Offset the economic damage

Sanctions  come with a cost to those  imposing them as well as to those suffering them. The West’s sanctions on Russia will slow world trade, help keep energy prices high and add to the loss of real incomes . There will be a bit more  inflation  and a bit less growth as a result.

 

Central Banks have to grapple with emerging stagflation. It means they should not be too hawkish on curbing inflation  when falling real incomes will start to do their work for them.

In the U.K. after a policy which was too inflationary  there rests the danger of flipping to too tough a policy with too sharp a slowdown. The Bank is determined to over correct for its error of continuing to create too much new money last year. The negative impact of the war and sanctions reinforces the case to abandon the tax rises and cut VAT before they hit in April.

119 Comments

  1. Julian Flood
    March 1, 2022

    Sir John,
    Just after the Brexit vote I met the woman who triggered the birth of the Brexit Party with one letter. In one of those wide-ranging conversations one has late at night in the conference hotel carpark we ended up discussing the huge UK debt and solemnly agreed that the powers that be would either let inflation rip or stage a war.
    Neither of us expected both.

    JF

    1. Sea_Warrior
      March 1, 2022

      Are you suggesting that the UK government is staging a war?

      1. Hat man
        March 1, 2022

        I suspect this hybrid war may be different from what you probably trained for, Sea Warrior.

      2. Zorro
        March 1, 2022

        Perhaps helping to provoke and fuel one


        Zorro

  2. Mark B
    March 1, 2022

    Good morning.

    The West’s sanctions on Russia will slow world trade, help keep energy prices high . . .

    Oh how terribly inconvenient. It’s all the Russian’s fault.
    /sarc

    This is the narrative that I am beginning to now heat elsewhere. High taxes, high costs, high inflation is the consequence ‘we’ must suffer to fight tyranny. All from the same kind of people who brought you the SCAMdemic and lockdowns. Lockdowns that were not needed and created an even bigger mess than that created by the banks over a decade ago.

    Funny that

    1. Hope
      March 1, 2022

      +10

      JR and his party happy to create a narrative that an inanimate object created the mess instead of stupid policy choices by Johnson. Even the big spend big state socialist budget 11 days before he locked down the country!!

      12 long years of economic incompetence. Now using Ukraine as a way to justify further mass immigration!! Cameron wanted to March to the Urals, he must have knew it would upset Russia and Putin!

    2. agricola
      March 1, 2022

      Yes Mark, these are the symptoms of Long EU Think. If you can think and remember back long enough you will recall that the USA got very rich on the back of WW2.

      Brexit held out opportunities, government think will see them dropping like rotten fruit to nobodies benefit. Keep asking awkward questions.

    3. Zorro
      March 1, 2022

      Also the Colonel Blimps huffing and puffing so that their defence company shares will rise


      Zorro

  3. Ian Wragg
    March 1, 2022

    The negative impact of the war should be turned positive by starting fracking and drilling in the North Sea.
    Fracking licenses can be issued on the understanding that domestic demand be satisfied before exporting.
    It’s not difficult.

    1. Gary C
      March 1, 2022

      Agreed.

    2. Enough Already
      March 1, 2022

      No way clown King BoJo and Princess Nut Nut will allow that.

    3. glen cullen
      March 1, 2022

      +1

    4. agricola
      March 1, 2022

      Agreed Ian, but when wondering why our assets have to be bought at world prices we should try to unravell the money chain.

  4. Sea_Warrior
    March 1, 2022

    Interesting to see the German government appreciating that the situation has changed and abandoning its ‘spend as little of Defence as we can get away with’ policy. Would Merkel have done this? And will Boris be as bright – and realise that energy security is more important than the futile effort of fighting ‘climate change’.
    If BP suffers from being pressured to divest its Russian investments then the government should reimburse it in full.

    1. Peter Wood
      March 1, 2022

      Germany can now spend large and fully re-arm … HURRAY!

      ….. wait a minute, er, do we really want them to do that. TWICE bitten…. hmmm

    2. hefner
      March 1, 2022

      S_W, about BP: why that? BP is not a nationalised company, its share holders should be adult enough to either have taken decisions in due time or accept the consequences of what geopolitics bring, don’t you think?

      1. Hope
        March 1, 2022

        Hef,

        You are not that naive to think big business and govt do not act in concert. Who issues oil and gas licences? Big pharma, big tech all independent of govt.

    3. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 1, 2022

      You mean that we the taxpayer should reimburse in full.

      Why?

  5. Everhopeful
    March 1, 2022

    The first para could really read “will help the Great Reset/Agenda 20/30 no end!”
    You know
that old conspiracy theory we were proscribed from exploring
.

    1. Sharon
      March 1, 2022

      Ever

      Once I saw the FTSE drop and a few other things, I wondered if I being paranoid in thinking this could be a staged next step in the ambitions of the WEF etc. Seems I wasn’t alone in thinking that.

      1. Everhopeful
        March 1, 2022

        +1
        Yes. I believe that in some circles this was expected/predicted!

    2. SecretPeople
      March 1, 2022

      I didn’t see any of the newspapers covering the global pandemic preparedness treaty that will be signed imminently that could signal the end to our rights and freedoms. I expect (not having read any coverage that explores this issue) that the 4 measures Boris announced would not be lifted yet will be enshrined in that treaty.

      “And Mr Speaker, the government will also expire all temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act.

      Of the original 40, 20 have already expired, 16 will expire on 24 March, *and the last 4 relating to innovations in public service will expire six months later, after we have made those improvements permanent via other means*.”

  6. DOM
    March 1, 2022

    Central banks will act politically as they have been doing since they decided that Socialism is now the new religion in western political circles. Rates will remain benign to allow political governments to abuse the public purse using cheap debt.

    Tory leaders abuse the public purse to ease the strain on the immoral, unprincipled party they lead and parasitic Labour extract ever greater levels of public sector funding from weak Tory leaders. Either way, inflation is embedded simply as a result of weak Tory leaders and parasitic Socialists

    1. Hope
      March 1, 2022

      +1
      Dom, I am afraid though you give too much emphasis to Labour. They have not been in power for 12 years. It is socialist policy a choices of socialist Tory party to copy Labour’s policies. The fake Tories delight in out doing them and herald it in parliament most weeks. They love saying how much they spend on the NHS without knowing how the money will be spent or what efficiencies could be made. Just throw hundreds of billions at the senior staff.

      The NHS failed our nation over the alleged pandemic- fact. The senior managers did not prepare, execute a proper plan and did not serve those non covid serious illnesses and many will die through long waiting lists despite wasteful historic blind spending of taxpayers money.

      1. Mark B
        March 2, 2022

        Agreed. The Tories are undergoing a bit of shameless rebranding at the UK Taxpayers expense.

        Theresa May MP’s speech in which she labelled her own party as, <'the nasty party' has had an effect.

    2. MWB
      March 1, 2022

      Dom, all very true and well put.

    3. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 1, 2022

      Parasitic socialists?

      This is what Winston Churchill said in 1909 about the rentier class:

      “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains — all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is affected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of these improvements does the land monopolist contribute, and yet, by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived. … The unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.”

      1. Peter2
        March 1, 2022

        Presumably NHL its OK for you to rent a car or a holiday caravan or rent anything else other than a home.

        Many people rent a property for a short time and do not want to buy a home.
        Would you make them buy?

        I also will presume you have no problems with a Local Authority or a housing association renting out homes?
        PS
        Your quote misses the taxes the landlord pays to the state and local authorites.

        1. Peter2
          March 1, 2022

          The bit you missed out in Churchill’s long speech NHL:-

          I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land
          is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he
          finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common
          usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the
          man who is bad; it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is
          blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do;
          it is the State which would be blameworthy if it were not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice.
          We do not want to punish the landlord.
          We want to alter the law.

          Since 1909 NHL, the law has been altered many times to balance power between the tenant and the landlord.

          1. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 2, 2022

            Oh, so you can sometimes be bothered to search, then

          2. Peter2
            March 3, 2022

            Unlike you it seems
            Good try on the partial Churchill quote.

      2. Peter Parsons
        March 1, 2022

        Hence the argument for using Land Value Tax to replace many other forms of taxation in the UK such as Council Tax.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 1, 2022

          Absolutely.

          1. Peter2
            March 1, 2022

            It’s always ever more tax
            Peter and NHL

          2. hefner
            March 2, 2022

            P2, I am afraid you did not read PP’s comment properly. He was talking of ‘replacing other forms of taxation in the UK such as Council Tax’ by a Land Value Tax.
            Even the Institute of Economic Affairs has pushed for such a LVT (iea.org.uk, ‘The case for a Land-Value Tax’, 04/09/2012).

            Moreover, that might help decrease the number of pages in the Tax Code (about 17k pages right now). Would your default position be to oppose anything that the ‘Office for Tax Simplification’ could be proposing?
            Or is it that your default reaction is to oppose PP and NLH whatever comment they might write? If it is such an epidermic reaction do you really think it is conducive to an intelligent debate?

          3. Nottingham Lad Himself
            March 2, 2022

            No, fewer and different ones as PP said.

            You never bother to read the original do you?

          4. Peter2
            March 2, 2022

            Land value taxes would be the same as Council tax or even higher.
            The same or higher revenues would be needed, or are you and Peter claiming revenues would fall?

            You dont read what other people write do you.

            Or you post partial quotes out of context like your Churchill quote.

          5. Peter2
            March 3, 2022

            You three often complain about private landlords and the level of rents charged.
            Remember that the tax they have to pay is part of the calculation added to the rent they need to charge.

          6. hefner
            March 3, 2022

            And your point is, P2?
            The IEA does not really agree with you, P2. A LVT being linked to the amount of land available for various activities would certainly be higher for some landlords (whether residential, commercial or industrial) but would also be lower for many small and medium householders (the majority of people in this country).
            Even if the overall amount of taxes were to be kept exactly the same, the distribution of it would likely be quite different from the present distribution of Council Tax/SDLT.

          7. Peter2
            March 3, 2022

            My point is that the original post was about NHL’s continually expressed hatred of private landlords.
            Irrational in my opinion.
            He never answered my question…is it renting in general he dislikes?
            And is it still OK for local councils and housing associations to rent out property to people.

            Or should people only be allowed to buy.

            The secondary argument about Land Value Tax versus the current taxes on landlords is a side issue to this particular debate.

  7. Everhopeful
    March 1, 2022

    Was it really necessary for us to get involved in the Ukraine situation? Was it necessary for Putin ( also an ex pupil of the globalist school) to escalate matters? Putin has asserted his authority in his territory before without our undemocratic and equally warlike leaders reaching for their smelling salts.
    I just hope they don’t stop me watching Messi, Gerda, Sasha and Masha on YouTube. I have but few pleasures and consolations and our govt. has ruined everything else for me
.😱

    1. Roy Grainger
      March 1, 2022

      Ukraine isn’t “his” territory though.

      1. John Hatfield
        March 1, 2022

        Even less so now he has bombed to hell.

      2. Everhopeful
        March 1, 2022

        Putin obviously regards it as still being within his sphere of influence!

        1. Everhopeful
          March 1, 2022

          April 2008 at a NATO summit in Bucharest.
          “Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!”

    2. Hope
      March 1, 2022

      E,
      Putin wanted to engage for years over his security fears. Gorbotrov and Putin asked to join NATO. Russia was assured there would not be expansion across former USSR states. Ukraine was meant to remain neutral as buffer between west and east. How many times does he get poked before he responds so the west takes him seriously?

      Why did Kennedy get pissy over Cuba!

      This is a failure of UK and the west foreign policy. The west could have accommodated and allayed his fears rather than trying to incrementally crush Russia.

    3. Denis Cooper
      March 1, 2022

      The Ukraine situation has been going on for a long time, and far from helping to stabilise the region the EU has done the opposite. For example almost exactly eight years I posted this comment here:

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/03/03/the-eu-does-not-prevent-war-in-europe-lets-make-sure-it-does-not-lead-to-an-eu-army/#comments

      “The pattern so far has been that first NATO agrees to provide military defence to a new territory, and then when it has been secured against external attack the EU can move in to provide the civil administration.

      It could be said that the US has been using both NATO and the EU to further its global interests. It could equally be said that the EU has been using the US to do what it very much wants to do for itself but cannot yet do, which is to make sure that there is sufficient military muscle, including nuclear muscle, available to ensure the defence of its new acquisitions against external attack.

      The crucial point here is that if there is any significant potential military threat to a territory that the EU is eying up for absorption into its “non-imperial empire”, as Barroso famously described it:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557143/Barroso-hails-the-European-empire.html

      then that territory has to be brought into NATO before it can be brought into the EU; but some in the EU have been jumping the gun with Ukraine as they tried to do with Georgia, by trying to get those territories into the EU and under its civil government without first securing it through the NATO military alliance.

      This is from 2008:

      http://euobserver.com/foreign/26638

      “EU should save Ukraine from Russia, NGO says”

      while this is from just a month ago:

      http://euobserver.com/foreign/122972

      “EU commissioner calls for Ukraine accession promise”

      Just for the record, this is how that pattern has developed in the past: of the present 28 EU member states, these 22 became NATO members BEFORE they became EEC/EC/EU members:

      1949 Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, UK
      1952 Greece
      1955 West Germany (reunited Germany 1990)
      1982 Spain
      1999 Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland
      2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
      2009 Croatia

      These 4 were declared neutrals before they joined the EEC/EC/EU:

      Ireland, Austria, Sweden and Finland

      Malta had been in the “Non-Aligned Movement” since 1973 but left it in 2004; similarly Cyprus had joined that in 1961 but left in 2004, and is still argued over by two longstanding NATO members.”

      It’s worth googling for “European Peace Facility”, with or without the additional search term “Orwell”.

      1. Denis Cooper
        March 1, 2022

        About the legal basis for the EU to treat this war as another proxy war and supply arms to one side:

        https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/02/28/russian-money/#comment-1303093

      2. Hope
        March 1, 2022

        +1 Dennis.
        I am sick of the msm ability not to investigate and act like propaganda arm of govt.

    4. hefner
      March 1, 2022

      EH, what is your proof that Vladimir P was ever a WEF Young Global Leader? If you have such information you should really share it for the benefit of all on this blog.

    5. hefner
      March 4, 2022

      P2, how comfortable it is for you to say that PP’s LVT point was secondary when you were the first one in this debate to throw it out with your ‘it’s always ever more tax’ without even considering whether the actual distribution of LVT (if not the total collected amount) could be different from that of Council Tax/SDLT.

      I think you are as culpable as any here of not reading comments properly. I imagine you searching for a NLH et al.’s post and then putting your half penny of criticism without much considering the circumstances of the original posts. No need to think, really. Right from the cerebellum to fingers on the keyboard, no role for the cerebrum.

      1. Peter2
        March 5, 2022

        You latched onto the taxing of property in the middle of NHL expressing his politically driven hatred of private landlords renting property.
        There has been no answer to by questions to him.
        Tax changes to LVT would be added onto the monthly rent paid by landlords.
        I would predict that introducing LVT would increase the total tax burden on private landlords
        And if it did, then rents would rise.

        1. hefner
          March 7, 2022

          I agree with you, P2, the rents would rise for tenants, yes, because tenants would not be in a position to prevent landlords from making sure they keep their (landlords’) profits intact. The laws regarding tenancy in England are at least 30 to 50 years behind those on continental Europe.
          Result: a large majority of people have wanted to be owners of their properties since Mrs T, with this rather permanent demand the developers have not only a huge ‘political’ weight (see who’s donating to which party) but also can produce rather shabby new ‘cheap-ish’ housing estates (after ‘sitting’ for years on land waiting for its price to go up) without much fear from being really regulated by the government of the day (please note all Conservative, coalition or Labour governments have been as bad as the others in that respect).

          Home truths, L.Halligan, 2021, Biteback Publ.
          Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing, J.Ryan-Collins et al., 2017, Zed Books

  8. PeteB
    March 1, 2022

    Sir J, All for cutting tax rates. It both reduces the economic slowdown risk and gives Government less money to waste. I say waste rather than spend quite deliberately.

    I would like to see the BofE continue to raise interest rates to 2% as a minimum. It SHOULD cost to borrow money. We may not be in the current economic straights if world banks has maintained positive interest rates for the last 15 years.

    1. Everhopeful
      March 1, 2022

      +1
      Very good ideas/solutions.
      I just wish they would
but I doubt it.

    2. SM
      March 1, 2022

      +1

    3. Mark B
      March 2, 2022

      +1

  9. James1
    March 1, 2022

    Fortunately the Freedom Genie is out of the bottle in Ukraine, and Mr Putin can’t put it back in.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 1, 2022

      Well we shall see but Putin is clearly going to have a bloody and violent attempt to attempt to do so.

    2. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 1, 2022

      It’s being stuffed back into the bottle here, and if Putin’s Orange Pal gets back in then it will be in the US too.

    3. Richard II
      March 1, 2022

      Is it really, James? I think the Donbas residents would have liked to know that eight years ago. They wanted limited devolved rule within Ukraine, and the right to use Russian for official purposes and in schools. Similarly to what we have here with Wales. I take it you don’t object to that in the Welsh case. So would you refuse it to the people in the Donbas?

      And I’m sure you wouldn’t want our army to shell Wales nearly every night for years.

  10. turboterrier
    March 1, 2022

    No matter which area you look at the great British public are going to take a massive hit with rising costs. What is it going to achieve? Three fifths of naff all.
    All because the people in charge are backing all the wrong horses and are not applying good economic practice and common sense. Come the May elections I hope that they will all pay the price for failing to stop, think, and listen. Not too sure they are capable of real constructive thinking. They are blinded by their own sacred personal agenda which in the real word (our world) is neither use or ornament.

    1. Peter
      March 1, 2022

      Turboterrier,

      The media think the Ukraine has been great for Boris Johnson. Partygate no longer in the headlines etc.

      I will not forget though.

  11. Lifelogic
    March 1, 2022

    Indeed the case to abandon the huge tax and NI rises, allowance freezes and the red diesel changes is overwhelming.

    Reading’s Sunak bizarre Mais lecture he mentions productivity 22 times. Je says one thing but is doing the complete opposite in spades. But what Mr Sunak are the main things limiting UK’s private sector productivity? Well it is the state sector spending nearly 50% of the GDP yet producing little of value and doing active harm, the high taxes deterring investment, the mad expensive intermittent energy agenda, the road blocking/constricting and the pushing of expensive electric cars agenda, the endless misguided red tape everywhere that wastes so much productive people’s time, the restrictive and daft OTT employment laws, the hugely over complex tax laws, the millions of wasted soft loans for daft and often almost worthless degrees, delays in issuing driving licences, passports, or doing operations


    So demand for trains declines but rail fairs go up 3.8% it seems – so clearly not remotely a fair or real market then. Commuting to work costs are not even tax deductible so effectively yet another disincentive to working. Though of course MPs get them paid as tax free expenses and Lords get a daily tax free daily bung of ÂŁ323. “All in it this together” as Cameron liked to say.

    1. Mike Wilson
      March 1, 2022

      @LifeLogic

      Do you never tire of writing the same stuff, all day – every day? I admire your persistence. Why do you do it? What do you think you achieve? How many regular readers of this blog do you think there are? 50? It doesn’t matter what the topic of the day is you will mention the same things in response. What on earth motivates you? I read this blog because, a few odd people aside, there is often informed and informative commentary. But no-one needs to read your comments. You could just write ‘what I wrote yesterday’.

  12. Philip P.
    March 1, 2022

    Here’s a figure to watch out for, as this unnecessary crisis continues. The fuel spokesman for the RAC has said that if the oil price reaches $110 , it would cause “untold financial difficulties for many people who depend on their cars for getting to work and running their lives”. A lot more economic damage can be foreseen, if all countries involved do not de-escalate the conflict.

  13. Everhopeful
    March 1, 2022

    I can’t think why they would abandon their ace cards
the tax rises and the VAT
surely the very best ways to impoverish us with maximum speed and “legality”?

    1. Bryan Harris
      March 1, 2022

      +99 Everhopeful

      Succinct

      1. Everhopeful
        March 1, 2022

        +1
        Thanks!

    2. Mark B
      March 1, 2022

      I said before. They will grind us down between the two millstones of high taxes and high inflation.

  14. Bob Dixon
    March 1, 2022

    Chelsea and Arsenal football clubs are owned by Russians.All remaking fixtures should be cancelled for with.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      March 1, 2022

      They make Reading’s Financial Fair Play transgressions and punishments for overspending seem inconsequential. Oligarchs still Rule, it seems.

    2. Bill B.
      March 1, 2022

      Bob’s obviously a Man U. fan.

    3. Peter
      March 1, 2022

      I wonder if Lee Dixon would be happy with the impact of that on his former club?

      1. Peter
        March 1, 2022

        Or Kerry Dixon too for that matter.

    4. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 1, 2022

      Abramovich is trying to mediate peace between the two countries at the invitation of Ukraine.

      1. agricola
        March 1, 2022

        NLH,
        You may well know him better than I do, however I would suggest he is intent on protecting his bottom line.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 1, 2022

          No, just repeating what I claim to be a reliable report.

        2. Nottingham Lad Himself
          March 2, 2022

          Apologies – it now appears that such claims remain unproven.

    5. Mark B
      March 1, 2022

      Thereby punishing innocent football supporters.

      For the record, I am a football supporter but not of those two clubs.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 2, 2022

        I think that they might just survive.

    6. formula57
      March 1, 2022

      @ Bob Dixon “Chelsea and Arsenal football clubs are owned by Russians.” – that news will be something of a blow to Stan Kroenke, the American businessman who has been Arsenal’s sole owner since 2018.

  15. Lifelogic
    March 1, 2022

    It trains are so efficient and green why does a single ticked London to Manchester cost ÂŁ156.20 even before the increase. This when I can take 5 in a car for more like ÂŁ30?

    In Sunac’s speech he does in one part say:- “Complicated taxes, excessive regulations they make life impossible for entrepreneurs. So I will always put the same questions to Ken Clarke and his business team.”

    But Sunac has done the complete reverse. Ken Clark is a lawyer and a failed (essentially socialist), pro EU politician, pro excessive regulations, high tax rates & tax complexity has risen hugely, certainly since Thatcher left office. Much of it directly due to Ken Clark types.

    Cameron/Osborne gave us the Office of Tax Simplification set up 12 years back since then tax complexity has probably doubled at least. But doubtless they all get still their bonuses, wages and gold pensions and are in no danger of being fired.

    1. turboterrier
      March 1, 2022

      Lifelogic
      Your last paragraph sums it all up in a nut shell.

    2. Hope
      March 1, 2022

      LL, you might recall during the first years of alleged austerity Cameron’s first task was to increase the number of tax inspectors by 2,000! The office he set up was to extract more tax not make it easier, the name was a misnomer. You do not reach a 79 year high in taxation without purpose to do so.

      1. Mark B
        March 1, 2022

        Pity that they were not employed in Panama.

        😉

    3. agricola
      March 1, 2022

      LL
      Long haul rail passenger traffic, at around 100 miles plus, does not make financial sense. Much better we expand an internal air/bus service with a fare of about ÂŁ20.00 Birmingham to all other major cities. If I can fly 1200 miles to southern Spain at similar prices why not. Airport costs would need to be reviewed. Long haul rail should be geared to freight, lessons to be learnt from Amazon. It may well mean that airports and aircraft need to be rethought, just the sort of thing our private sector is good at.

  16. Mark J
    March 1, 2022

    ‘There will be a bit more  inflation  and a bit less growth as a result.’

    So what is the Government proposing to help?

    Not a lot as far as I can see.

    Considering a fair chunk of the pump price is fuel duty and VAT, I can’t see the Government easily giving up their share of this ballooning source of income.

    High fuel prices help no one, as the costs of everything go up as a result. Yet our Government is still deliberately ignorant to this.

    1. Mark B
      March 1, 2022

      High fuel prices are designed to force us oik’s off the road.

      Saves them having to build Zil-Lanes.

  17. Sir Joe Soap
    March 1, 2022

    Again, the whole underlying charabanc needs turning round. Why are we spending daft amounts on Diversity Managers and the like when the paucity of our defence leaves us open to our basic rights being trampled? We can take a hit on GDP if necessary to protect us and our borders.

  18. Nig l
    March 1, 2022

    And in other news Kartengs answer to energy security is to import it from other parts of the world. Emphasise more green, expensive unproven, more nuclear, umpteen years down the road and finally fracking.

    Can’t do that because the producers will only sell the gas at market rate.

    So you can’t take the fields into public ownership or negotiate a cost plus pricing arrangement in return for drilling approval?

    Is he the idiot, if so very dangerous or does he think we are?

  19. Lifelogic
    March 1, 2022

    The BBC rather obsessed yeserday with the latest absurdly alarmist IPCC report. They say “climate change may be exacerbating mental health issues, including stress and trauma related to extreme weather events and the loss of livelihoods and culture”.

    I would have thought the main cause of such mental health issues is these absurdly alarmist climate emergency reports rammed at people and young vulnerable children almost every sing day by organisations like the appalling IPCC, this deluded government, Prince Charles/Emma Thompson hypocrite types, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5.

  20. Dave Andrews
    March 1, 2022

    So far the EU hasn’t been prepared to suffer the cost of sanctions. They continue to buy Russian gas and fund Putin’s genocide.
    Evidently keeping a German’s footsies warm is more important than Ukrainian lives.

  21. Bryan Harris
    March 1, 2022

    Yes.

    The tax rises will do untold damage to our economy and too many people.

    It will be a sign not just of incompetence if the rises go ahead, for it will be clear that this will be a direct attack on the best interests and survival potential of the people of the UK.

    1. Everhopeful
      March 1, 2022

      + Agree entirely.

  22. Andy
    March 1, 2022

    The Brexit pensioners in government have majority misjudged the public mood on helping Ukrainians fleeing the war.

    This is unsurprising as the Brexit pensioners exist in an echo chamber and only listen to each other.

    There is no end scenario in which this country does not do everything possible to help Ukrainian refugees – and that includes welcoming as many as need to come, for as long as they need to come, visa free.

    The Brexit pensioners can either take this decision now – upsetting a few bigoted old farts who vote for them – or they can watch their poll ratings fall further as the pictures on our TV screens show the bodies piling up in Ukraine.

    1. Peter2
      March 1, 2022

      Turn on the radiators in your empty spare bedrooms young andy
      You can take in maybe 10 people.
      Come on, do your bit eh?

  23. R.Grange
    March 1, 2022

    This is how the stoked-up Ukraine conflict could get us into WWIII if our leaders don’t get their brains back in gear. Bulgaria has offered Mig fighters to the Ukrainian side, to replace Kiev’s airforce, now reportedly destroyed. But these would be delivered to Poland – Ukraine’s airfields have also been devastated. Then if Poland allows its airfields to be used to fight Russia, they will be targeted by Russian missiles, triggering Article 5 of the NATO charter, and NATO gets into a shooting war. Who wants to go there?

    1. R.Grange
      March 1, 2022

      Correction: it appears this may just be a false report on the Ukraine government website. Let’s hope so.

    2. Denis Cooper
      March 1, 2022

      Insanity.

    3. formula57
      March 1, 2022

      Note NATO’s Article 5 does not require anyone to go to war, rather a member takes “…such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force…”.

      The U.K. can deem dressing the Truss person up to look a bit reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher and placing her on top of a tank is all that is necessary.

  24. Brian Tomkinson
    March 1, 2022

    JR: “The Bank is determined to over correct for its error of continuing to create too much new money last year.”
    With Bank Rate at 0.5%, what evidence is there to support this assertion? As you know The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 5.5% in the 12 months to January 2022.

    1. formula57
      March 1, 2022

      Evidence comes from the doubling of bank rate last month, the first back to back increase since 2004. Beyond that, many forecasters expect further increases.

  25. alan jutson
    March 1, 2022

    Likelogic

    Agreed, train fares far too expensive and complicated.plus the additional journey at each end to and from the station.

  26. William Long
    March 1, 2022

    It has become pretty clear that the employment tax increase was put there for Political -Aren’t we wonderful to support the NHS – reasons rather than economic ones so I am afraid there is small chance of that going.
    On the wider subject of what is going on in Ukraine, I cannot help wondering how the West would have reacted, if say, Holland, had shown strong signs of wanting to join the Warsaw Pact?

  27. Bryan Harris
    March 1, 2022

    It seems that even the HoC’s is willing to take advantage of personal data obtained from petitions.
    Just received this which is suspect in several ways:

    We’re getting in touch to let you know we’re making changes to the privacy notice for the UK Government and Parliament Petitions site (https://petition.parliament.uk/) on 1st March 2022.

    4. Sharing your personal data
    We may share or disclose your personal data with:

    Suppliers and contractors of goods or services contracted by House of Commons in relation to the purpose of fulfilling a public task
    Other organisations where there is a lawful basis to do so or a duty to disclose in order to comply with any legal obligation. For example, the Police, for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime.

    Can I expect a knock on the door from the police for signing a petition now?

    1. Mark B
      March 2, 2022

      Yes ! And you can expected to be arrested for holding a vigil for as well. All in the name of public safety.

  28. agricola
    March 1, 2022

    The Wests sanctions on Russia will increase the cost of fuel to everyone in the UK , yes, but only because the UK government chooses to ignore the fuel we are sitting on top of. Oil, Gas, Coal are all readily available within our own territorial waters and land mass. Not only that, the UK government operates a very strange system of ownership of UK fuel assets. A system that forces UK fuel users to buy our own fuel at world prices.

    Treasury and the BoE seem to have a financial plan that has differed little from that which they conducted when we belonged to the EU. Where is the total rewrite of the Tax Book to effect a Singaporean shot in the arm to all those of enterprise. I would diagnose the UK governments problem as Long EU Think. It needs to change radically.

    1. Mark B
      March 2, 2022

      Further. They benefit from higher prices due to both duty and VAT on said fuel.

  29. John Miller
    March 1, 2022

    We must concentrate on ourselves. I abhor the events in the Ukraine, but we are subjecting ourselves to our own self inflicted horrors. Banning us from keeping warm, immobilizing ourselves and impoverishing ourselves because of the Governments insanity and incompetence is a lot to bear.

  30. StephenS
    March 1, 2022

    We simply have to say no to this Conservative Tax on jobs. Bulb energy have just dropped me an email to say our direct debit will increase by ÂŁ100 a month even though at this point the account after winter is still in credit. They have calculated it and it is not negotiable. My council tax will be up by 4%. Petrol is ÂŁ20 a Tank more than this time last year and likely to increase further. I can afford all this, but those with children on lower incomes on already stretched budgets will be driven to the wall, jobs will be lost and will be harder to find. This is all unacceptable as it is without the jobs tax on top of it all when the treasury is sat on unexpected windfall receipts in the current circumstances. Johnson and Sunak are so on the wrong track they will end up paying a heavy electoral price without a change of tack.

    1. Hat man
      March 1, 2022

      I’ve said this before, Stephen. My words, your words, everybody else’s words will make no difference at all to Johnson and his merry men running the country (into the ground). The only language he understands will be the size of the Reform UK vote in the May elections.
      The problem is that now, by posturing as a great wartime statesman, he may recover enough popularity to win the next election. So let’s support a negotiated end to the Ukraine conflict, unless we’re OK with a lot more years of Johnson and his Net zero policies.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 2, 2022

        Reform UK?

        Ah yes, Putin’s Patsies.

        1. Peter2
          March 3, 2022

          Yet another smear.

          1. hefner
            March 7, 2022

            You’re right P2, I can see your reaction is based on a deep understanding of the links between some people in Russia and some in the UK.
            I am sure you are conversant with all the nooks and crannies discussed in the various documents put on the Government websites, and you would never have an epidemic reaction to another contributor’s comment:

            gov.uk ‘Russia and the UK’ has links to all the UK initiatives regarding the present situation in Ukraine.

            isc.independent.gov.uk ‘Russia’, HC 632, 55 p.

            assets.publishing.service.gov.uk ‘Government Response to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament Report ‘Russia’’, July 2020

    2. DOM
      March 1, 2022

      Sunak can’t cut direct taxes as him, Labour’s public sector dependents and Johnson desperate to buy-off the unions have just blown half a trillion dollars on a scam involving a viral cold. Welcome to the new Tory party. A party so morally bankrupt it will bankrupt a nation to protect itself from the Socialists, unions and activists

      ‘We will rub the Tories nose in diversity’ said Powell. At this moment the Tory party capitulated to Critical Race Theory, woke and Frankfurt School extremism. Freedom and liberty smashed on the altar of Neo-Marxist barbarity

      Thanks Tories..no wonder they spend billions to buy peoples votes to divert attention away from their cozy little world with Labour as they slowly without attention chip away at the social and civil fabric of British society

      People are voting themselves into subjugation

  31. XY
    March 1, 2022

    Sadly we have a Chancellor who doesn’t see that. He seems more interested in the fortunes of Infosys than those of the UK.

  32. formula57
    March 1, 2022

    “The negative impact of the war and sanctions reinforces the case to abandon the tax rises and cut VAT before they hit in April.” – I’ll say!

    The case you made was compelling even before Putin’s adventurism, even before today’s Altanta Federal Reserve GDPNow first quarter forecast of nil growth.

    Brace for the Sunak Slump, to be re-branded as the Putin Recession. We know though.

    1. Mark B
      March 2, 2022

      +1

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