The Chancellor was seeking the mantle of Thatcher in his joint article with the PM yesterday in the Sunday Times. He claimed to be a low tax Conservative, but also a supporter of sound money which he attributed to her. He also says he wants “lighter,better,simpler regulation”.Ā So what does the track record show?
So far the Chancellor has hiked taxes on entrepreneurs and the self employed through IR35. He has raised National Insurance, frozen Income tax allowances and put in a huge futureĀ increase in Corporation tax. He seems keen to ensure we collect less in tax than he would by setting competitive rates. Margaret Thatcher and her Chancellors cut Income tax rates substantially, cut Corporation tax, made it easer for the self employed and for entrepreneurs. As a result revenues surged, the rich paid more tax and paid a bigger share of the tax, and substantial increases were made in the NHS budgets from the extra revenue.
So far the Chancellor has approved huge increases in money printing proposed by the Bank of England but needing his consent, which have now brought on a sharp rise in inflation. I strongly supported the early pandemic related money boost, but called for it to end last year when the Bank carried it on well into recovery. Margaret Thatcher battled for honest money and brought inflation down from the high levels under Labour. Towards the end she was forced by herĀ ChancellorĀ and Foreign Secretary to take the UK into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, against her instincts and my advice. That led to a surge in money and credit creation by the commercial banks and to a nasty bout of inflation. This was followed by the inevitable bust under John Major who took her job and the then unhelpfulĀ economic inheritance he hadĀ created . This ended the Conservative reputation for economic competence for a good few years.
I look forward to the plan to have better and lighter regulation. More than a year into Brexit there has still been no Bill to change the main huge body of EU regulatory law which we rolled over as a temporary measure. The Chancellor would say he has streamlined alcohol duties a bit. The ones that have gone up are not popular, but it is a minor set of adjustments so far. We await the promised Freeports and trust they will have some good freedomsĀ in them. Why not one for Northern Ireland?
The Opposition still regards the Thatcherite label as a term of abuse. The Chancellor seems to regard it as a plus, but has misunderstood the nature of Margaret’s policies compared to his own. His approach to tax is the opposite of hers.
January 31, 2022
Good morning.
Beware the wolf in borrowed sheep’s clothing.
January 31, 2022
Thatcher brought in the Poll Tax, a tax on a person simply for existing.
For those on low incomes it was a huge increase on overall taxation too.
So perhaps that is also their intention?
reply The Community charge was to provide money for local services which people said they wanted to be better funded. It came in too high revealing people did not want to pay more for local services.
January 31, 2022
Thank you Sir John.
Your corollary is just one of the possible ones.
A more nuanced one would be that people did not want to be subject to the most regressive tax possible for the services that they had previously had, for a fraction of what was then precipitously demanded of them.
January 31, 2022
I knew many local residents in our East London Borough who were wholly in favour of the Poll Tax and felt it was a much fairer method of raising money for Local Government affairs.
January 31, 2022
Indeed.
January 31, 2022
The Community charge was the best way of funding local services. Had a government been starting from scratch, that is the way local services would be paid for. Every adult would then make a contribution for the services they consumed. Under the council tax, a widow living alone pays 75% of the tax charge that a whole family with four or six working adults has to pay. That is inequitable.
The Community Charge was ineptly designed and implemented – the worst part being the decision to trial it in Scotalnd of all places !
January 31, 2022
The “Poll Tax” was certainly foolish politically and the main reason we ended up suffering under John ERM Major and then Bliar.
“Net Zero Carbon” is insane politically as are Sunak vast manifesto ratting tax increases – so will these be the reasons we have to suffer another socialist remoaner leader replacing Boris (one rather like May) or even the appalling prospect of Starmer’s Labour and Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP coalition?
With many dire Rayner, Lammy, Ashworth and Ian Blackford types thrown in to make it even more hellish for everyone?
January 31, 2022
While services have plateau or even reduced, the council rates, poll tax, community tax, whatever its named is has increased year-on-year throughout my lifetime….its just a cash cow
January 31, 2022
glen cullen
Well said Glen it is so true..
Living in a rural area we get the bins emptied. Street lights taken away too expensive to repair, street sweeper once every 16 months. The dedicated few do the litter picking and keep the kerbs free
no gritting. Yeah tell us about it.
January 31, 2022
Mrs T knew her science but not her history!
February 2, 2022
Steve Jobs did a course in Calligraphy as a student that looked to many as a complete waste of time. It was because of that course that he came to focus on typefaces in Apple brands and on the importance of design and beauty in general (not just the engineering – importance of).
So the Arts can be just as important as Science. Also, the Arts teach us how to connect with customers and what they want as well as giving customers something unique and different and beautiful which they also want as well as, of course, technical efficiency and reliability. And, in politics, Arts help us to connect with people politicians represent as well as helping politicians come up with creative solutions to restore the country / take the country forwards.
In facts, overall, Arts and Sciences are about equal when it comes to creating brands such as Apple. Same for buildings beautiful cities such as Florence, Rome, Venice and Salzburg. Culture / Civilisation needs both.
January 31, 2022
John, as LL says, there is a real possibility that Starmer could be our next PM propped up by the SNP. Could you please tell us what you and your colleagues with English seats would do in the eventuality that the Tories won most votes in England yet England ended up being governed by an unaccountable nationalist party that no one in England could either vote for or against. I suspect they would say nothing let alone do anything if this undemocratic nightmare were to happen but it would be interesting to know if their disinterest in England extends to whether or not they have even bothered to discuss this very real possibility. Of course an English Parliament would eliminate such a possibility.
January 31, 2022
The BBC TV tax is another poll tax and still not either abolished or nor even decriminalised. A socialist/net zero indoctrination poll tax.
Just remembered it is wage day today so I had bettor go get all the payments and transfers sorted!
January 31, 2022
It is.
And so are/were – to some extent at least – the franchises for various privatised services, which the customer pays/paid on e.g. commuting for work.
I mean, who else paid them?
January 31, 2022
NLH while you existed you created sewage, domestic rubbish, demanded education, and police protection. However as a good socialist you felt that somebody else should pay. Based on your writing, they got poor value in return. Margaret’s Poll Tax was a good idea, the way to go, but it failed because it was badly thought out. No doubt you believe in the mantra ” No taxation without representation.” Suggest you get your head round no benefit without contribution.
January 31, 2022
Excellent post agricola.
My thoughts entirely.
January 31, 2022
No, the Poll Tax was levied against ADULTS who used local services and should therefore contribute towards them.
The main problem with it was the level it was set at and that there was no exemption for those not in work for whatever reason: unemployment, stay-at-home mothers, adult children living at home who were still in education.
January 31, 2022
Indeed only a fool (who has clearly never dealt with or perhaps even met poor people) would give out benefits to them and then try to get some of it back again to pay a poll tax!
January 31, 2022
The community charge was a lot fairer than what we have now which takes no account of someoneās income or ability to pay. How can it be fair for a pensioner on a modest income but just over the line to get any help, to pay more than a house full of working adults down the road merely for living in a house that has a higher value.
January 31, 2022
Council tax is also a tax for simply existing – and, of course, using council provided services such as street lighting and rubbish collection. The Poll Tax seemed eminently fair to me. 4 adults living in a house use the local services 4 times as much as a person living on their own. So, they should pay more. What on earth is regressive about that?
For those on low incomes the doubling of council tax under New Labour was a huge increase in their overall taxation. And, of course, now the Tories are allowing 5% council tax rises every year – which means council tax will double every 15 years. In a few years time council tax will be bigger than most people’s mortgages. Councils are out of control. They provide less services every year but always plead poverty. They need a kick up the backside and budgets limited to inflation. And, of course, if council tax is limited to inflation, so should the state pension. Unlike this year where the triple lock has been reneged on.
If these Tory governments go on as they are, we’ll be bringing workhouses back.
January 31, 2022
Quite right, Sir John: the community charge was very popular, as I well remember, in Battersea where I lived at the time – a fact not unrelated to them having one of the lowest charges in the country! The stupidity was in introducing it at such a high level. It should have been capped, but I seem to recall that the government thought it would be a good idea to show people the implications of voting for high-spending councils. Unfortunately the people blamed the new tax instead of the overspending councils, something which even a basic understanding of human psychology would have told you was going to happen when you change the system. The community charge was introduced in an appallingly cack-handed way, but the principle was sound.
January 31, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
I always thought they should have given Councils the choice of Rates, after the rates review , and the Community Charge, it was easy to rebel against the CC when the Government was imposing it, less so when they had to make the decision themselves , it would have been the a no brainer for the CC.
January 31, 2022
The idea of the poll tax was that you pay for what you use. The problem was that some people couldn’t afford to pay.
January 31, 2022
People don’t simply exist. They need hospitals, schools, public transport. I could go on and on, but I imagine it is simply water off a duck’s back to you.
January 31, 2022
Yesterday was also the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Jeremy Corbyn gave an excellent speech, though the event was downplayed in the mainstream media.
Deliberate cover ups often fail and make matters worse. Failure to address injustices are not forgotten.
January 31, 2022
Perhaps but there seems to be rather more silence on the many deliberate and planned IRA bombings and other atrocities – are their anniversaries remembered by anyone other than the many victims’ relatives?
January 31, 2022
I would doubt that anyone of good intention would want to publicise or to commemorate the fact that such actions can be highly effective in achieving the changes desired by their perpetrators, do you?
January 31, 2022
+10
January 31, 2022
Lifelogic,
There was no IRA of any consequence until the vicious attacks on the civil rights marchers. The old IRA was just a handful of people with a few rusty revolvers.
Bloody Sunday was a big recruiting sergeant for the Provisional IRA.
January 31, 2022
Here Here!
January 31, 2022
Not many protests about the amnesty given to the IRA & Loyalist killers who were responsible for over 2,000 deaths. If you can forgive them, then foregivness should be extended to all. Bloody Sunday is used by Sinn Fein (the media friendly face of the IRA ) as an ongoing political weapon.
January 31, 2022
What injustice? If you don’t love this country then leave it. There is a word for people who hate their own country: traitors. You can protest by all means against the government, or a government policy, but not against the very country itself. If you protest against the country you live in then I have sympathy for you. There is no excuse for being a traitor.
January 31, 2022
There can also be another word – Revolutionaries
January 31, 2022
Mark: I’m more worried about the sheep in sheep’s face-covering.
January 31, 2022
Mrs T supported was sometimes called a global capitalist but she supported idea of the nation state.
I believe she thrashed out policy in the cabinet with her ministers and only answered to the electorate.
The present government answers to neither Parliament nor its people.
It obeys others.
From WEF October 2020
Britons would be happy to pay higher taxes for a fairer, more caring and gender-equal society as the coronavirus pandemic transforms people’s views about the world they want to live in, economists said on Wednesday.
In a major report to be presented to parliamentarians, regional governments and business leaders, they laid out a radical roadmap for building a “caring economy” that puts people and the planet first.
January 31, 2022
Well the Jolly Green Giant did tell us a while ago that after the scamdemic “It was important for the world economy to rebuild in a “more equal and… in a more gender-neutral and perhaps a more feminine way.”
Aren’t we the lucky ones. They know what we want without even bothering to consult us, let alone get a mandate for it.
January 31, 2022
Sit back and relax, the state will provide
January 31, 2022
+1
Yesā¦SOOOOO lucky.
And we got to pay for it all too!
January 31, 2022
* š¤¬ iPad
First line should read
Mrs T was sometimes called a global capitalist but she supported the idea of the nation state.
January 31, 2022
I wonder if that āmajor reportā was actually presented?
January 31, 2022
The interests of global capital are not compatible with the interests of the nation state.
Lenin told you that in his seminal “Imperialism the highest stage of capitalism”based on the pre-WWI experience.
If you make yourself dependent on overseas capital,as you have done, your rulers are merely compradors.
January 31, 2022
Wonder why the govt just doesnāt come clean and tell us where it gets its instructions from?
Actually thoughā¦itās there for anyone to see!
January 31, 2022
It may be irrelevant to your question, but the major donors to the Conservatives are published.
January 31, 2022
+1
Oh dear me no!
As if filthy lucre could have any part in all this! š¤
January 31, 2022
yes it is irrelevant, and we can easily find out who donates.
And the donations to other parties, unions etc?
January 31, 2022
As far as I’m aware, all British Trade Unions are, er, British as are their members?
January 31, 2022
Actions speak louder than words and a smiley face. That is the only way to judge Sunak and the Johnson government. So far they have failed.
January 31, 2022
Oldtimer
For one to have failed one must first try. Yet they haven’t even bothered to do that !
January 31, 2022
Not even trying counts as a failure!
January 31, 2022
As John says Sunak’s approach to tax is the opposite of Thatcher’s – and Thatcher did not go nearly far enough with her tax cuts, red tape cuts and government cuts anyway.
Reply She did cut Income Tax from a top rate of 83% to 40%
January 31, 2022
Indeed and she started with an appalling mess left to her by Labour – with inflation heading for 20% (rather like today!). But what really matters is government spending as a percentage of GDP and that this is spent efficiently and wisely on sensible things. She improve this this significantly but it really needed another ten years of this agenda.
Currently government spending is far, far too high at nearly 50% and is spent appallingly inefficiently and generally on the wrong things too. Much is spend doing positive harm like net zero, daft degrees, test and trace, eat out the help out, pointless red tape enforcement…
January 31, 2022
Government spending under Thatcher went down from circa 47% of GDP to about 40%. For an efficient economy it should be well below 30%. Though that would of course be 30% of what would be much larger GDP with a much more efficient and competitive economy.
January 31, 2022
Spot on. Sunak can claim to be a Thatcherite as much as Boris wants to be the new Churchill. Future history will see them more as Laurel & Hardy characters based on evidence to date.
January 31, 2022
Closet big state socialist the pair of them.
January 31, 2022
Worse still – they are both big state socialists infected with the insane expensive energy/net zero religion too.
January 31, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
Exactly Sunac is a tax to death and piss down the drain menace. He has also devalued the currency hugely. Just the NI increases (Employee and Employer is a reduction pay by well over 2% this on top of inflation and the freezing of allowances at a time of high inflation. A bit like Cameron. “I am a low tax Conservative at heart” but the complete opposite in practice.
Taxing people to waste the money on test and trace, crony capitalism, net zero, soft “loans” (often grants) for pointless/worthless degrees, HS2, ever more bloated government, ever more red tape, eat out to help out, the bonkers Committee for Climate Change, attacking the self employed, private pensions, inheritance and CGT tax payers and landlords/tenants… is total insanity. It just kills or strangles the geese that lay the golden eggs and gives you fewer eggs next year. From the current hugely over taxed position already it is inanity.
January 31, 2022
More than a year into Brexit we are still aligned to EU laws, with a 80 majority this situation could have been addressed quite easily if the will and belief was there.
The pandemic of course can and will be used to justify why everything is on the back burners but the world didn’t stop.
Mrs Thatcher said what she was going to do and did it. This is the biggest problem with this administration there is no end of talk but little or no action.
Manifesto promises or pledges lay discarded by the wayside all along the route so far travelled. Too many areas of high concern to the people of this country are consistently and perceived to be deliberately ignored. Action this day, was and still is a great motivator to the people charged with implementing the promised policies.
January 31, 2022
The government has set out a plan to overhaul “outdated” EU laws copied over after Brexit – a move it says will cut Ā£1bn of red tape for businesses. Downing Street said a Brexit Freedoms Bill will change how Parliament can amend or remove thousands of EU-era regulations that remain in force.
Boris Johnson said the move would “unleash the benefits of Brexit” and make British business more competitive.
The UK copied over the laws to smooth its exit from the EU on 31 January 2020, and kept them during a transition period that ended in January 2021. Since September, the government has been reviewing which of these it wants to keep in place, ditch or amend. Under Brexit withdrawal legislation passed in 2018, retained EU laws have a legal status of their own – and a special process for changing them.
“The details of the bill will be brought forward in due course. Our objective is to make it easier to amend or remove outdated EU law which is no longer right for the UK and end its special status in our legal framework.”
January 31, 2022
I don’t believe this government
January 31, 2022
“Easier to amend” = Avoid scrutiny and oversight.
It’s also being reported that the government is looking to publish a “Benefits of Brexit” booklet (100 pages, apparently). However, it is also being reported that it will contain things that EU membership did not actually stop the UK government doing, they only didn’t happen because the MPs in Westminster chose not to do them. I guess they’re hoping that we’re not smart enough to notice or know the difference.
January 31, 2022
We all know it’s more ‘Boris’ talk. Nothing being promised will change. I will say that two years from today we will be exactly where we are now.
January 31, 2022
I fear you’re correct
January 31, 2022
You think the Tory MPs are so gutless and stupid that we will be witnessing JOHNSON still denying responsibility and condemning the Party to defeat?
January 31, 2022
Royal Navy now providing channel taxi service. Securing Ukrainian borders but unable or unwilling to secure ours.
January 31, 2022
And in a similar vein will the UK government have any consideration re freedom of movement now Ireland’s irregular migrant scheme, proposed last year and now announced as being open today, inviting an expected 17000 (although a true figure is apparently unknown but anticipated that figure would include 3000 children ) illegal / irregular, undocumented migrants to come “out of the shadows” to seek to regularise their status towards achieving citizenship in Ireland.
January 31, 2022
Come on, please tell us.
Which European Union law or rule do you claim to be materially damaging your life personally the most seriously, and how, exactly?
Commenters have been asking this question repeatedly here, and not one of you has ever said.
January 31, 2022
One European Union rule, and I have read lots in response to you previously, but just one that impacted on all of us as there was less money to spend on poor regions in the UK was the Eu pushing up the UK economy by a hypothetical Ā£65bn accounting for drugs and prostitution that the vast majority in this Country do not partake in, yet we had to pay extra billions in a guessed tax to Europe to comply with their rules on measuring the economy.
February 1, 2022
“Make smoke and retire”, I think that would be, then.
February 1, 2022
Sorry NLH I donāt understand please expand?
I can give you a second one that the EU had in its power to change, a small change according to many but Junker said no, a man that Cameron found out he had no veto over after all.
35,000 children given child benefits, child tax credits, wft credits because it is so expensive to raise children in the UK now that didnāt live in the UK. A small change vetoed, no one minded funding children of EU parents in the UK but this was a step too far because quite often benefits from the UK were more than people could earn in E Europe. Our UK mothers in the main have to work now and since the removal of thousands of childminders by Labourās who made informal arrangements impossible so they now have to pay high nursery fees, why should they keep being asked to pay more and more tax to other people who donāt have to do any work at all. Not even helping in the local community for their benefits, or part-time work just during school hours helping to care for the elderly and infirm the disabled etc to remove some of the burden from children with disabled parents.
January 31, 2022
I have responded many times to this question you and Andykeep posing NHL
Then after a few days you come back on with this groundhog day type challenge.
So I will say what is often said at the Despatch Box
I refer you to the answer I gave earlier
February 1, 2022
“Sorry I can’t” would have been shorter and more accurate.
February 1, 2022
I’m bored replying to your regularly repeated question.
There is no point in responding because you cannot remember any of the many previous replies.
February 1, 2022
NLH, a 3rd one – having to pay Rotterdam port for handling all UK bound imports from outside of the EU and taxes on it. As Rotterdam was nominated by the EU as the port of entry.
All these charges gave the UK less money to Alleviate poverty, create jobs here, improve social care, invest in UK infrastructure and our NHS. Iām working on a language program and it is clear the though process about the UK, Scotland is beautiful, Wales is small and beautiful, England is rich.
January 31, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
Mrs T wasn’t a saint, and she didn’t get everything right, but what I remember about the 1980s, from the perspective of running a small family, kids starting secondary school, husband building up a little business with his partner, was a growing sense that this was a Prime Minister who could connect with real life as we understood it.
January 31, 2022
She was a PM that understood that people created wealth, not governments and, if you wanted a nation to succeed then you have to both realise and release that human potential. Not strangle it with regulation and taxation.
January 31, 2022
Thatcher’s main errors were:-
Killing many good grammar schools as education Sec. and as PM, burying us further into the EU, failing to get any real freedom of choice & a level playing field in health care, education and housing, failing to cut red tape and government remotely sufficiently, falling for the climate alarmism/exaggeration religion… worse of all appointing John Major as Chancellor and letting him joint the ERM and replace her.
Still she was certainly far better than any other PM over my lifetime.
January 31, 2022
The grammar schools were shut by councils not the Government. That is why some still survive.
January 31, 2022
Mostly while she was Education Secretary or PM so she clearly failed to intervene.
January 31, 2022
In those days Government ministers – and MPs – were very strict about not interfering in local government affairs.
January 31, 2022
SM:
I felt exactly the same. You say that Mrs. Thatcher said what she was going to do, and then did it, which is true. The difference between her and Boris, is that she stood firm under fire from all sides, whereas Boris caves in under the slightest pressure from any special interest group, including ācelebritiesā and footballers.
I did not vote Conservative, for policy to be made by these groups, and my vote is in doubt at the next General Election.
January 31, 2022
Agreed, Cheshire girl. We cannot blame Boris alone. The majority of the Conservative party has supported Boris in all his destructive policies. The party has been complicit in it’s own destruction, and the destruction of the UK.
January 31, 2022
Johnson can be likened to an unruly bully dog let off the leash. Charging around having riotous fun but annoying everyone and all the other dogs in the vicinity, and failing to be brought to heel. Strong rein and muzzle required.
January 31, 2022
More like an enthusiastic, over-amorous Labrador puppy. Kind but firm training plus neutering normally does the trick.
January 31, 2022
Cheshire Girl. Turbo said Mrs Thatcher said what she was going to do etc…not SM.
January 31, 2022
The thing I liked about her was that she was a leader who brooked no nonsense. Regardless of whether a leader does the right thing, or not, (and they can’t always be right) it is essential to have someone who when they say ‘Jump!’ the cabinet stooges say ‘How high?’
January 31, 2022
Indeed.
January 31, 2022
To illustrate the level of taxes after the new NI increases – When you employ a company to do something then with VAT 20%, NI employer 13.25%, NI 15.05%, Tax 20% only 51p in the pound goes to the employee and 49p to the government. This assumes no company profit or overheads. Then from this 51p the employee also has to pay to commute to work (with road tax, congestion changes, parking and fuel duty at circa 70%), pay council tax, green energy taxes, the BBC TV licence tax, buy lunch and pay all green crap energy levies.
Often best to do the job yourself (even if it takes you over twice as long) and thus cut the rip off government out. Even worse if you have a student loan to repay at 9% of salary on top (over the now frozen threshold) for what is generally a fairly worthless degree.
This too is only at the basic 20% tax rate too. But many low earners are now drawn in to the 40% rate as thresholds frozen. So with marginal taxes then almost hitting 70% if you count all of them as above or even 79% if you have a student loan.
These absurd tax levels with kill the economy, deter investment, kills jobs and tax receipts too. Like Denis Healey with his 98% income tax (a double first in greats but zero common sense). Sunak retains taxes of over 100% on CGT (with no indexation) and for many landlords who cannot deduct all their interest costs either thanks to the appalling Osborne & Hammond but retained by Sunak.
January 31, 2022
Lifelogic,
From April Employee – 13.25% from Ā£184 per week to Ā£967 per week then 3.25%.
From April Employer – 15.05% from Ā£184 per week
Don’t forget NEST 3% from the employer; 5% from the employee from Ā£6240 – for a none defined benefit personal pension top-up, out of that 8% only 6.2% is invested because of the pension company fees. A Ā£50,000 pot will get someone an extra Ā£2,000 to Ā£2,500 pa depending on age, transfer. I wonder what the anticipated pot is expected to be for a 40-year-old man now, someone that started paying in when it became compulsory on a salary of Ā£20,000 pa.
This makes the employer contribution 3% from Ā£6240 and 18.05% from around Ā£9500.
The employee’s NI type is 5% from Ā£6240 and 18.25% from Ā£9500 (not sure if this start point is rising).
36.3% from Ā£184 per week.
We are obviously being aligned with social payroll taxes in the large nations in Europe but NLH tells us their pension rewards are better.
January 31, 2022
Indeed. From the employee’s point of view, once the NI and Income tax thresholds have been passed – i.e. once above absolute poverty – 20p of each pound goes in tax, 13.25p in NI and, if you happen to spend the money you have left, another 20p on VAT. So, more than half goes to the government. And, if you do as you have done and throw in the Employer’s NI – it’s a bloody wonder that any of us have any money at all.
And, let us not forget, when you fill your car up with Ā£70 of petrol, Ā£50 of that is tax.
I had to pay privately for an operation last year because the NHS was missing in action. Can I deduct the money I spent on the operation from my tax bill. I bloody well should be able to.
January 31, 2022
Thank you for a clear summation of the situation. The phrase ‘worse than we thought’ springs to mind.
JF
January 31, 2022
The way that money is made available and thrown around virtually at ever media interview I really do think that Mrs Thatcher would have not completely ignored all the women caught up in the changes to pensionable age debacle.
Two committees have shown concern when discussed in parliament.
Mrs Thatcher might not have paid out the full amounts but she sure would have struck a deal to dilute the situation. The WASPI group can feel rightly hard done by when they see the millions thrown at the dingy invaders.
Mrs Thatcher would definitely not tolerate the waste that hemorrhages out of the government coffers reported on a near daily basis by and in the media. One could imagine a minister or civil servant saying it would be just written off, being decked by her handbag metaphorically speaking. It’s always been about good house keeping nothing more , nothing less.
January 31, 2022
turboterrier, isn’t this what the WEF really mean by a gender-equal society? Same retirement age, same car insurance premiums, same job opportunities, same wages.
January 31, 2022
+1 agricola
January 31, 2022
+1 turboterrier. Fiscally incontinent and incompetent.
January 31, 2022
Raise more tax revenues from private sector employees to finance our own subjugation and demonisation by a progressive, Neo-Marxist political class that’s now infected the entire body politics, academia, science, the judiciary and the media…
Come on John, stop treating your readers like cretins and fools. Higher public sector spending financed by higher tax revenues and high debt is merely strengthening the left’s now total grip and control of the State
John never refers to public sector reform, the depoliticisation and de-unionisation of the public sector that is now out of control and seeking ever greater powers to cancel freedoms and voice, cancel rights and cancel dissent and protest
The Tory party now governs to protect the Tory party first and foremost and MT never acted in that manner, she acted morally and to defend our freedoms from the extremist and the Socialists who have destructive intent
As an aside. Young British school children now being taught they are ‘ not racially innocent’ by Brighton and Hove schools. Is this what the Tory party stands for? It’s vile, discriminatory and unacceptable. CRT must be removed from all areas of public life
Reply I regularly propose ways top reduce wasteful and undesirable public spending and to reform the delivery of pubic services. Main target currently is to end the very ex[pensive general test and trace system, and get back to private capital and choice in the running of the railways.
January 31, 2022
There can never be proper choice for customers in buying rail travel, and it would make life extremely tedious and complicated even if there were.
There are not several parallel sets of tracks running competing services.
There is perhaps a rƓle for a mixed system such as Italy has, but no more.
January 31, 2022
Indeed as the figures on tax take percentages published in the Sunday Times yesterday, demonstrated. Sunak is quickly acquiring his leaders habits of treating us as fools and not telling the truth.
Another day another untruth. This time that No 10, Carrie I suspect, had no say in rescuing dogs from Afghanistan instead of more people.
January 31, 2022
Line of command went: PM, Defence Secretary, Chief of Defence Staff. Defence Secretary denies Mrs J’s alleged priority was in that command.
January 31, 2022
This government demonstrates that education is not linked to intelligence, but it may be linked to an ability to deceive and lie to the electorate. Nothing has changed my opinion that they are really thick, or are deliberately damaging the UK. What use is a democracy if the government turns rogue and we are unable to kick them out?
What is their priority? It certainly isn’t the UK, or its citizens. Poverty beckons and cheap labour will soon be available again as people desperately take on second and possibly third jobs in order for their family to survive.
January 31, 2022
It is the leader of any organisation that sets tone, standards etc. it is ridiculous that Tory MPs think that they have an acceptable template for the countryās future indeed says a lot about their lack of integrity. Read Nick Timothy in the DT this morning.
A wounded leader only interested in survival is a recipe for chaos. I suspect Sunak āforcedā Boris to acquiesce on the NI increase āor elseā !
January 31, 2022
Nig1, don’t you just think Sunak is being set up for unpopularity on purpose so if Boris is disposed of he won’t stand a chance and Tom will stroll in.
January 31, 2022
+1 Shirley M. That will add to the rogue parliament we had under May! Is’nt Boris and Priti importing plenty of cheap labour, or do they have higher aspirations after going straight into 4* hotels?
February 1, 2022
There is no such thing as a “rogue Parliament”.
It is supreme.
If it is at odds with government, then it is government which is rogue.
January 31, 2022
Two storms, thousands with no power in Scotland. Thank goodness they are not a 100% electric economy yet.
Security of supply is paramount 24/7 in all weather’s.
One can only imagine how Mrs T would have dealt with the situation. One thing she would not look to the heavens and just settle for an act of god. This inclement weather will ending up under mining this charge to Net Zero.
Cannot see Mrs T falling lock stock and barrel to the charge to Net Zero as our ministers have.
January 31, 2022
One odd thing is they haven’t removed VAT on energy saving products, or indeed domestic fuel, as this was specifically touted by Boris as one of the benefits we would have post-Brexit. Why not ? Is there anything in the EU trade agreement level playing field provisions that would prevent us reducing VAT on all fuel (both for industry and domestically) ?
January 31, 2022
They need Brussels permission to change vat rates, it’s all in the TCA. That’s why it isn’t and won’t be done.
John please clarify.
Reply Not so
January 31, 2022
Reply to reply
But is that also the case in Northern Ireland?
January 31, 2022
Correct – this government can alter the VAT rate or remove it completely….from GB (however that will highlight the difference between GB & NI)
January 31, 2022
Reply to reply
So it is the government’s fault that VAT will not be removed from fuel prices, despite the promise to do so !
January 31, 2022
I read that they won’t remove VAT from domestic fuel because NI is still tied to EU law, so it couldn’t be done there and would further highlight the sell out which is the NI protocol
January 31, 2022
+10
Disgusting and deceitful behaviour from the Johnson regime and its woeful attempts to hide its intention to pauperise the UK population via over taxation.
The big questions are:
Who him told him to do this?
And why?
January 31, 2022
Margaret Thatcher was heavily involved into campaign get the UK into the EU , ended the Post war Butskellite Consensus and applied supply side reform to the UK`s Unions that Blair retained . She ended an addiction to debt controlled the inflation that was tearing the country to pieces and was never afraid to say unpopular things when they were required. In short she dragged the UK kicking and screaming into the future .Lucky with Oil? Maybe ..Callaghan would have squandered the luck .She was a tireless worker who believed in detail and competence .She was also socially moderate pragmatic and began on the left of the Party.
John Major continued and her reforms baking them into public life beginning the long and painstaking task of solving the N Ireland problem , when the country turned to Blair it was with far less enthusiasm than was obvious at the time but he did not challenge the new consensus.
In every way her legacy has been betrayed by the modern Brexit (y ) Party very much including Sir John Redwood.
January 31, 2022
Those Hayekian puritans among the Tories continue to press for self-evidently daft applications of a sixth-former’s extrapolations of his theories, whilst ignoring the far-reaching revisions – “clarifications” – that he himself was forced to concede.
They are going nowhere of any use or good.
January 31, 2022
He is proved right by the rapidly increasing inflation breaking out now in UK, EU and USA.
February 1, 2022
So was Michael Fish always right, because he got several weather forecasts correct, then?
February 1, 2022
You hate Hayak because he believes that prosperity is created by innovation entrepreneurship and free market capitalism.
Everything you despise.
January 31, 2022
How so? You are right that she was supportive of EEC membership, but she was very much opposed to political and monetary union as implemented following the Maastricht Treaty, which is why from the 90s on she favoured Brexit.
January 31, 2022
To be fair to her, the world looked like a very different place in the post war years. I think it is fair to say that all anyone (sane) wanted was for there not to be another war. The idea of a Common Market as a way of intertwining nations and making war less likely was very attractive. I voted in the 1975 referendum to stay in the Common Market. Since then, of course, the Common Market has morphed into a power grab by the autocratic fools in Brussels. So I voted to Leave.
January 31, 2022
Mrs Thatcher had more fight in her little finger than the whole of the Cabinet. Mrs Thatcher would have never employed SAGE with their track record of inaccurate predictions and conflict of interest. Mrs Thatcher would never let her husband dictate a ruinous green policy or plan parties the day before a state funeral. Mrs Thatcher would have never locked down the country BUT she would have gone to the ends of the earth protected the vulnerable.
January 31, 2022
And in other news, did anyone really think this government would follow through with its threat of forcing unvaccinated people to leave the NHS, of course not and we now read about the inevitable U turn.
We saw at the start of Covid, their disdain for elderly in care homes with people actually dying because of their policy and their couldnāt care less attitude continues still enforcing the 100% vax requirement leading to staff shortages.
As usual one rule for the NHS supported by a weak Secretary of State.
January 31, 2022
Nig1. They dud a u turn for the NHS but they shoukd have done it for care workers too. Care homes were already short staffed and sacking loads of them hasn’t helped.
January 31, 2022
No- It’s one law for the whole country now, Nig L: No vaccination without informed consent. That seems right to me.
The treatment of care workers was disgraceful and those responsible should be prosecuted.
January 31, 2022
Somewhat off topic, apropos the new report mentioned last night:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/30/the-eerily-quiet-collapse-of-the-uk-car-industry/#comment-1296333
there is an account here:
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-dam-is-breaking-another-study-heavily-criticises-the-treasurys-modelling-of-brexit/
“The dam is breaking ā another study heavily criticises the Treasuryās modelling of Brexit”
Just to track through the sequence of events here – the disinformation from the Treasury supported the claim that it would be disastrous to leave the EU without a special trade deal, but any special trade deal, that is to say arrangements going beyond the terms of the existing WTO treaties, could only be obtained with the agreement of the Irish government, which had adopted an absurd extreme and intransigent position over the minor problem of the land border, and Theresa May found it convenient not to expose that position for the nonsense that it was but instead use it as a pretext to give the CBI and other business pressure groups much of what they wanted:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/28/smoothing-trade/#comment-1295900
and Boris Johnson followed down the path that she had set:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/28/smoothing-trade/#comment-1295883
but with an Irish protocol that singles out Northern Ireland to be left behind subject to swathes of EU Single Market laws under the supervision of the EU court, a protocol which is itself “insane” even before the EU gets to work on its implementation:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/26/will-the-national-security-council-wake-up-to-the-gas-threat/#comment-1295190
January 31, 2022
Everyone should have a hobby of some kind.
January 31, 2022
Yours NHL is 40 posts a day on here.
February 1, 2022
Yours appears to be counting mine and replying to them all, inanely.
February 1, 2022
If you spend more of your hobby time counting your posts over a number of days you will find I do not respond to all your posts.
Just the ridiculous ones.
January 31, 2022
How odd to see Mrs May in the Commons today. She made a sensible speech about the PM’s unfitness for the office he holds. I almost warmed to the lady. Almost.
JF
February 1, 2022
She has also been pontificating about it in our local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser. It’s a great pity that she is not making better use of her remaining time as an MP by demanding the removal of the Irish sea border and organising her fellow Tory MPs to force Boris Johnson to do that.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/theresa-may-no-uk-pm-could-agree-to-brexit-withdrawal-text-on-northern-ireland
“Mrs May was repeatedly urged not to compromise the integrity of the Union or put the Good Friday Agreement at risk during a tense session of Prime Ministerās Questions today.
She said: “The draft legal text the Commission have published would, if implemented, undermine the UK common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea.ā
And dramatically, she added: āNo UK Prime Minister could ever agree to it. I will be making it crystal clear to President Juncker and others we will never do so.ā”
Now she is more interested in boozy lockdown ‘gatherings’ in Downing Street.
January 31, 2022
It’s amazing how many CONs claim to be Thatcherites or in some cases use propaganda photos or even hairstyles to try to demonstrate it when their current or historic actions demonstrate that there is nothing Thatcherite about them at all.
I’m prepared to believe that Sunak is firmly in the “Please God, make me Thatcherite ….. but not yet” corner. At the moment he’s in the Denis Healey one and taxing ’til the pips squeak. But then, I ignore what they say and watch what they do.
January 31, 2022
+1 I also ignore what they say and watch what they do.
However, I suspect I’m a tad more cynical than you, and inclined to think that Sunak’s protestations are more a case of, if I claim āI am a Thatcherite ā¦..and if enough stupid people fall for it, I can probably run this lie indefinitelyā
Err, no sunshine you can’t, even some of the ‘stupid’ people are waking up.
January 31, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
No, there hasn’t been a Bill to change the main huge body of EU regulatory law which we rolled over, and for the very good reason that dropping EU rules makes it harder and costlier for our exporters to do business with our biggest trading partners. We will always follow EU rules in most areas, it’s just after Brexit we will have no say in how they are made. Brexit means giving up control
January 31, 2022
Gary Megson :
The EU may be āour biggest trading partnerā but it means a trading DEFICIT of Ā£100bn/YEAR.
Brexit means that we can start to make changes to correct this enormous imbalance.
This large deficit evidences we never had any control in EU rules and in fact we will have more influence regarding trade rules outside of the EU than we had inside the EU.
January 31, 2022
How does making exports harder still help that deficit?
February 1, 2022
https://www.statista.com/statistics/284750/united-kingdom-uk-total-eu-trade-in-goods-by-trade-value/?mc_cid=4aa9a8747c&mc_eid=ee84cb59c6
February 1, 2022
NLH – I feel that Borisā trade agreement for the UK wasnāt good enough. He didnāt prepare our import restrictions and the EU was hot on putting those restrictions on the UK immediately, that gave him no bargaining power. But I read that UK Exports of goods and services rose 4.6% from a month earlier to a 22 month high of Ā£57.1 by in November 2021, driven by a 15.2% jump in goods exports to none EU Countries (I want to read that the UK government is doing more to facilitate even more of this and helping manufacturers to open up these markets further – faster). At the same time goods sales to the EU rose 1% – Trading Economic. There is much more to do. Most of us wanted friendly and fair equal trading between all nations. Why are you supporting the EU and particularly France on their unreasonable road blocks i.e. requiring wet signatures on digital documentation?
January 31, 2022
Can I even be bothered? Well, I suppose I have to say something, yet again, the same old stuff.
Are you aware that about 88% of our economy has nothing to do with exports to the EU?
If not, why not, when it has been repeatedly explained on this blog, for example here:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/08/31/chancellors-policy-to-hit-the-car-market-works/#comment-958325
“People connected with the 6% of UK businesses which export 12% of our GDP to the EU, who believe their interests should be given priority over the possibly conflicting interests of the other 94% of businesses producing 88% of our GDP.
And, luckily for them, they have a Prime Minister who agrees with them:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-our-future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union
āOur default is that UK law may not necessarily be identical to EU law, but it should achieve the same outcomes. In some cases Parliament might choose to pass an identical law ā businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets.ā
She could have said: āThe six percent of UK businesses who export to the EU ā¦ā, or even āThe small minority of UK businesses who export to the EU ā¦ ā but of course that would have rather given the game away after all these long decades of pretence that our economic prosperity is critically dependent on our exports to the rest of the EU, and therefore on our EU membership.”
In fact some take it a lot further and work out that 99.3% of all UK businesses do not export to the EU:
https://facts4eu.org/news/2020_oct_truth_about_UK_exporters
Or 2.8% of employers, that is excluding sole traders.
And, guess what, quite a lot of the exporters to the EU also export to other parts of the world and somehow they manage to cope with a wide variety of standards applicable in the different markets. Here’s something else dragged up from over three years ago:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/04/bad-deals/#comment-970995
“And when we are trading with the rest of the world we do not agree to all of their different laws being imposed in our territory, and simultaneously even if some of them will then be in conflict.
So Theresa May does not say:
āAs we want to trade goods with Australia we must agree to incorporate all relevant Australian rules into our domestic lawā,
and
āAs we want to trade goods with Canada we must agree to incorporate all relevant Canadian rules into our domestic lawā,
and so on until she has worked her way through all the non-EU countries around the world one by one.
It is only when it comes to trading goods with the EU countries that she is straight away down on her knees doing homage and freely volunteering to obey all relevant EU law even after we have left the EU.
If she said that only goods destined for export to Australia must conform to Australian standards, and similarly only goods destined for export to the EU must conform to EU standards, then that would make sense.”
February 1, 2022
Brexit makes life harder and costlier for those exporting to the EU, and offers no – zero, nada – compensating benefits to those who don’t export to the EU. It is that simple. Brexit = shooting ourselves in both feet
February 1, 2022
Even if that was so, which it is not, it would only be shooting ourselves with a peashooter. I know that you will just carry on pretending that EU membership was vital for our economy when the facts show that it only had a marginal impact, and most likely marginally negative, but that is because you are one of those who is not actually interested in the truth about the economics.
January 31, 2022
Sunak is no Maggie Thatcher. Under his watch we have seen massive tax rises. How Conservative members can think he’s a Prime Minister in waiting is beyond me.
Hard working middle income families are being squeezed in every aspect of their lives from birth to death. Is there any point trying to earn more than the minimum wage? This is all part of the levelling down initiative and the introduction of the basic universal income. All controlled by the WEF.
This Government nor any of the main political parties work for the benefit of the British people. People need to wake up and wake up quickly to elect an alternative like Reform, otherwise they will have little income or capital left.
January 31, 2022
I have learned over the years to take Sir John’s revisionist political and economic histories of the UK with a generous pinch of salt, particularly where Thatcher is concerned.
In 1976 inflation reached 28%, this was not caused by Labour policy but the quadrupling of the oil price set by OPEC in the early 1970’s in response to American support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. OPEC stopped selling oil to the USA.
Thatcher and her successor John Major managed to destroy the industrial base of the UK so thoroughly that we have never had a balance of payments surplus since. The policy reponse was to sell off the profitable nationalised industries, which attracted foreign currency. The side effect was the destruction of British Steel, British Shipbulders, BAC, the CEGB etc, the legacy of which is sewage without end in our rivers, the renationalisation of the railways and the current energy crisis. And don’t forget the national debt at Ā£2.4 trillion
Rock on Maggie.
Reply Biased nonsense. The most severe deindustrialisation occurred in the 1970s under Labour when the full impact of EEC membership first hit home
January 31, 2022
British steel was losing money hand over fist , in 1979 British Steel was loosing Ā£4 million per day. Ā£1.4 billion a year. That is a lot of money now, it was a shed load in 1979. In 1980 the steel unions went on strike for 14 weeks, claiming a 20% pay rise. Clearly the future of their industry was not a high priority for them.
In 1979 there were 150,000 people working in British Steel producing 100tones of steel per employee. 15million tones per year. In 1997 there were 30,000 people working in British Steel producing 500tones of steel per employee . 15million tones per year, the same tonnage as what they inherited but with the important difference that it was profitable.
Under Labour the motorcycle industry went bust . Tony Benn, Industry Minister, created the Meridian Motorcycle cooperative , again it lost shed loads of money, and went bust again leaving the tax payer with a load of debts. John Bloor , plasterer and property developer made good, bought out the assets , turned the buildings into housing estates, sold of the rights to make the Bonneville, then making use of Thatcher government grants built a state of the art motorcycle plant at Hinkley producing a modern range of motorcycles, now with manufacturing facilities in Brazil, Thailand, and Chonburi.
In general British factories increased output by 7.5% during Mrs Thatcher’s premiership. Output grew a further 4.9% by 1997. Curiously, it was under Labour that the decline hit. By the end of Brownās tenure at Number 10, manufacturing output was lower than the day Thatcher left office. The manufacturing share of GDP fell almost continuously.
I suppose excuses can be made for your lack of understand at what took place, the Wet Tories have utterly failed to defend Mrs T’s record , allowing a Labour narrative to prevail , and it is from that we have such a confused Government now, more Socialist than Tory, unable to summon up the courage to ditch Socialism , staying within the Marxist comfort zone where they won’t get criticised by the opposition, media or Civil Service blob.
January 31, 2022
I think people no longer believe this. They believe that all 3 main parties are wedded to high taxation, and either accept this or don’t bother to vote. Next time a “small” party could break through, as there’s going to be nothing to lose.
January 31, 2022
Agree Sir Joe
January 31, 2022
Sir John
You must be able to sense from comments on this Website that things aren’t looking too good for the Conservatives come the local elections.
If Boris survives and I’m sure he will because he’s more slippery than a greased pig in a passage,he will need to change tack and deliver.
The people deserve at least that Boris delivers on his manifesto promises, some of which he has already failed.
We need a detailed plan from this government on what is being done and when.
January 31, 2022
A bad showing in the May elections is all the excuse that is needed to oust him. His one and ONLY redeeming feature, and the one they keep him for, is the ability to win elections. When Bojo no longer has the Mojo he’ll be gone. And its clear the sharks smell blood in the water and are beginning to circle.
January 31, 2022
I think we have to say OK the whole covid emergency has thrown everything off course. There were of course some tax rises under Thatcher when she wanted to restore confidence after the disaster of the Heath and Labour years, such as the rise in VAT in the 1981 budget.
But now we need a real re-set. Boris (forced by Sunak and Frost it is reported) quite rightly told the shroud wavers of SAGE and their cheerleaders on the left and in the media to get stuffed when they wanted another lockdown. Even in the comments here we saw shrieky leftists parrot the ridiculous āscientificā forecasts of 6,000 covid deaths a day (it now turns out that actual deaths of covid are less than 20,000 overall, as originally projected by experts such as Prof Karol Sikora).
Letās now say, great the pandemic is behind us, the U.K. independent vaccine policy has been a triumph. Many experts, though well intentioned, have been completely wrong. Now we need proper Conservative govt. Mr Sunak professes himself an admirer of Nigel Lawson. Well hereās a good Lawson strategy to follow – abolish one tax per budget. (He might also note Nigel Lawtonās current views on the costs & benefits of green crap).
January 31, 2022
Sorry the VAT rise was in 1979.
January 31, 2022
You have set out the stark reality of the two opposite policies of Mrs Thatcher and Sunak, Sir John. Already the damage is done but between Johnson and Sunak there will be no going back, just continuing high tax, print money, more big state and urinate down the drain. The massive damage of climate change policy and zero carbon (zero brain) is still to really bite.
What do I know, but I did predict the damage that would be done by lock down and and the legislation etc etc that went with it. A vile thing to do to the country. I went down with Covid while in hospital, went to ICU three times. Lockdown was NOT necessary and the blame lies with the PM and with a parliament that endorsed it. We now know that the casualties have not justified the draconian measures.
January 31, 2022
They followed the WHO advice and were spooked by a rise in cases in West London and threats from President Macron of shutting all French ports.
January 31, 2022
Incidentally Ian Mulheirn at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change noted that the Ā£29bn of extra taxes to be introduced by 2025 ā would not have been necessary had the UK remained in the EU. Brexit is forecast to have a net cost to the public finances of around Ā£30bn
Might you Brexit pepes wish to pay my share please .Unlike you I didn’t vote to be poorer
Ta
January 31, 2022
Newmania :
Pull the other one.
We have always been a large net contributor to the EU budgets and that would include the EUās 2 trillion Euro recovery budget.
BTW, who funds the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change?
January 31, 2022
“Brexit is forecast to have a net cost to the public finances of around Ā£30bn”
Forecast by whom, on what basis, and why do you automatically believe it?
January 31, 2022
Whilst todayās pretend Conservatives get all excited about Margaret Thatcher they should remember most of the country hated her. They didnāt dislike her – they hated her.
Thatcher was a deeply divisive figure – in a way Tony Blair or even David Cameron never was. Friend of the rich, enemy of the poor – she is directly responsible for many of the problems we have today. Many of you moan about how all our infrastructure is owned by foreigners. It is Thatcher who sold it off. Sure, she sold it off to your generation and your parents – but you then all flogged it on to foreigners to make yourselves some cash. Not so much Tell Sid as El Cid.
January 31, 2022
Yes. Tony Blair and David Cameron WERE divisive. All politicians worth their salt are divisive or they do not represent change.
The difference being that the people who voted for Brexit and voted for Thatcher didn’t do violence or disobedience when things didn’t go their way, they used the ballot box quietly … so they didn’t get noticed.
I LOATHED Tony Blair and so do most that I know. But I accepted the democratic vote when it came.
January 31, 2022
Bliar’s landslide from 2nd May 1997 shouldn’t have been too surprising.
After Thatcher left in 1990 and Major took over the reins, the Tories lost (almost without fail) every single by-election that they fought. It was the only way that the population had (prior to a G.E.) of signalling that they were unhappy with the way that the Conservatives had been running things.
The message was “change or else”, but CCO ignored that and convinced themselves that people would revert to their normal voting patterns at a G.E.
I’m not an avid diary-keeper, but I do recall writing in my work diary entry for 3rd May 1997 “Oh sh*t. What have we done?!”.
It may change in the future, but currently Bliar must be the most hated politician ever to walk through the door to No.10.
January 31, 2022
Andy
She won three elections, which suggest the majority who vote, preferred her to the others.
If people cannot be bothered to even vote then, they are then silly to complain about the winner.
February 1, 2022
No, she was elected with a minority of voters at least once.
FPTP enables this.
January 31, 2022
So that’s why so many lined the streets for her funeral š
In that case, the whole of London will be filled with “mourners” when Blair finally goes to meet his Maker.
January 31, 2022
Her policies have in large part never been reversed in the U.K. and have been imitated and praised widely around the world, especially in ex-communist countries. She is rightly recognised by history as the UKās greatest peacetime PM. Together with Ronald Reagan (also āhatedā by leftists), she delivered freedom to billions by facing down Communism. In 100 years time Thatcher and Churchill will the 2 PMs from the C20th who are remembered, written about and studied.
January 31, 2022
Is this the same Mrs. thatcher that won three successive general elections and would have won a fourth if her cowardly party hadnāt done the dirty on her and turfed out the best peacetime Prime Minister this country has ever known. Youāre deluded.
January 31, 2022
+1000.
January 31, 2022
Rishi Sunak is not trustworthy. He cheats people.
January 31, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
In terms of credability regarding Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, judge them by their actions, but not by their words. They have turned Brexit into a lost opportunity while being driven by a false religion. They ignore the electorate while paying homage to every crank focus group you might imagine. The latest being tinkering with the Highway Code at the behest of a few anarchist cyclists. The political bailifs arrive in May with a warning and in 2024 in final settlement.
January 31, 2022
Exactly – to have Cop26/Net Zero/rip off unreliable Energy/heat pumps/expensive EVs as your flagship policy is political and economic suicide.
January 31, 2022
Scientifically wrong too.
January 31, 2022
Our STEM-illiterate rulers don’t do science. Or engineering. Modelling. I sometimes wonder what the Bogdanor PPE graduates actually know.
JF
January 31, 2022
Agreed.
All we have had are slogans, but no action – except on Woke items, which also includes Net Zero. Johnson and Sunak are the ones now with Net Zero (Credibility).
January 31, 2022
Yep !
January 31, 2022
The more history separates us from actual events, the more people will try to take advantage of some aspect while not understanding the full implications of what they allegedly imitate. Our current Chancellor could never be compared to Lawson, who was innovative and did the country a lot of good. Sunak is more comparable to Brown, but edges too close to Healey for my liking.
Even labour politicians like Wilson were keen to stress that economics should be a balance of the carrot and the stick – but all we get these days is the stick!
Should Sunak pick up the reigns from Boris, I fear we would see even more stick.
February 1, 2022
We get the stick because the keep giving away all our carrots. Remember overseas aid ? That’s still going.
January 31, 2022
Please do not even bother to compare Sunak or Boris with Margaret Thatcher, she stands head and shoulders above both of them, and all other Prime Ministers since.
No she was certainly not always right, and certainly for some she was divisive, but when she went abroad, or other leaders came here, you knew that she was battling for the UK’s best interests.
In all of her speeches you got the impression that she actually believed in what she said, which was clear to all who listened.
Since her departure we have had 30 years of waffle, spin, deception, evasion, and even outright lies.
February 1, 2022
+1
The fact that we have had seven PM’s since her departure and none of those seven very few have had any thing good to say about them tells you all you need to know.
She said what she meant, and meant what she said, and you knew where both she and you stood. Can’t say that about any of them since, except that is, their love of the EU.
January 31, 2022
Of topic.
I’ve seen my first roadside EV charging points.
The actual charging point is the size of a forecourt petrol pump and it is accompanied by a box the size of an upright piano. One was given the impression that this was simply a case of taking a spur off the street lighting system. For this system to serve all of the cars is going to take an awful lot of hardware and material.
One presumes that this section of the kerb is no longer allowed for parking and that there will be a road traffic law for the EV owner to stay only as long as it takes to charge the car.
How is this going to be policed ? How is this not going to lead to a surge in violence – especially in ‘peaceful’ London (which voted overwhelmingly for Remain btw) ?
January 31, 2022
Well said SJR! Honest money says it all. How sad that you are the beacon of light the govt is in dire need of yet continue drunk on their own egos in the opposite direction. I cannot remember voting for New Labour a few years ago. As for IR35 they have lost the plot on how to generate the seeds of economic success. Really it is pathetic for them to spin honestly.
January 31, 2022
“His (the Chancellor’s] approach to tax is the opposite of hers [Margaret Thatcher].”
Correct!
January 31, 2022
Mrs T would have KNOWNā¦.
About the plague.
Someone, somewhere tried the same thing with HIV.
But she would not let it happen!!
January 31, 2022
Mrs. Thatcher would have been looking at ways to reduce the tax burden by reducing wasted Government spending.
All Government departments and quangos would have been asked to cut employment.
There would have been no continual increases in such employment – and certainly no diversity officers -and there would have no parties as cakes and booze would not have been allowed to be purchased at the taxpayersā expense.
EU directed environmentally unfriendly, economically useless grandiose infrastructure schemes such as HS2 would be cancelled.
Having studied chemistry at Oxford back in the 1940s she would not have been taken in by the idea that we can get all the power the country needs from āthe breezes that blow around these islandsā (PM Johnson Oxford Classics, ancient literature and classical philosophy (Conservative Party conference speech October 2020)) and hence not taken us down a path to economic disaster.
Mrs. Thatcher would not only be protecting our economy but also our nation from the invasion of hundreds of thousands of young men of fighting age who come with entirely different cultures, laws, beliefs and practices. Invited to come with 4 star hotel accommodation, Ā£40/week pocket money and the complete freedom to roam the country as they please. All paid for by the taxpayer and becoming ever more expensive. Probably the real reason for the N.I. increases.
January 31, 2022
Sir John,
To me the chancellor is more reminiscent of Gordon Brown. His policy of light touch regulation was extremely profitable for the bankers, until the crash. Also we should not forget his selling of most of the gold reserves at a knock-down price to finance his grandiose plans. Perhaps his greatest achievements were the Private Finance Initiative and the Public Private Partnership, where the taxpayer ended up footing the bill. Another chancellor who promised one thing and delivered another.
January 31, 2022
“Private Finance Initiative and the Public Private Partnership, where the taxpayer ended up footing the bill.”
Look at the financing arrangements for Hinkley C EPRs.
“And while weāre on the subject of EDF, hereās a report from the Guardian in 2017: According to GĆ©rard Magnin, a former EDF director, the French company sees Hinkley as āa way to make the British fund the renaissance of nuclear in Franceā. He added: āWe cannot be sure that in 2060 or 2065, British pensioners, who are currently at school, will not still be paying for the advancement of the nuclear industry in France.ā Well, they did it with our aircraft industries so why not nuclear?”
From TCW Defending Freedom.
Not just footing the bill. footing it for 40 years.
JF
January 31, 2022
Johnson and Sunak can say what they like but they are clearly big state, high tax socialists along with half the current Conservative parliamentary party all desperate to cling to that boring middle ground. They are not fit to be mentioned in the same sentence as Mrs. T or Churchill let alone be compared to them – it would be funny if it were not so deadly worrying all the damage these two idiots are doing. Maybe the inevitable wipe out in the forthcoming elections will take that smug look off their insufferable faces.
February 1, 2022
+1
These two, and the rest, will only go after and if the May elections are seen as a complete disaster. That means losing some strong Tory held councils. They know the Red Wall has gone. They know that there may be a period of opposition or minority government with the LibDems. The one question Tory MP’s need to ask themselves is;
“Who ?”. “Who can take over and win the next GE ?”
I cannot see anyone and I doubt our kind host can either. Hence why I believe he is trying to persuade the PM to get back on course and fulfill his pledges. But as I keep saying, time is running out.
January 31, 2022
Two headlines in TCW this morhing in neither of which the traitor elite, which contemptuously rules us, is interested. They are – I am seeing cancers take off like wildfires after the vaccine says US doctor, and
Halt the flood of Channel crossings before it becomes a tsunami says Alp Mehmet.
January 31, 2022
The thing that set Margaret Thatcher appart from almost all other other politician was her great determination. This was clear at the time and is very apparent from biographies. She certainly needed it to break the post war socialist concensus, shared by both main parties, as was illustrated decades later by Harold MacMillan’s ‘Family silver’ jibe regarding de-nationalisation.
If, and it must be a big If, Rishi Sunak does believe in a low tax economy, then he totally lacks the gumption to impose his own will on the Treasury.
January 31, 2022
This government has no intention of following the principles laid down by Margaret Thatcher.
The reaffirmation at the weekend that the NI increase will go ahead as planned, demonstrated that they have no political nouse whatsoever.
Then we have the complete failure to do anything yet about forthcoming energy bills. That is an issue NOW, not from April :
Our own fixed price deal (with Shell Energy) was not the cheapest but it was the best available deal at the time from a large, well funded company. That was a wise decision but the deal expired last week. I have been notified that our electricity bill will be increasing by 29.4% and gas by 52.1% and that is only the increase to bring it up to the price cap.
A further large increase from April will be inevitable.
We have a large house of 3,000 sq ft and as a result our energy bills have not been cheap but the increase in pund not terms will be very significant. We are fortunate to have the necessary reserves to pay for it. Others will not be so lucky. Action was needed before now.
January 31, 2022
Sir John
The problem with the current brouhaha is not cake its the security breach. Did the press suborn? hack? blackmail? Did people working at number 10 not sign NDAs and or the official secrets act? I cannot think of another country in the world where such distractions from doing the necessary jobs would be permitted.
February 1, 2022
A party does not constitute an official secret and an NDA can only be used contractually, usually on a commercial basis.
What it is is a breach of trust. But when you are caught breaking the very rules you created one cannot reasonably use that as a defence.
January 31, 2022
When does the government intend to remove the huge fore sale sign hanging like the sword of Damocles over what remains of our productive industries? The Tories have belated decided to protect ‘strategic’ industries from foreign predation without having the expertise to know what is strategic or not. For Tories, strategic usually means defence contractors themselves but not the myriad suppliers on which they depend or any business which provides substantial contributions to our current account. The Tories like to brag about our turnover relative to other economies; however an economy based on nail bars and banksterism and the construction of weapons systems which are as expensive as they are useless is neither modern nor balanced and does not provide a good income for most people in most parts of the country.
We need recognise that we are no longer constrained by the EU; we cannot save the planet by immolating our own industries and most of all, we are no longer a world power so investing large sums on ill-conceived weapons systems is a waste of money and will not support the ambitions of idiotic women who want to go eyeball to eyeball with members of the big league.
Needless to say the melodrama created by the Tories by allowing a Japanese Hedge Fund to walk off with ARM Holdings continues and after a period of gross mismanagement during which IP was sold to the Chinese, the company’s future is now even more uncertain together with the expertise in Cambridge on which it is based. Once businesses are sold abroad, we have no control whatsoever over what happens to them in any respect: when will the dim-witted Tories grasp this simple fact?
January 31, 2022
Boris Johnson in the Daily Mail today:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10458267/BORIS-JOHNSON-Brexit-helped-bounce-Covid-faster-freedoms.html
“It is that spirit of co-operation … that we need now, as we urgently address the problem of the Northern Ireland protocol. We can find a solution that respects the EU single market, and the sovereign and territorial integrity of the UK single market ā and which also addresses the need for balance under the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.”
I should have thought that by now he would have realised that he is very unlikely to get any co-operation from the Irish government, which doesn’t even see the present protocol as a problem – more as a triumph kindly handed to them on a plate by three successive UK Prime Ministers who preferred not to see through the falsehoods emanating from the UK Treasury.
If he actually wants to solve the problem, and reinstate Northern Ireland as a fully integral part of the UK, then it will have to be unilateral action, and the first step should be to pass UK export control laws to protect the EU Single Market from non-compliant goods crossing the land border into the Irish Republic.
January 31, 2022
I heard on the radio the other morning a comment that you were opposing most of the tax changes in progress by the Chancellor. Good for you but how many others particularly in the cabinet understand the economics or even the simple mathematics behind your criticisms ? I almost give up hope that there are enough ‘Conservatives ‘ to realise the implications of a growing economy damped down by foolish tax changes.
January 31, 2022
We could do worse than have a Cabinet reshuffle and replace Sunak with Redwood?
January 31, 2022
Well done Sir John – a brilliantly succint evisceration of Sunak’s fraudulent claim to be a low-taxing Thatcherite. The man is an appalling Chancellor who has managed to buy populatity until now by giving away money. Money which he did not have, of course, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. This is before we even look at his role in betraying Northern Ireland, since the media say that he opposes the use of Article 16 of the Protocol.
There is no way this useless and deceitful creature can be allowed to replace Boris the Traitor. Having considered this I think the man with the best political instincts and leanings – and who is in the cabinet, which unfortunately will probably be considered an esential qualifying criterion by Tory MPs – is Dominic Raab. I’m not sure why he hasn’t been discussed more as a possible future PM in the media. He is by no means perfect, but probably the best of the bunch – unless you feel like standing!!
February 3, 2022
Raab is not the MSM candidate for the reason you give. Mr Sunak is the MSM candidate and the Blob’s candidate.
January 31, 2022
Sir John, your Tweet today about establishing a freeport in Northern Ireland is an excellent idea! It is disgraceful that this is the one and only part of the UK that is not scheduled to have one. There would be no better way to demonstrate that Northern Ireland is part of the UK and is governed in the same way as the rest of the country, while simultaneously helping to level up the province by boosting its economy. Is this just your idea or is the DUP in favour too? And is the ERG going to press for this? In any case, I like your thinking! How about making it a condition for not sending a letter to Graham Brady (as well as revoking the Protocol, of course)…
Reply Yes, many members of the ERG agree and I think the DUP is interested in the idea but I cannot speak for them.
January 31, 2022
With regard to Javidās apparent U turn on jabs,
It is worth bearing in mind that our inventive little government is planning, in March, to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights.
And very communistic it sounds too, focusing on the ārights of public interestā.
Unable to make jabs compulsory because of the Human Rights Act are they changing it in order to jab us as often as they wish?
Are MPs paying attention? Or do they know all about it anyway?
January 31, 2022
“More than a year into Brexit there has still been no Bill to change the main huge body of EU regulatory law…”
Perhaps we should take that as indicating that they don’t want to change it, maybe to keep the door open for re-entry? Time for Boris to clean up the mess he left with his WA too.
January 31, 2022
+1
Leaving a bridge back maybe?
Boris has always been very keen on bridges.
January 31, 2022
How long before we tip the banknotes onto the street and steal the basket that contained them?
February 1, 2022
Post of the day, with a little more truth than is comfortable.
+1
January 31, 2022
Spot on! Sunak is pretending to be something he is not.
Those of us with life experience – or perhaps I should say “those of us who have that – and have also learned from their life experience”)… know to judge people by their actions, not by their words.
To misappropriate the duck metaphor:
If it regulates like a socialist and taxes like a socialist…. it probably is a socialist.
February 1, 2022
+1
January 31, 2022
Having watched events in Parliament this afternoon, I have to say that things are not looking good for Boris Johnson. There was an obvious lack of support from the benches behind him. I can imagine a lot more than 54 letters going in to Mr Brady this evening.
It’s clear that the only way that the PM can retain the keys to No 10 is for him to be cleared of personal wrongdoing by Ms Gray and that this can now only happen once the Police investigation has ended. As the worst outcome of the Police investigation can be a few fixed penalty fines, it is ridiculous that the Met has demanded that the full report be withheld. The Country simply cannot wait weeks for the unimpressive Ms Plod to reach a conclusion of who, if anyone to fine.
Ms Gray should have ignored the Commissioner and published in full. That would not prevent anyone being given a fixed penalty notice but would have at least resolved the future of the government.
This afternoon, the unedifying spectacle of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom being harried from all sides, including by his vindictive immediate predecessor trying to settle a very personal old score, does the United Kingdom’s reputation in the world no good at all.
February 1, 2022
“Ms Plod” Has to somehow payback the support she has received from the PM and HS
š
February 1, 2022
Er…… not ‘weeks’! They’ve said that their investigations should be concluded within 12 months!!! I’m sure that Alexander Boris dePeppapig Johnson is rather counting on it all being brushed under the ministerial carpet and forgotten about by then.
January 31, 2022
Dear Sir John – “Should Theresa May get her old job back?”
Topic for tomorrow?
February 1, 2022
Clough
Talking about hitting below the belt.
Good question though š
February 1, 2022
What – Home Secretary?
January 31, 2022
Would Margaret Thatcher increase NI to make Ā£12bn or cut HS2 to save Ā£125bn
February 1, 2022
As it is actions, not words that count Sunak and Johnson certainly are not low-tax Conservatives, nor even Thatcherites. Unlike many here I would not classify them as Socialists either, certainly not compared to the real Socialists like Starmer and Rayner. The most accurate(if not completely exact) political label for Johnson that I can think of is Peronist. Unfortunately he is in effect seeking to change the Conservative Party into a Peronist party. Unfortunately also none of his likely successors is both genuinely Conservative nowadays and likely to win a General Election.Indeed one might say that like Juan Peron he is also married to an aspiring Evita in the form of Carrie. Though Peronism does have the virtue generally (unlike the socialist left)of not seeing business owners and workers, the rich and the poor, as necessarily having fundamentally opposing interests either economically or politically,I still hold the view that right wing libertarianism with minimal governmental interference in both economics and in their personal lives is going to achieve the best results for
people in general.
February 1, 2022
“More than a year into Brexit there has still been no Bill to change the main huge body of EU regulatory law which we rolled over as a temporary measure.”
According to the Telegraph today, Johnson has decided to keep the EU regulatory law. As a Brexit-supporting Conservative, I am dismayed that the parliamentary party are letting slip the current opportunity to get rid of him. If they leave it until after May, thousands of council seats will be lost. At the moment it looks as if the next general election will be lost too. The opportunity given by the 80-seat majority has been completely squandered. It’s heartbreaking.