From  the first official forecasts of poor outcomes if we dared to vote Brexit to the continuing gloom of OBR and Bank predictions on growth, unemployment and tax revenues I have correctly argued they have been far too pessimistic.  This year again the deficit is £60 bn below their forecast, employment is strong and growth excellent.
So let me surprise you. This time I do not think the Bank and doubtless the OBR who usually are similar are too pessimistic about 22-3 or 23-4. I think now the savage attack on the economy by the Treasury with its big tax rises and the Bank with its severe monetary tightening will indeed deliver little growth, rising unemployment and less buoyant tax revenues in the next two years.
I agree the Bank needed to tighten a bit to correct the  excessive laxity of extended Quantitative easing or money printing. They needed to curb the inflation they had created. They were right to end all QE this year. They  should have done so last year as the recovery took hold.  It does not need, however, to rush to Qunatitative tightening. Neither the Fed nor the ECB plan to do that and they both have worse inflation than us.
My main complaint is aimed at Treasury policy. The fastest way to get the deficit down is growth. Their excessive tax rises strategy will slow the economy too much, impeding getting the deficit down. One simple message for them. Stop it.
The Bank correctly forecasts a hit to real incomes this year as the energy price rises and tax rises kick in April. They may have underdone  that forecast. This will slow the economy  markedly without needing a monetary jolt as well.
The government needs a growth strategy for its own sake and to cut the deficit.
February 6, 2022
Indeed as you say:- âThe fastest way to get the deficit down is growth.â It is indeed, but almost all this governments policies – expensive energy, net zero, road blocking, huge tax increases, ever more government, red tape & vast government waste are all very anti-growth.
I see that Andrew Bailey has said – âI’m not saying nobody gets a pay rise, don’t get me wrong, but I think, what I am saying, is we do need to see restraint in pay bargaining otherwise it will get out of control,” Bailey told BBC radio in an interview broadcast on Friday. Well perhaps when people are paid ÂŁ495k plus gold plated pension they might be able to afford such restraint. But people on the average ÂŁ26k trying to keep their children and parents warm and make ends meet might well not.
This the foolish man who while at the FCA failed to stop them giving us one size fits all ~ 40% APR overdrafts.
February 6, 2022
+1
Yes. The word is âfoolishâ.
The most fitting for this whole shebang.
Like âThe Foolâ of the Tarot, stepping out into the abyss, full of puffed up pride, not looking where he is going.
(Over the cliff actually!)
February 6, 2022
Stay away from tarot. Megabad.
February 6, 2022
Very often correct though!
February 6, 2022
When the poverty is Government inflicted such arrogance deserves to be met with rioting.
This is a class war.
February 6, 2022
Just listened to Chopperâs Politics on levelling up with Neil O’Brien, Minister in the Levelling Up department. It all sounds like misguided socialism and more government waste to me. It surely will not work. The shadow minister had no sensible solutions either.
At least it seems to have distracted Neil OâBrian from viciously and quite wrongheadedly wrongly attacking delightful and correct experts like Prof. Sunetra Gupta.
February 6, 2022
Mr OâBrien behaved disgracefully during the pandemic. It was the traducing of experts with an alternative point of view, such as prof Gupta, which led to the groupthink which drove the disastrous lockdown policy. Lockdown was understandable at first when we didnât know how bad covid would be, but not after we had the data. The govt could and should have involved experts such as prof Gupta, at least to challenge the erroneous shroud waving from SAGE, which at last they rightly ignored before Christmas.
Quite a good rule of thumb if you want to know whether a policy is sensible or not is see what the left are saying. When you have radical leftists baying for lockdown / statism / âwindfallâ taxes / net zero / euro federalism etc, the first reaction should be to do the opposite.
February 6, 2022
Ask Carrie & then do the opposite too it seems.
February 6, 2022
Socialism deals with equality of outcome and not of opportunity. Nobody can be said to be ‘Level’ with anyone else as we are all different. Some will always do better than others, so you can ‘never’ have equality. This is a Trojan Horse policy for more State control of our lives.
February 6, 2022
Socialism is delusional as it doesn’t really understand people and what makes them tick. Marx was a lousy psychologist too caught up in his own head.
February 7, 2022
Equality of outcomes but not for those with Zil Lane passes.
February 7, 2022
This also connected to modern feminism. We all agree women should have same opportunities as men (except for things like front-like war combat in army which could add danger to everyone). But that does NOT mean we therefore create 50% men / 50% women quotas. In Sweden, one of most egalitarian countries in world, women are CHOOSING to become nurses (far more than men) and men are CHOOSING to become engineers (far more than women). If you imposed quotas like this in Sweden (in effort to be ‘egalitarian’ in socialist sense), 50% of nurses would have to be men and 50% of engineers would have to be engineers. NUTS.
This would mean: 1) Loads of women and men would end up doing jobs they hated. 2) They wouldn’t therefore be so good or efficient and therefore the economy suffers 3) If the economy suffers, the poor suffer from worse job prospects / worse social security.
February 6, 2022
The current chairman of aThe Bank of England has too many skeletons in his cupboard.Again a very poor choice.
February 6, 2022
Anyone who thinks all personal overdrafts should be at one rip off rate regardless of the credit risk of the borrower is totally unsuitable to be a banker of any kind. In effect the FCA has banned personal overdrafts for sensible responsible borrowers. But overdraft at sensible rates can be useful, flexible and sensible rather than having to take a fixed term loan. You may only need to borrow very short term for a day a week or a month. Or you might just want a buffer in case something unexpected come through. So why are we forced to take a six month or longer loan just to get a sensible rate of perhaps 3% rather than 40%. Even 78% with one major tax payer rescued bank in daily interest âfeesâ at one point! The very same banks charge far less abroad!
February 6, 2022
+1
OMGâŠdo they actually CHOOSE them?
Iâd assumed it was like a sort of global Russian roulette!
February 6, 2022
or a form of (un)lucky dip?
February 6, 2022
+1
YesâŠor that.
Most unlucky in every case!
February 6, 2022
I’d say a perfect choice if you want someone malleable.
February 7, 2022
it goes without saying..
February 6, 2022
Ask your self who owns and controls the BoE?
February 6, 2022
Boris on Twitter:- âI believe that talent and genius is distributed equally, but opportunity is not. Thatâs why weâre levelling up education funding with more money for every pupil in the country.â
If he did some research on this he will find neither talent nor opportunity are distributed equally. Talent very often moves to where there is opportunity. Also talented or even genius parents are rather more likely (though certainly not always) to have children with similar abilities.
February 6, 2022
+1
What does he know of privilege who only privilege knows?
( apologies to RK)
February 6, 2022
+1 LL. So Boris believes in equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. How very socialist.
February 6, 2022
There is no excuse for smoking and eating sugary food in huge quantities – the perils are well known. This is what has created the greatest disparity in well being North to South.
I was in Croydon this week. Plenty of poverty there but people looked fit on the whole – they do care about their personal images. There is a great innitiative called Inside Success (against knife crime) and I urge everyone to support it.
February 6, 2022
Tory bullshit, Tory pandering to the politics of the left with their equality of outcome (an act of State directed Socialist politics) agenda and the destruction of MT’s moral and truth based MERITOCRACY.
Johnson must be tick those now all important PC boxes of diversity based on race, gender and sexuality. Neo-Marxist reconstruction of our world is underway and THE TORIES HAVE EMBRACED WITH GUSTO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE NOW ALL POWERFUL LEFT
Clap for that, clap for WEF-Davos totalitarianism, clap for the total destruction of our world
I hope Tory MPs are happy
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
Indeed, talent does go to where there is opportunity, so if opportunity can be more evenly distributed rather than, as it currently is, heavily focused in London and the South East, with all the distortions that creates, talent will naturally follow, and the current situation whereby talented youngsters leave the smaller, secondary cities and the towns to go away to university, never to return to live (only to visit) as there just aren’t the opportunities for them where they grew up, can change, and economic activity across the UK could be more balanced than it is at the moment, and other things such as house prices don’t show such crazy differentials as they do currently as well.
February 6, 2022
Indeed but people move to the bright lights in the UK (or abroad) for all sorts of reasons not just higher higher pay. Often they are no better off anyway after paying the higher rents and other costs. Frequently they return when older perhaps after having children when things like a larger flat/house, schools, low crime and the likes become more important than say night clubs and socialising.
February 7, 2022
But they don’t return, not to places like where I spent my school years. It’s something not worth considering this side of me retiring since all it would mean is constantly travelling back to the area I live in now, spending lots of my time and lots of my company’s money in doing so. I am far from unique. The work isn’t there, the transport links aren’t good enough, and the much cheaper housing is nowhere near enough of a draw to add 5-6 hours onto my working day.
February 6, 2022
To raise educational attainment just reintroduce some discipline into state schools and drop the wokery.
The cost of doing this = ÂŁ0.00
February 7, 2022
Drop and socialist & net zero propaganda in schools too.
February 6, 2022
Good morning.
Sir John, face it, you are a Conservative MP in a New Labour (Blairite) Party. You endeavour to offer good advice. Advice that goes unheeded. You question Ministers in order to expose matters failing government policy in the hope that they will see the errors of their ways and change course. All to no avail.
We have Ministers that head departments that are out of control with regards to spending. Witness the colossal waste regarding the NHS ! And it isn’t just the NHS, it is the entire government. The first duty of any government is the protection of the Realm. The second duty is the protection of the public purse. Ministers are like little chicks, all screeching to be fed with their mouths (begging bowls) open to mother Treasury. The PM and the Chancellor should be squeezing them, not us, for every penny to be saved, but how could that possibly happen when you have a man at the head of the government who cannot even manage his own finances let alone anything else ?!?!?!
I said long, long ago that the man is totally unfit for any public service, not just as and MP or PM, but ANY public service ! He is an utter rake !
February 6, 2022
Mark B says, â Sir John, face it, you are a Conservative MP in a New Labour (Blairite) Party. â
Another politician who speaks such sense, apart from a small number of Conservatives, is Richard Tice.
February 6, 2022
… but he can raise a laugh at the despatch box… ho ho ho !
Blue team can win. Yay !
February 6, 2022
Yes, the joke(s) are both figuratively and literally at OUR expense !
And I for one do not find that funny.
February 6, 2022
+1 spot on Mark. Couldnât agree more.
February 6, 2022
Your fears are mirrored by many of us who comment on your site Sir John. Are the Bank, Treasury and other Ministries working together to bring the country down? It certainly feels like it.
Are the Common Purpose trained civil servants directing operations? Such are the converging storms approaching, with energy, climate change/ zero carbon that it surely cannot all be accidental.
February 6, 2022
We are witnessing The Great Reset.
It has been planned and all Western Leaders are on board ….. which they signal by repeating the WEF mantra “Build Back Better.”
February 6, 2022
Seem so but why?
February 6, 2022
Do you really not know ?
Don’t believe ya.
February 6, 2022
LL -Re your reply to Donna. POWER over and CONTROL of the masses. The population are irrelevant.
February 6, 2022
While encouraging, indeed helping, the increase in ÂŁbillionaires, and turning a blind eye to oligarchs and mafia bosses accumulating incredible wealth. Some will even demolish bridges to ensure the rich can take their large ‘boat’ wherever they wish.
February 6, 2022
Get it right comrade its now ”Build Back Bolshevik”
February 6, 2022
The signs that inflation is here to stay awhile are to be seen in the rises in global food and energy prices, the impact of continuing supply train disruptions and the prospect of rising interest rates. Many businesses have failed already. Many more will fail. It is indeed odd that the Johnson government has adopted, and continues to pursue, policies that reinforce economic decline. The sooner it is gone and replaced by an administration that has a better grasp of what is going on in the world the better the UK’s chances will be on the bumpy ride ahead.
February 6, 2022
OldTimer
The consequences are here to stay. Inflation may stop but wages will be left behind. This is a permanent reset as Donna says.
February 6, 2022
As ever you tell us the what but never tell us why. A weak Chancellor incapable of pushing back against entrenched treasury civil servants. This constant whispering and innuendo approach of yours is failing. The public deserves senior politicians not bought off on the payroll, growing a pair and standing up and being counted.
And we now see Boris Johnson is going to get a nanny. Can it get any more pathetic.
February 6, 2022
Nig1
Itâs been suggested that Carrie Johnson has been stirring up things behind the scenes, surrounding them with her friends in positions of influence. Dear God, a nanny would free up her time – for more meddling?
February 6, 2022
Presumably a joke..Steve Barclay a political ânannyâ
February 6, 2022
+1 Nig 1. Barclay, from the failed May government!
February 6, 2022
I thought that was Wayne Rooney getting the nanny. Bit too late for Boris… who has behaved worse in his time.
February 6, 2022
and the Beckham.
February 6, 2022
So the next two years, up to an expected General Election some time in 2023-24, will see falling real incomes, tax rises, high imported energy costs and ‘green’ levies. Just what a government needs if it wants to be re-elected, not. It really doesn’t seem to make political sense. But then, do the people taking the economic decisions ever need to face the electorate? Is government policy decided by those we elected to govern us, or by Treasury ‘officials’? Just asking.
February 6, 2022
There will be tax cuts just before the next election – they put them up so they can put them down when it suits. Sunak says he is a low tax Chancellor. He should be on the stage as a stand up comedian. We won’t forget this when voting time comes around and I may well be voting Labour, not because they are any better but just to give the Tories a bloody nose, after all it doesn’t matter who you vote for anymore. They’ve been in power too long and 12 years have been wasted just keeping seats warm to no good effect other than personal enrichment for the incumbents. Democracy is dead now and voting for fringe parties is a waste of a vote under the present rigged musical chairs system. The voters are losing interest, even the seat at Southend with no opposition, produced only a derisory turnout for the Tories in a seat where the previous member was well liked.
February 6, 2022
Next election I see Labour winning closely followed by both Tory and Reform
February 6, 2022
Ps please tell Nadine Dorris that her accusation that people who want rid of Boris are disgruntled Remainers with a plot to reverse Brexit is insulting rubbish.
Actually one of the reasons I want rid of him is that he has failed on his promises to take advantage of the freedoms Brexit offers.
It would be better for all of us if she kept quiet.
February 6, 2022
There is a conspiracy theory going around that it’s remainers who want rid of Boris, so that the remainers in the party can take over. I thought that had already happened!
It’s the Brexiters who want a new PM who will actually deliver Brexit and work in the best interests of OUR country.
February 6, 2022
Nig l, +1,
Youâre quite right, there may well be many remainers who see another chance to subvert the legitimate democratic process. We know that they are many and that they have shown their colours before and our trust they do not deserve.
Nonetheless, our country has had more than enough of Johnson and his useless government which is top-heavy with inadequates.
Ridding the country of the dross at the top is urgent and essential, and whatever follows let us deal with that as it comes, and perhaps the voters will be wiser or perhaps not, but thatâs democracy.
February 6, 2022
Boris also fail to follow his own elected mandate manifesto
February 6, 2022
Which is the main freedom – forget the rest – of brexit, of which you claim Johnson has failed to take advantage?
You all keep making this accusation but will never say what it is.
I think that you have no idea actually.
February 6, 2022
Wouldn’t matter if they listed a dozen, you’d be back asking the same question in a couple of weeks.
February 6, 2022
Heâs just asking for some real ones.
February 6, 2022
NLH :
Control of our borders.
February 6, 2022
The UK had complete sovereign control of its borders as a member of the European Union..
It couldn’t refuse entry to fellow European citizens, quite reasonably, but that was all.
So where’s the big win?
February 7, 2022
presumably we CAN refuse entry now?
February 6, 2022
Being wedded to EU policies, the BoE and Treasury will always follow EU rules until we get a proper Conservative government and Chancellor.
Sunak has turned out to be an abject failure with his splash the cash policies and now we have an out of control deficit.
Another post Brexit failure by a government more interested in partying than governing.
February 6, 2022
We had such hopes of Boris, this government, and Brexit and hoped the deliberate defiance of democracy seen in the 2017-2019 rogue Parliament was at an end.
Thanks to the governments mismanagement, we have lost trust and see that this government are either totally incompetent, or are deliberately damaging the UK as a way back into the EU. Either way, they are not working in the interest of the country and should go! When will Parliament respect democracy, reflect the views of the voters and stop working on behalf of the EU. Boris is still appeasing the EU at every opportunity.
February 6, 2022
Wouldnât be deliberate and I prefer ineffective to incompetent totally hamstrung by the Civil Service who prove time and again, they are incompetent. An 80 majority with strong leadership should have enabled them to force through as promised in their manifesto but Covid blew them of course and in any event lack of support from a truly weak PM succumbing too unacceptable influences has made their job impossible.
I think we are seeing evidence that Boris picks his government through sycophancy not talent so again that doesnât help.
February 6, 2022
Covid is an excuse for inactivity. There are 30 people round that Cabinet table and they can only do one thing at a time? No, it is orchestrated, there can be no other explanation. As far as sycophancy is concerned, they all do that – repay favours for support and pick those who have no talent and cannot be a threat to the PM. Even now, when the PM is on his last legs no-one can name a suitable successor so again the country will be lumbered with another duffer, just as we have for the last 30 years of Tory leaders.
February 6, 2022
+1
Spot on !
February 6, 2022
If you have a lot of talentless underlings who regularly show how unfit they are for the top job it somewhat makes it easier to sleep at nights knowing your own job is safe.
February 6, 2022
until the next GE, then the sleeping at night becomes a nightmare.
February 6, 2022
Shirley M, +1,
I replied to Nig l with similar sentiments to what youâve expressed so well. I hadnât read your comment at the time.
February 6, 2022
We read in the press that Boris is to have a No. 10 clear out, get rid of his leftie policies, and adopt more Conservative values. I will believe it when I see it. How can a Prime Minister be so unaware of the devastating impact his net-zero and covid policies are having on ordinary people in this country? He also needs to get rid of at least half his cabinet and replace them with some of the experienced backbenchers who at least have a clue regarding how the economy should be run.
February 6, 2022
Hear, hear, Christine!
February 6, 2022
His problems will not go away so he is throwing a few sacrificial lambs under the bus, to use a double metaphor. This is what Theresa May MP did after her disastrous GE defeat when got rid of two closest advisors.
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
Anyone else suspect that the Bank of England and Treasury are deliberately trying to create the post Brexit economic conditions they predicted?
And neither Johnson nor Sunak have the nous to understand that or the ability and determination to stop them.
The Treasury and BoE are taking us back to the 197Os, when the economy was on its knees following two decades of socialism, and we were tricked into joining the EEC.
They are aiming to repeat that treachery by recreating the economic conditions that led to it.
February 6, 2022
+1 Donna. I think Boris and Rishi are willing accomplices, and the cabinet yes-men go along with it or are also willing accomplices.
February 6, 2022
Donna
I think youâve described the situation rather succinctly. Unfortunately, you could well be right!
February 6, 2022
Donna, yes I do believe this dire situation is deliberate/premeditated.
The BoE and HM Treasury created an ‘Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Taskforce’, last year (see BoE website published statement 19 April 2021). In my opinion, this preventable crisis and an UK CBDC are linked.
February 6, 2022
+1. Yes Donna, I believe you have it right! Deliberate treachery.
February 6, 2022
You could hardly say the BOE was delivering severe monetary tightening.
After all lower interest rate combined with help to buy has not helped young people buy a home,its just forced prices up.
Its time to get back to some normality.
Reply We will feel the lurch from excessive QE to excessive QT
February 6, 2022
Stephen Reay
And I said that Help to Buy would do exactly that when it was announced. What was needed was Help to Move for little old ladies stuck in family homes on their own. And a stop to mass immigration.
Screamingly obvious but the Tories gas lighted us.
February 6, 2022
They’ve known for years that older people, particularly if they are widowed, are attracted bungalows with a small garden they can potter in …. feed and watch the birds etc. It’s why they are, relatively speaking, so expensive. They want two bedrooms, so family and friends can visit.
So what do the geniuses in Government and the Housing Industry do? Build one-bedroom flats. Stairs, which become harder as you get older and may eventually trap you indoors; no neighbour to chat to over the garden fence; no garden to potter in and no birds to feed. And no room for a visitor.
It’s no wonder people won’t move out of their large family home; the properties which might tempt them simply aren’t there.
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
Donna,
Very true.
But there wouldn’t be such a housing problem if our rulers curbed immigration as they keep promising each time a GE comes round.
February 6, 2022
Well it’s this governments fault.
February 6, 2022
What has also forced the prices up is demand and speculators, both foreign and domestic.
February 6, 2022
It would appear that either the Treasury has a death wish on the country; or itâs utterly inept!
I would prefer inept, but either way, they must go too!
February 6, 2022
The same can be said about all the departments of government and their cabinet ministers
February 6, 2022
The truth is evident but you need to pay experts for the conclusions you want.
February 6, 2022
Not ‘experts’ but ‘friends’
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
Fundamentally the current Conservative manifesto is to implement Labour Party policies on high tax, lockdown, immigration and zero carbon emissions and then say don’t vote for the Labour Party because things could be worse.
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
They might be saying ‘we do high tax, lockdown, immigration and zero carbon emissions better than the Labour party. And we look after chums more than they do’.
February 6, 2022
Javelin :
Although the Conservatives are unfortunately implementing current Labour/Lib Dem/Green/SNP policies, putting any of these alternatives in power will make matters even worse.
For instance, regarding taxation, they will start taxing wealth/savings.
The Greens would push Net Zero even quicker.
The only hope would be that after the inevitable “winter of discontent”, the Conservative Party would rid itself of Remainers and false Conservatives (as no longer the Party in power) and a following GE brings in a true Conservative PM.
But itâs a highly dangerous strategy as the education establishment, the majority of the MSM, the civil service and quangos are all working towards a Marxist future run by the Labour/Lib Dem/Green/SNP.
February 6, 2022
Letâs face itâŠ
The govt. could not have tried harder to bring us to this parlous state.
Itâs been like watching a slow car crashâŠâŠ
Of whitewashed-soaked clowns at the circus.
And we all know that clowns are really quite sinister.
February 6, 2022
Correct – and the whole country can see it happening apart from the bubble of No10
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
except the clowns in Downing St. appear quite normal.
February 6, 2022
+1
February 6, 2022
The best way the government can help this country to a better future is to make a serious attempt to claw back the ÂŁ4.7 billion lost in furlough fraud (and why has Sunak denied the City of London police Fraud Squad access to the data?), the ÂŁ9billion written off by the Dept of Health in unusable or overpriced PPE and some of the ÂŁ37 billion blown on Hancock and Harding’s useless Test and Trace.
Increasing taxes and NI on the country and cutting defence spending is a very bad way to get this money back. Let alone making it impossible for the working poor, the single mothers and the pensioners to keep warm this winter
Talk about Labour and “tax and spend” policies after 12 years of this sort of profligacy with taxpayers money makes me laugh.
February 6, 2022
SK, yes Sunak and his entire department need to concentrate on clawing back the ÂŁ4.7 billion in furlough fraud. Where did you learn that the City of London police fraud squad were denied access to the data?
The PPE – we had an entire media operation telling the government people were dying without enough PPE, we were repeatedly day after day subject to pictures of people in bin bags, France and Germany stopped our orders of PPE in the early days when cv19 was raging and orders had to go out quickly to buy at the top of the market. The NHS Seniors, the care homes all crying out for more for weeks what was the government expected to do but order and order fast at the best price they could get at the time, businesses also had this problem buying in PPE to continue to work, the prices of hand gel, masks, gloves, rocketed up we all had a spike in costs to buy the stock and have leftover stock.
February 6, 2022
And the Chinese had bought up all the PPE on the world market in January. The Americans couldn’t get it, the Germans couldn’t get it (German doctors had to supply themselves all through the first wave), even the Turks who made it couldn’t get it. No-one could get it. Left wing militants who complained a fraction of what the RAF flew in was out of date or substandard should jolly well have used it. It wasn’t food or drugs. And guess who we all had to buy it from?
February 6, 2022
People who complained about the quality of what was imported are only âleft wing militantsâ in your little shrivelled world. My sisters-in-law and niece, all nurses who had at different stages to work in ICUs are not trade-unionists nor participated in any Friday dancing routine. They did not receive what in pandemic conditions was supposed to be proper PPE before the end of May 2020.
It is a shame of having people like you calling people who worked hard in difficult conditions âleft wing militantsâ simply because you do not have a clue and are (likely to be) part of the favoured lot.
And if such PPE had to be originally bought from China why donât you put the blame on the various Health Secretaries since the 1990s and more particularly on those from 2010 who let the stocks of PPE dwindle with replacing them. After all when the need emerged, despite the scandal of contracts being given without proper tendering process, the âcountryâ was able to provide PPE after a three-to-six months delay. So it could have been done with competent HSs under proper supervision of MPs.
Obviously that would have supposed both HSs and MPs not having as their sole objective âreducing expensesâ in what is a domain essentially under State responsibility.
February 6, 2022
without replacing them
February 6, 2022
I’d guess that a fair bit of the furlough fraud went to foreign nationals who have legged it back to where they came from rather than face any payback. Otherwise the government must know where they sent the money to, so chasing it down should be easy for the police. Give them a percentage for any money recovered and they might take an interest.
February 6, 2022
Good idea to let the Police track it in theory, after all I believe they get a percentage of road/traffic offence fines.
Problem is the Police seem to ignore many crimes where a lot of investigative work is required, like House burglaries, and they appear to treat in many cases financial scamming as a civil offence.
February 6, 2022
I agree graham, just hand the debt over to a debt recovery company and let them keep 50% of what they collect better than 0 and people getting away with it. Attach orders on people that if they ever return to the UK this debt becomes immediately repayable, there must be some international agreement on bad debt too. Iâm sure if a British national owed France money theyâd get found and have to pay back.
February 6, 2022
Apparently much of it was done from only four London offices.
Also PPE. Friends of friends suddenly became multi millionaires during lockdown.
February 6, 2022
S K
Exactly. Stop all the waste, claw back the billions highlighted on your post, start adding up and stopping all those nice to do projects and trying to be all things to everybody. Then you will see the first small shoots of VFM spending which ultimately benefits aall.Above all stop the talking and start the doing.
February 6, 2022
You have mirrored my thoughts, Sakara Gold. What, one asks, is being done to claw back these missing billions ?
February 6, 2022
Iâm afraid the Treasury have been communists since the 1960âs or before. Then they were always reffered to as the âReds under the bedâ and hindsight shows they were clearly responsible for the economic mess we found ourselves in and the drive to join the EEC. Why wonât aConservative Chancellor do anything about it? They are preventing many of the gains possible grom Brexit. I new one of my fatherâs acquaintances back in the sixties and he was an obnoxious character. Unless they are stopped we will end up communist.
February 6, 2022
You might as well have claimed that we would all end up Jehovah’s Witnesses.
What a silly post that it.
February 6, 2022
Jehovahâs Witnesses ‘sell ‘ Good News. When has the Treasury done that?
February 6, 2022
Those that benefit from BIG STATE are usually those that work for BIG STATE. Bigger departments mean bigger salaries etc. It happens in the Private Sector but, there is a thing called the Market and the Market can force private companies, especially listed ones, to make the necessary changes to remain competitive. If they fail, you go bust and all lose ! Simple as. That cannot happen say, to the holy sacred cow that is the heavily unionised and politicised NHS. Hence no change and just more money thrown into the pit.
February 6, 2022
Off-topic but I’m annoyed to see a knee-taker given a highly-paid government job. It shows that Johnson has no intention of changing his policies – just the packaging. I’ll be spoiling my ballot-paper in May.
February 6, 2022
I’m afraid spoiling your ballot paper won’t be noticed, Sea Warrior. Voting Reform will be.
UKIP tells you it’s the only language the Tories understand and respond to.
February 6, 2022
From what I see and hear of this government’s financial policy and other intentions, post Brexit , the BoE could well be over optimistic.
The jury is out on current changes at number 10. Will it be a total redirection or just more rhetoric.
February 6, 2022
Steve Barclays appointment and itâs spinning demonstrates the level of panic in No 10. I am expecting lots of âpuffsâ in the coming weeks to show change is happening but like their claims of Brexit achievements or Goveâs levelling up policies, they will be superficial.
February 6, 2022
Nig
I have the feeling that Steve Barclay has been put in position for short term window dressing, would not be surprised if he resigns in 6 months time because no notice is being taken of him, and policies have not changed
February 6, 2022
Barclay certainly looks normal.
Do I look like one ?
February 6, 2022
Hasn’t the bank learned any lessons from its past history of getting things wrong?
An honest approach would be to identify mistakes made and correct them – what they seem to be having trouble with is their own bias.
Isn’t it time that Parliament jumped on the bank for making such inaccurate predictions – shouldn’t we be seeing a head or two roll, for the inept management techniques and obvious flaws in their system?
Even an independent BoE should face censor, and God knows there are enough parliamentary committees – One of them must have the power to do something about this situation, which has been going on for too long!
February 6, 2022
There is apparently noone at all in the Government, even Rees-Mogg, or in the higher reaches of the Conservative party (with one obvious exception), who is prepared to admit to the rightness of your view and force the Treasury to change its approach. If Starmer is the price of getting rid of the current Conservative leadership, it is beginning to seem worth the price. Then perhaps there will be a chance for someone as yet unknown to step up to the table. After all, much of what you say is exactly the message that got many of the ‘Red Wall’ members elected.
February 6, 2022
When the Tory Party realises that they can no longer rely on people just turning up and voting for what they perceive as the least worst or, and yes I am looking at you LL, to keep Labour and the SNP out they will move heaven and earth. But until then, it is Blairite / New Labour all the way.
February 6, 2022
It looks like we are in a ship in a storm, the captain has lost his compass, cannot see land, so we steer one way for a while, then another, but he ends up just going around and around in circles, hoping eventually to find his correct bearings, in the meantime it has been reported that the electric lifeboats do not work because the batteries are leaking.
The captain has tried various members of the crew to try and help him out but so far without any luck, even the bar tender has failed, so the rest of the crew and passengers are all getting sick whilst they wait and hope for someone with some proper knowledge to come and help save them.
February 6, 2022
Meanwhile the Captain Calamity has just given the order to steam full ahead for the little white island in the distance đ
I mean, what could possibly go this time ?
/sarc
February 6, 2022
We have seen a possible glimmer of hope from Downing Street where it seems that some changes to the Green Crap agenda, utility bills and maybe even the NI increase may be under consideration.
If this is to be believed, one wonders who was setting policy in Downing Street ?
While lack of top-down discipline in Whitehall has been responsible for partygate and ultimately responsibility for that rests with the PM, it is understandable that over and above the usual high pressure atmosphere at the heart of government, the pandemic and other events have been very distracting.
I have not thought that this should be a resigning matter, calls for a change of PM have largely come from remainers determined to settle old scores.
However, Boris simply has to call a halt to the ludicrously expensive Net Zero plan and properly secure our energy supplies for the future. The only way to bring energy bills back under control and secure our strategic supplies is by expanding North Sea oil and gas production and extending the life of our existing coal and nuclear plants until new SMRs and other Nuclear plants come on stream. This is an option not available to Europe, who are largely at the mercy of Putin. A very dangerous situation for them to be in.
February 6, 2022
Chris, you say you wonder who was setting policy in Downing Street.
I thought we knew.
She needs to be quarantined.
February 6, 2022
Chris S : “If this is to be believed, one wonders who was setting policy in Downing Street ?”
Forget Downing Street, the PM and his cabinet and our elected Parliamentarians.
They’re not in control, it’s the civil ervice who are.
February 6, 2022
Where is the growth the country needs going to come from? Wouldn’t it be good if imports were replaced by British goods, yet the government is doing what it can to stifle it, piling more taxes onto an already over-taxed industrial base. Together with excessive housing costs, what hope for British industry?
How about spreading those taxes around to actually include multi-nationals, who currently can squirrel away their UK profits into tax havens? Maybe we could all have a tax cut then.
To cut the deficit the government needs a good dose of financial Imodium.
February 6, 2022
Governments are surely used to organisedlobbyists, although this one has certainly caved in to the green lobby more than is reasonable. But now Boris finds himself under attack by his own supporters, because clearly he has the engines on full speed and is steering hard into the rocks.
The government talks about the energy crisis, but does nothing about it, apart from some deckchair rearranging. And clearly has little understanding of markets and business. And still policy is left in the hands of outsider “experts” with a very narrow reference. And very expensive experts at that!
Partygate might keep the bubble amused, but it won’t be this that brings the conservatives down.
February 6, 2022
“I think now the savage attack on the economy by the Treasury with its big tax rises and the Bank with its severe monetary tightening will indeed deliver little growth, rising unemployment and less buoyant tax revenues in the next two years.”
Sounds somewhat like govt policy from the early 1980s, although back then most of the tax hikes were via indirect taxation, or the removal of price subsidies.
“They needed to curb the inflation they had created.”
The BoE does not directly cause inflation, only excesses by businesses and consumers do, hence why pay and prices were central to both the Callaghan and Thatcher govts. Hence why the BoE governor also asked for pay restraint last Thursday.
The rise in NI is a necessary evil, understood and accepted by the vast majority, caused by decades of failed health & social polices from central govt.
February 6, 2022
80% of NHS costs are paid for from general taxation, not the NIC fund.
February 6, 2022
@SM; Tax is tax, your point being what exactly, unless you want to argue the TVL fee is not a tax either!
February 6, 2022
Are you actually claiming an increase in money supply via QE or straightforward money creation has no inflationary effect Jerry?
And what is your data to back up your assertion that the vast majority accept the increase in NI?
February 6, 2022
Being anti lockdown in March 2020 was not particularly easy. I did predict the economic hit, the damage to health and the harm to education among other things never mind the appalling legislation that turned this country into a police state. I did also predict that the casualties (I came within a whisker of joining them) would never, never justify the extreme government reaction.
What I did not foresee was the extraordinary lengths that formally Western democratic countries would go to in turning their own countries to Marxist states under the apparent direction of ‘scientists’and powerful people and organisations, backed up almost universally by media giants.
Now the vast sums of money, printed and borrowed are have a further ruinous affect on the economy but instead of doing anything to alleviate the problems and assisting growth, the BoE and Treasury does the opposite. Why? What they are doing is at odds with the interests of the country!
February 6, 2022
@BOF; Your diatribe could haven been written in the late 1940s with regards the social and economic effects of WW2 upon the UK. Your point was what exactly?
February 6, 2022
Jacinda Ardern has locked out 1 million of her own citizens for what is running into THREE YEARS now.
February 6, 2022
NZ population 5.122 m, Covid cases 17,773, Covid deaths 53 (as of 05/02/2022).
A NZ equivalent for the UK would be 235,254 cases and 704 deaths.
In reality 17,803 m cases and 158,318 deaths.
J.Ardernâs poll on 27/01/2022 was at 52% approved, 37% disapproved, 11% no answer.
For the level of support in case of a future election J.Ardern is at 35%, C.Luxonâs at 17% for the National Party, both number with a 3.1% sampling error (30/01/2022).
In the recent weeks, the number of Covid cases (both Delta and Omicron) went up when NZ reopened to flights coming from Australia, UK, Singapore, Lebanon, Egypt, India, UAE and Ireland, with for example 26 cases on 05/02/2022 on such flights.
So talking of three years lockdown is somewhat âcuriousâ.
(P2, I know that NZ is different from the UK. Thanks).
February 7, 2022
Then why do a long post that attempts that comparison?
February 8, 2022
Because 1/ it was showing that properly done a lockdown can work,
2/ the comment about a NZ âthree year lockdownâ is simply not true.
and 3/ just to titillate some people âŠ
February 6, 2022
Maybe our kind host should stand up Parliament and call for the total reformation and the dismantling of the sinister, politically driven, unionised, Labour’s GRIFTER client state whose rapacious financial, cultural, socio-economic parasitism is now well embedded financed by the enslaved and abused private sector
Tory MPs are now en masse silent about what we are seeing and actively choose to imprisonment by the PC, Woke State. Such a stance has laid the seeds of destruction deep within that will blossom and bloom for the left over the next 30-40 years
A Tory party outplayed, out-thought and sidestepped and the civilian population must pick up the cost
When laws passed by John and his colleagues come into being very soon will we go to prison for having the damned temerity to discuss online immigration, racial issues, gender issues..you know, all these Neo-Marxist obsessions that now infect and surround our daily lives?
4m WW2 dead, freedoms removed and for what? They must as well not have bothered
Mark Steyn’s GB slot has the Tory party in his sights..he knows what they’ve become
February 6, 2022
They’ve become something pretty much like ukip said that they would be in office.
February 6, 2022
UK dead in WWII were 451,000, not 4m.
February 6, 2022
He didn’t say UK dead. The Russians lost many more than that. Why don’t you read properly before you go off on your rubbish. Cut the quantity and improve the quality of posts.
February 6, 2022
Various estimates put Jewish dead at 6m.
February 7, 2022
He said exactly that in an earlier comment. He is incorrect.
Yes, the Russians lost perhaps upwards of twenty million.
February 6, 2022
DOM- The procedures in the HoC (650MPs) and HoL (771 members) are too polite, members being referred to as my learned friend, the right honourable gentleman,
my lord etc. So much piffle and waffle. There needs to be more aggression and someone needs to stick the boot in and call them out for what they are.
Thankfully they will not be around for too much longer.
February 6, 2022
I repeat: This is the worst government and parliament in my lifetime.
February 6, 2022
+1 Brian ….. and so unexpected. Anyone would think we voted for a combination of Labour/Greens/Liberals.
February 6, 2022
What do you expect given the materials to work from.
The people most suited to running this country are running successful businesses, and aren’t prepared to abandon them and their employees to run for parliament.
February 6, 2022
@Brian Tomkinson; “This is the worst government and parliament in my lifetime.”
Well it isn’t the worse in my lifetime by a long shot, but then I am well past my forties, never mind my twenties!… đ
February 6, 2022
Peter Hitchens has said that Starmer would be worse than Boris today.
Just have a look at all the comments that follow on his blog !
Voting just to keep Labour out was what we did last time. Never ever again.
February 7, 2022
I sometimes agree with PH – notably on policing – but this is one of his flakier observations, of which he makes plenty.
Which is a pity.
February 6, 2022
We’re told not to aim for a decent pay rise to offset the deliberate ramping up of the cost of living …… meanwhile, the Government spends ÂŁ5million EVERY SINGLE DAY on hotels for illegal migrants it refuses to deport …… and knows full well that that bill will quadruple if the 45,000 chancers Migration Watch predict will come this year are not prevented.
And they are doing NOTHING to prevent it.
The CON Party appears to have a death-wish.
February 6, 2022
I very much doubt the members in the constituencies do !
February 6, 2022
They’ll run out of hotels shortly. What happens then? They’ll probably kick legal citizens out of their homes to house the immigrants, as happened in Germany.
February 6, 2022
It would be so much cheaper for the Government to Compulsory purchase ‘tired’ hotels – at a good price, so that ex-owners could start again in better locations.
February 6, 2022
Legal citizens were not kicked out of their homes in 2017: the six properties requisitioned in Hamburg had been vacant since 2012, without tenants at the time and were renovated by the city.
A similar scheme was tried in Berlin but was deemed unconstitutional.
Hamburg could do it because it had a House Protection Act allowing the city to seize property units vacant for more than four months. (gatestoneinstitute.org, 14/05/2017)
February 7, 2022
This country has EDMOs – empty dwelling management orders – which in principle permit similar actions in extreme cases.
However the Tories have now rendered the law utterly toothless, so they can almost never be served now.
And we have lots of empty residential property as simply speculative assets as a result.
February 6, 2022
Donna
It does not need a death wish.
It has died after years of hanging on, a long slow affair, so slow we all missed it. That might explain why they are not slept walking into every crisis as they have become the walking dead, totally no fear and understanding of failure and its full impact on the living trying and struggling to live and survive.
February 6, 2022
Donna :
It will be the double of 45,000.
A death-wish for the UK.
February 6, 2022
For ONCE, letâs forget the obsession with âgrowthâ as the panacea for all the economyâs ills.
How about thinking about how to get the deficit down without growth. This, of course, would involve beginning to match government expenditure with government income. A radical idea, I know, but, surely it has to happen sooner or later.
It strikes me that the bigger the state sector becomes, the harder it is to prune. But it must be pruned. We seem to have got ourselves into the bizarre situation that the state takes more and more of our money and delivers less for it. The latest case in point is that it now costs ÂŁ100 to have a 10 minute chat with a planning officer. Clearly the ÂŁ2500 every year for council tax doesnât cover this.
Everything is now on-line. Just try to talk to someone from HMRC or the pensions lot or, in fact, any government department. They donât even answer their phones anymore.
February 6, 2022
Off topic, I’m sick of this deceitful tripe which was kicked off by the untrustworthy Michael Gove:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/micheal-martin-northern-ireland-dup-first-minister-european-b981019.html
“Benefits of protocol to Northern Ireland not being recognised, Martin says”
“The Irish premier noted that unionist leaders have not called for an end to access to the EUâs single market, which is facilitated by the protocol.”
Yes, access to and from the EU market is “facilitated” by the protocol, no more than that, and probably the marginal benefits of that are felt by exporters across the EU who are selling their stuff into Northern Ireland rather more than by the small minority of exporters in Northern Ireland selling into the EU, while a barrier has been erected against companies in Great Britain who want to export to Northern Ireland, at a cost which may be around 2.6% of the GDP of the province:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/economist-whose-says-northern-ireland-protocol-costs-ps900m-a-year-defends-figures-after-being-cited-by-dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-3556230
âThey are quite clear, using an economic forecasting model, that over the long run even allowing for the beneficial effects of the Protocol on NI-RoI and NI-EU trading, there will be an overall cost amounting to about 2.6% of NIâs GDP of which 2.1% is the result of the higher costs on moving goods from GB to NI.”
February 6, 2022
On the same theme, here is a letter I have just sent to our local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser:
“At the end of his most recent letter James Aidan wonders whether I would think it acceptable to establish a border on the island of Ireland.
I have news for him – there already is a border on the island of Ireland, the same international land border that has existed for a century.
Not only is it the border which is still used for tax and excise purposes, it is the border which Irish customs use when measuring the trade flows between the two jurisdictions, the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, now revealing how trade has been distorted by the Irish protocol.
Where Mr Aidan has gone wrong is in believing the myth propagated by the Irish government that there is no border, and moreover none must be allowed to “re-emerge”; a myth which both Theresa May and Boris Johnson have failed to challenge, for their own differing reasons.
There is no telling how this is going to end, now that unionists in Northern Ireland are coming to realise that the current so-called “Conservative and Unionist” in Downing Street cares little about them, or the Belfast Agreement and peace in their province, or the wider union.”
February 6, 2022
Dear Sir John,
Inflation is easier to start than to stop. as you well know. Unless it shut down fast, positive feedback will entrench the price spiral, as in the 70s and late 80s. The later the action, the greater the pain. You rightly want the Treasury to hold its fire because, as you found out in 1981, combining tax rises with a monetary squeeze maximises pain to ordinary people. But why do you think that Bank Rate of 0.5 percent, implying a real money interest rate of minus 5.5 – 6.5 per cent, is excessive? It is actually pro-inflationary.
By contrast, a rise in Bank Rate sufficient to boost sterling by 5-10 per cent would help household budgets because a lot of the cost of living squeeze is coming from higher prices of dollar-denominated commodities. There should even be plenty of room for most mortgage payers to extend their repayment period rsther than pay more per month immediately.
February 6, 2022
Sir JR
Interesting perspective on economics and inflation
However the EU does not have worse inflation than us. In December the latest figures were 5.4 for the UK and 5.3 for the EU.
Let us stick to the correct facts
Reply. yes I was using Nov U.K. figure of 5.1 but it has now gone up to 5.4
February 6, 2022
GĂ©rard lyons wrote in the guardian all about inflation and why the BOE left it to late to raise interest rates. He explains low interest rates haven’t been that good for us causing much inequalities. The rich get richer from shares when rates are lower especially artificially low. He is an economist who knows his onions. Google him.
And finally like I’ve said before if low interest rates and QE have been good for us why is the world is still in this mess then after 11 years.Sir John give us the evidence please.
February 6, 2022
Irrespective of the comments and replies on this blog to which I also contribute, if the USA falls then we are all finished. Let that sink in. However I am confident that the truth will prevail and Nothing can stop what is coming, NOTHING.
February 7, 2022
Strongly agree, Sir John.
Time to shift Mr Sunak to another post.