. Accordingly, it would be fascinating to know just what expectations the Bundesbank had for Germany after it relented over abandoning the Deutschmark. Surely not this “burning building with no exits” mess, as aptly so named by William Hague?
September 3, 2021
And let’s not forget that “what was good for the Bundesbank” included the 1948 introduction of a new DMark that was an effective 50% devaluation, that also abolished 90% of existing debts and savings.
Germany’s post-war economic growth was founded on a massive *devaluation* that sparked off an export-led growth spurt.
Germany’s affection for strong currency is a form of collective amnesia.
September 3, 2021
Except in 1918 and 1945, but perhaps those were just experimental error.
September 3, 2021
Off topic I am afraid.
Reports of tax increases to pay for social care – why not reduce spending in others areas rather than asking for more money.
Starter for 10 – Afghan refugees, dinghy people – then hypothecate the large additional amounts paid for when occupying Afghanistan from the Defence budget to health.
September 3, 2021
If the DT’s report is correct, the Government intends forcing the working age population, which economically has suffered the most from the ludicrous Covid policy, to pay for social care of the elderly population which economically has suffered the least.
Genius ….. not.
I guess the Not-a-Conservative in No.10 has decided the best way to ensure we don’t ever get a hard-left Labour Government is to make the Not-a-Conservative-Party a Hard Left one. Corbyn must be absolutely delighted at the success he achieved during his 4 yr stint as Labour Party Leader.
September 3, 2021
To misquote or incorrectly paraphrase ( or something)ā¦if you want to know who controls the government just see how they spend the money theyāve lifted off us.
September 3, 2021
Add to that that the MOD has included two foreign consortia in the tender program for building 3 support ships for the navy.
So much for Britain first.
The last batch had their hulls built in South Korea and had to be extensively reworked at great cost during fitting out in the UK
No account is taken of the loss of skills and taxes which would occur if they were built in Britain. Another wheeze to send CO2 emissions abroad at the expense of British jobs and welfare.
September 3, 2021
We all have to pay for Blairs pointless war that I and many millions protested against. He should be paying and all his acolytes. I don’t want all these immigrants here. We have enough problems of our own. Imagine being a homeless veteran with mental health problems from this conflict. Why should they not be housed and looked after before all these foreign people? English first or no vote! End of. Carrie on woke Boris with your Operation Warm Welcome. It is not welcomed in the shires. People have had enough of you.
September 3, 2021
+1
September 3, 2021
+1
September 3, 2021
Aspiring German Politician, with elections due, makes a statement which will appeal to his desired voter-base…. knowing full well that the policy area is outside of his control. On another day, he’ll decry “populism.”
Let’s see if I can remember a couple of examples in the UK:
1. “British jobs for British workers” …. Gordon Brown, knowing full well that he could do nothing about the massive influx of Eastern European immigrants and he didn’t want to anyway.
2. “I will hold a Referendum on the proposed Lisbon Constitutional Treaty.” David Cameron, knowing full well that he had no intention of doing it because it would mean leaving the EU, which he didn’t want to do.
September 3, 2021
Indeed. Only 6 million EU people here. Not too many Doctor’s, Hospital appointments, school places, no CO2 footprint etc. You couldn’t make up the legacies incompetence. Any change in woke/pc appointments in our health and public service leaders?……………………..Nope.
September 3, 2021
Metz did not achieve CDU leadership last year and he is now finance minister ( he did work for Black Rock).
The CDU looks set for humiliation in the election so Metz may be kicking the ECB around the political arena in a very Johnson like way ( promises, promises)ā¦..or then again he might take on the bank and save the economy?
Meanwhile he has to convince Germany that the CDU can prevent the return of paper money- brimming wheelbarrows!
September 3, 2021
It looks as though the icing on the cake, for young people, is that interest rates will be going up soon and their massive mortgages will go up. More of their wages will go to the banks and they will have less money to spend in the economy.
September 3, 2021
More icing on the cake. The government is, it would appear, about to increase National Insurance by I% to provide the non-existent NHS with more funds.
So, mortgages up to buy their overpriced houses – house price rises benefitting the older generation – and NI up to pay for the NHS – principally used by the older generation.
Top it off with poor education and the government really seems to have it in for young people.
September 3, 2021
Last time I checked there were over 5 million on the waiting list and you can’t blame the ‘older generation’ for all of this.
I am one of the ‘older generation’ waiting for hip replacement and cataract operations. Both are now classed as non-essential, so won’t happen in my lifetime, because they are effectively down-graded/removed from said waiting list. However, the mass uncontrolled immigrants entering our country illegally are not only going to top of the list, but also get free dental treatment, not available to the ‘older generation’ or indeed the rest of the native population.
So please explain just what the ‘older generation’ are getting after paying over 40 years NI contributions? Please note this is the generation who paid for your education, health needs and the child benefit your parents claimed for you.
September 3, 2021
@J Bush
I’m 70 next year – I hope. I observe that many of my age and older are decrepit, fat and make no effort to maintain good health. They are a burden on the NHS because they take no care of themselves. The older generation are still getting a sort of NHS – to be fair, it is good in an emergency – and we get our state pensions. Our state pensions may not be great, but if you are hard up there are other benefits you can get.
September 3, 2021
The increased NI won’t pay for anything except more government waste. A little more will be collected, after the government has chased more people out of employment, but the services will be no better for it.
Another kick in the teeth for young people, who already are looking at the massive National Debt they will inherit. How kind.
September 3, 2021
Time to vote for another party. The Reform Party, perhaps? They wonāt stand a catās chance in hell, but a labour government couldnāt be any worse and an election spanking might give the so-called conservative party a clue about the direction actual conservatives want them to move towards.
September 3, 2021
You’ve got to get old sometime, Mike.
Thank goodness for those who have fully paid up their National Insurance and are already financed.
September 3, 2021
There is no National Insurance fund to be fully paid up in, it is a pay as you go system. The government could repeal that legislation any time it wants and stop paying state pensions for instance. The best option for a hypothecated National Care Service tax, would be to add the cost to Council Tax and let the job be handled by local government that is much closer to the front line.
September 4, 2021
I agree.
September 3, 2021
@John Hatfield
I’m 70 next year – does that count as old?
I have young adult children. It is them I am concerned about. I am, as they say, ‘alright, Jack’. I’ve worked hard all my life but most of the money I have behind me has come courtesy of house price inflation. I get the state pension, own my house and have some savings – enough, I hope, to see me out. Why should a young working lad with a wife and two kids pay more in NI to prop up a health service that my generation abuses by not taking care of themselves?
September 4, 2021
why should we pay more NI to finance breast augmentation, reduction, various cosmetic ops etc when ‘natural’ potential terminal problems have cancer treatments etc postponed, drugs refused, undetected, referrals absent….?
‘my generation abuses by not taking care of themselves?’ – -are you suggesting cancers are the result of not taking care of yourself?
Of course costs could be massively cut by state arranged euthansia, at what age Mike?
Perhaps 70?
September 4, 2021
is that noise Andy going ‘whoop, whoop’ in the background?
September 3, 2021
How come Halifax & another I forget have been offering 5 year mortgages at 0.99%?
40% equity in value required.
September 3, 2021
The Brexitists and the Trumpists like to moan about the cost of net zero.
I wonder how that cost looks to the 50+ floating dead in New York and surrounding areas as a result of Storm Ida – which has also caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. The storm has already been directly linked to climate change.
How does the cost it looks to those killed in the floods in Belgium and Germany. An event which also is linked with climate change. Or those who have lost everything in Californiaās wildlifes. Or those whose lives are threatened by drought or rising sea waters.
The deniers moan about the costs of action – and ignore the terrible toll of inaction. They have blood on their hands.
September 3, 2021
Even the UN IPCC doesnt agree with you Andy.
There are no more storms and hurricanes now than decades ago.
And the number of people killed by extreme weather events is over 90% down on decades ago.
September 4, 2021
Funny P2, the IPCC must have made a report just for you.
In what I can see on the ipcc.org website, in the AR6 (August 2021) The Physical Science Basis, Executive Summary, chapter 11 āWeather and climate extreme events in a changing climateā, p.10, last version, I read:
āThe probability of compound flooding (storm surge, extreme rainfall and/or river flow) has increased in some locations (medium confidence) and will continue to increase due to both sea level rise and increases in heavy precipitation, including changes in precipitation intensity associated with TCs (tropical cyclones)ā.
As for the decrease in casualties, might it be linked to better forecasts?
How do you reconcile this and the comment above? Thanks for your time.
PS: One doesnāt need to be a famous atmospheric scientist or a distinguished statistician to realise that this year between the US West Coast fires, the German-Belgian inundations and the TC IDA, something might be happening. Or is it something out of my febrile mind?
September 4, 2021
Andy said the hurricane in America was evidence of climate change.
Yet figures show no change in hurricane frequency.
Your quote shows no real correlation.
Even the IPCC will not go further than a modest…”increased in some locations..”
Yet Andy and you think every world weather event is sound proof.
Yes heffy, a febrile mind looking desperately for every and any evidence.
Wetter or drie, hotter or colder it is all evidence to you.
Another example:-
Once it was polar bears being extinct very soon.
The poster boys of climate change.
Now with record numbers it has all gone quiet.
September 5, 2021
Oh yes, the polar bears whose numbers are increasing every year. They were around 23,000 based on a 2005 survey whose methodology was not made public. In 2015-2016 a new survey by the IUCN (Internāl Union for Conservation of Nature, arcticwwf.org, april 2016) quoted a range between 22,000 and 31,000 based on a paper by Wiig et al., 2015 explaining the methodology (based on extensive aerial surveys). Then the GWPF published in 2019 a very interested/ting and detailed survey by Dr Susan J. Crockford corroborating the previous findings.
And then suddenly the best number in 2020, now from the same author in climatechangedispatch.com is 39,000 (26,000-58,000).
Another invitation by GWPF and dear Susan will soon announce another extra 50% increase.
When are polar bear burgers coming to your next door burger joint?
September 3, 2021
Just because a Climate Change Propagandist has linked the storm to climate change doesn’t make it true.
But anyway, even IF the climate is changing it doesn’t make it man-made and the fact remains that destroying our economy to deliver Zero C02 will achieve the square root of diddly squat when we are only responsible for generating approx 1.5% of global CO2 pa.
September 3, 2021
Do not forget all the old folk if you were in charge either.
What a nasty person you are!
September 3, 2021
You do write some melodramatic nonsense. There have never been storms before? I think you’ll find there have. The winters of 1947 and 1963 were a laugh.
Net zero, climate change or no, is a load of nonsense. The biggest issue is that there are far too many people on this planet. People need resources and getting them and using them creates a historically tiny increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Hysteria rules.
September 3, 2021
still moaning….
September 3, 2021
Tories set to become even more unpopular. ( I donāt care what the rigged polls say).
Breaking manifesto pledge on tax.
What next to pay for their virtue signalling shenanigans?
September 3, 2021
‘Selective’ polling can achieve the outcome you want, along with the rigged questions and gerrymandered answers. Subsequently, I have little to no faith in any of them. The random online polls/opinion state the opposite of what the government funded pollster deliver.
September 3, 2021
+1
September 3, 2021
Yes, but remember many people don’t pay NI (those of retirement age and those who receive their income in forms other than salaries, quite a few of whom also happen to write large cheques to one of the political parties).
It’s the ordinary worker who will pick up the tab for yet another broken manifesto pledge. Many of the minority who voted for this government won’t be affected by this change (and I’m sure that factored into the decision making process).
September 3, 2021
+1
September 3, 2021
This change hasn’t happened yet.
There is talk of a separate care tax.
September 3, 2021
Bulls eye, Peter.
September 3, 2021
Gosh.
A sort of agreement MiC
Is it a first?
September 3, 2021
Peter. I’ve just read that pensioners are being considered to pay national insurance
September 3, 2021
On earnings? Or will the nutters reclaim some of the state pension by making you pay NI on it? Just when I thought I had got away from bloody tax returns.
September 3, 2021
That would be Boris roulette, not Russian ..ie all 6 chambers loaded not just one.
Brains splattered for yards not a pretty sight.
September 3, 2021
………………..What next to pay for their virtue signalling shenanigans?…………………… YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN OCTOBER. Check it out the green bean is arriving to pay for Carrie on Boris green machine.
September 3, 2021
And if he locks us in againā¦ā¦
September 3, 2021
Our Plan Conservative Manifesto 2019
Boris Johnsonās Guarantee
Point six ā āāWe will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insuranceāā
September 4, 2021
ah. A Conservative Manifesto. You could liken to a what years ago we called a ‘comic’.
September 3, 2021
Billeting Afghan refugees in rich peopleās holiday homes?
September 3, 2021
Mean while back in our little corner of the World – from todays Daily Telegraph “In a major political gamble, the Prime Minister will reveal a rise in National Insurance that will see around 25 million people pay extra tax.”
Another election manifesto promise broken then.
Conservatives the tax and spend ‘Party’
Boris still doesn’t get it raising taxes does not generate more money, proved time and time again to be a fallacy. However – reducing the State, reducing red tape, reducing bureaucracy opens up money to be spent on reality not dreams.
Raising taxes while destroying the economy is more of the same lunacy to destroy the UK.
September 4, 2021
The claim that NIC go to the NHS is bogus as I once asked our kind host this very question. His reply was that it did not and it went in to general taxation. So the claim that I am hearing that it will go to the NHS may not necessarily be true.
The government also claim that this will raise Ā£1bn in revenue at a time we are spending Ā£1.4bn on illegal immigrants. If the government returned most or all of these we would save at least a billion with change so no need to raise taxes.
Reply 1% on NIC raises more than Ā£1bn. This is not yet an agreed policy.
September 3, 2021
Perhaps these comment have something to do with Germany’s faltering economy.
Germany already rule the EU, so clearly Merz is setting out his stall for the benefit of all EU countries – “This is how it will be”.
We shouldn’t expect any major differences in how Germany rules the EU with Merkel being replaced by one of her clones; Laschet, even though it is good to see her go.
As regards ministers on financial matters, they should certainly be held responsible for their actions and that of the bank, as they guide or override the BoE behind the scenes — they can’t have it both ways
September 3, 2021
Isn’t the problem in Germany coming from the situation they have in recent past had tight reigns on fiscal policy and understood the meaning of money and were it comes from. Remember they have been seriously caught out with runaway inflation and a dodgy currency before. It is ingrained in their conscience to be prudent.
The EU Commission just as with this Government under Boris has no sense and proportion of money as a commodity and above all have no care and no idea were it comes from. The Commission is unaccountable and get to run their own bank in the way they wish. Whereas Boris is chipping away at our very soul undermining what used to be a great party, ultimately and can be forced to walk away – great pension, great income from the circuit and yet everyone else pays – that is no loss to him. In the round as with all in the HoC they are never actually ever held to account as a matter of course in the same way as the rest of us are. Resigning isn’t a great loss, not in the same proportion as the loss of those that have to pay for these mistakes. Germans understand that, they are wary of false promises and are now learning that under rule of the EU they have no rights. So a German candidate tapping into that oddity comes as no surprise.
September 3, 2021
Sir John,
With Christine Lagarde in charge of the ECB, what could possibly go wrong?
September 3, 2021
@Mark Thomas +1
Indeed – Socialist corruption at its very best
September 3, 2021
Mark – everything? – but so long as the elite are ok living in their elite world, spending other peoples cash – who cares? Not the elite.
September 3, 2021
Says someone in a country with Alexander Johnson as PM and Dominic Raab as FS, along with more of similar
September 3, 2021
MT – I thought was Christopher!!!!!
September 3, 2021
The ECB is doing its best to make a badly designed and unworkable monetary system actually work. The main problem is a German addiction to running huge export surpluses which means that more euros go into Germany than come out as German spending on imports.
The ECB then hand the euros back, as essentially unrepayable loans, to the less affluent peripheral euro using countries to keep their economies from collapsing and the euro system from failing completely. Naturally the German taxpayers don’t like this. They want everyone else to be like them but arithmetic doesn’t allow it. Every surplus is someone else’s deficit.
Something will have to give eventually. We’re well out of it all.
September 3, 2021
@Peter Martin
We run a permanent trade deficit. When will ‘something have to give eventually’ regarding that?
September 6, 2021
@ Mike Wilson,
Probably when other countries are happy to balance their trade too.
Margaret Thatcherās govt was probably the first one to take a relaxed view both about the value of the pound on Forex markets and the state of the current trade account. The pound fell to $1.08 at one point in 1985 and the trade account was nearly always in deficit. The thinking at the time was that a genuinely free floating pound would naturally lead to a more balanced level of trade but it didnāt work out like that. Many countries were determined, by hook or by crook, to run a trade surplus which meant that those who werenāt too concerned either way were usually in deficit.
September 3, 2021
In other news – Our Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has just announced Ā£286 million to Afghanistan plus Ā£30 million to Pakistan ..of taxpayers money to an to Islamic country that has just thrown us out and the other has nuclear weaponsā¦.meanwhile the UK tax is to increase to support social-care
September 3, 2021
Don’t expect to see any improvements in the UK
Social-care…for Afghanistan and Pakistan
September 3, 2021
Dont forget the annual Ā£1.4 billion bill to support the illegal boat people with zero deportations of them this whole year. It would appear to be Government policy hidden from us plebs. A return flight to their homes would be a cost saving for our social care budget and the abandonment of HS2. Your Government can change the law and do as it pleases. It chooses not to do so.
September 3, 2021
Glen. You couldn’t make it up.
September 3, 2021
During the referendum debate I was swayed to vote Leave, in the end, by Sir John’s sovereignty arguments. I also suspected that many of the “project fear” arguments of the Remain persuasion were inaccurate. Conversely, knowing that Johnson is an inveterate liar, I did not accept the Brexiteer claim of an extra Ā£350m a day for the NHS.
So I am naturally concerned to have read yesterday that the country has lost Ā£2billion worth of business in H1 with our old customers in the EU, primarily trade in food and drink. This after ~Ā£950billion has moved from the City to Frankfurt and Paris and the loss of ~Ā£175billion in financial services income from the EU. Not to mention the loss of our fishing rights – and all of our shellfish exports due to sewage contamination of our coastal waters.
If we are to make a success of Brexit we need to win all this business back, PDQ. However, I hear a deafening silence from those who were previously vociferous in arguing for the Leave persuasion. Post Brexit, how are we to achieve the national prosperity that everyone wants if the EU refuses to buy our products?
Reply Not a fair representation of position. our deficit on trade with the EU has fallen
September 3, 2021
“So I am naturally concerned to have read yesterday that the country has lost Ā£2billion worth of business in H1 with our old customers in the EU, primarily trade in food and drink. ”
It’s a typical Remainer nonsense story. We are trading less with the EU and as a result we are consuming more of our food output domestically. That does not mean that anything has been “lost” but that trade patters are changing. If I eat my own lamb and you eat you own cheese, they are still getting produced and consumed.
September 3, 2021
Obviously the deficit in trade with EU has decreased as the actual overall trade has gone down. In 2019, total exports were 690bn, total imports 716bn, an imbalance of -27bn.
And with the EU exports at 294bn and imports at 374bn ie a deficit of 79bn.
In 2020, total exports were 573bn, total imports 585bn, an imbalance of -12bn. Gov.figures give (12/08/2021) a deficit in EU trade of 51bn.
Given that the 2020 export figures were roughly only 85% of those of 2019, is it so surprising that the deficit with the EU could have decreased?
The only real improvement was that in 2019 the export to EU were 42.6% of total exports, and imports from EU were 52.2% of total imports. In 2020 these have become 42% (no big change) but 50%. It is this drop in imports from the EU that is to be noticed.
September 3, 2021
Yes, John, but our overall trade with the European Union has fallen drastically, so you’d only expect that.
See “Adam Smith – The Wealth Of Nations”
September 3, 2021
Ignoring the Covid factor.
September 5, 2021
āIgnoring the Covid factorā: Not at all, trade deficit with the EU also decreased because of Covid. The point made was that the trade deficit has actually decreased not so much because of an increase in exports (it would be difficult with so many people in lockdown) but mainly because of a decrease in imports, ie a potential decrease in consumersā choice, for the time being not being (yet?) compensated by domestic providers.
September 5, 2021
Oh hi hef thanks for joining in.
Being locked down for over a year with many businesses shut and hardly and aviation, travel trade, conferences, trade shows, hotels restaurants, theatres, concerts, most shops and stores being shut has had little or no effect on trade figures you think.
It’s all due to Brexit you think.
It’s an obsession with you remainers.
September 3, 2021
It’s not about people “refusing”, it’s simply a consequence of the only trade deal in history which has put up barriers to trade rather than removing them. Making trade more difficult (which is what Brexit has done) tends to result in reduced levels of trade.
It’s not surprising that the UK’s trade deficit with the EU has fallen given that the UK government has made it much more difficult to sell to UK customers. As I’ve written before, there are companies I used to buy from that now simply refuse to supply to the UK due to the barriers to trade the UK government has created.
Of course, none of this was an inevitable consequence of Brexit, it was a consequence of the type of Brexit chosen by this government.
September 4, 2021
In reality the EU was only prepared to trade with UK on their more favourable terms, so guess – what we don’t buy as much. In the meantime UK business will be gearing up to take advantage of opportunity presented. It didn’t matter what ‘type’ of Brexit we wanted, the EU tantrums made sure they would try to punish us for handing in our resignation.
September 3, 2021
Nobody in Europe will grasp the nettle and solve the fundamental flaws at the heart of the Euro currency project. At its heart it is a political project, not an economic one, yet it is economic reform that is necessary for it to have a future.
They got into this state because the federalists at the centre of the group that designed the Euro knew that it could only work with a single economic policy and fiscal transfers. In other words, the EU had to become a single state which voters most definitely didn’t want. In their usual arrogant way, they thought that they knew best and that they could eventually bring voters along with them as the success of the Euro brought increased prosperity for everyone. We all know that the opposite has happened : the Club Med countries have been impoverished while Germany and one or two others have prospered mightily thanks to their artificially low exchange rate.
Now they are looking with trepidation to the next Euro crisis. The numbers are too large to bail out an Italy or Spain. The only solution to keep the Euro as a single currency is to allow full fiscal transfers which will cost German taxpayers billions every year. They won’t stand for it, whatever the next chancellor says and the German Constitutional Court is hovering in the background ready to veto the very idea.
The only sensible way out in my view is to split the Euro into at least three or possibly four separate currencies which will allow exchange rates to fluctuate and ease the pressures that currently exist.
Brussels and the entire cohort of Euro fanatics will never go along with that so the Euro will limp on until the next crisis hits. Then something will have to be done.
Thank goodness we are no longer in the club !
September 3, 2021
Spot on. The EU pattern is to ignore a crisis while it gradually boils up, and then go into panic mode when it hits.
September 4, 2021
We’re no longer in but, thanks to the current PM, we are still on the hook via the European Central Bank.
September 3, 2021
The spectre of German inflation is certainly a potentially disruptive political force and a game-changer for EU fiscal policy, but I’m puzzled that JR picks this out today – for Merz’s timely broadside came (and was reported in the Gemrman press) at the very beginning of July, two months ago. Of vastly more immediate interest is today’s bombshell: a Conservative government saddling employers and the workforce with higher unhypothecated taxes on work, under the pretext that this will somehow help the care system and the NHS. It will not – it will not even enable the government to pretend it is ‘doing something’.
September 4, 2021
It is like the sugar tax, or the plastic bag tax they need to raise funds so say that it is for a good purpose and make us feel guilty for complaining.
September 3, 2021
To a certain extent I agree with your comments in that itās this governments fault, it didnāt negotiate well and didnāt in good faith implement the referendum nor our departure from the EUā¦.because they where all a bunch of remainers
September 3, 2021
Since 2001, there has only been one year (2008) in which base rate has been too high. In the other 19 years, it has been too low, leading to vigorous asset price inflation. For example the ratio of median house price to median income was under 3 in the mid-nineties and is now over 8, with disastrous social consequences. Max Kaiser of RT has correctly identified the USA and UK economies as great big Ponsi schemes. The ultra-rich and wealthy pensioners have got richer and everyone else has got poorer. I wouldn’t mind if it was dynamic entrepreneurs who have gained, as happens in a meritocracy. Instead, it is ‘old money’ – the aristocracy who gained their fortunes through donations of land by corrupt kings in days gone by – who have gained the most.
September 3, 2021
GBNews reporting all day that the Met Police reported 500 arrests at XR protestā¦.absolutely no mention of this on the BBC ā does the BBC have an embargo against reporting Extinction Rebellion (XR)
September 3, 2021
perhaps lots of staff are members? – just asking.
September 3, 2021
Now reading Ā£30m being handed to Pakistan to cope with the Afghan problem. It will be used as effectively used as the Ā£millions handed to France for Calais .
September 3, 2021
Pakistan are the Afghan Taliban…..thats the same Pakistan with a military 10x the size of the UK and an advancing space programme – and we sent them Ā£30 million
And my council can’t afford to collect my wheelie bin every week…this governments priorities are all messed up
September 4, 2021
On top of that, that 30m is borrowed money.