Tax rises usually do damage. They deter investment, destroy jobs, prevent people spending money, cut business turnover, push rich people out of the country. They are favoured by those who want greater equality from greater misery. Get rid of all the rich foreigners and we will have more equal society, but we will also lose their investment money to create jobs and say good bye to their spending power diverted to competing countries.
The November Financial Statement put up taxes substantially. It also raised the amount we have to borrow massively by 75% compared to the March OBR forecast. This was the direct result not just of the energy cost increases but also the result of the slower growth they had to factor in. High taxes, low growth, excessive borrowing come from each other. Labour proved that by their more extreme excesses on tax in the 1970s when we had huge deficits and a so called brain drain as talent poured out of the country. The government need to grasp that the best way to get the deficit down is to grow faster. To grow faster we need lower tax rates, not higher. We need enough tax incentive for rich people and companies to come here, invest here, spend here. We need to allow more home talent to be self employed, to set up small businesses, to grow larger businesses. Why is one of the UK’s greatest entrepreneurs Sir James Dyson having to decry government policy towards jobs and investment?
I will be producing some pieces on how we can can have affordable tax cuts in the March budget. They need to be affordable costed growth promoting tax cuts that help increase the number of successful entrepreneurs, attract foreign capital and stimulate investment in the extra capacities we need. If the government is serious about getting inflation down it needs to promote and facilitate more domestic energy supply, more home grown food, ,more fish landed in the UK, more trees growth for timber here , more steel and ceramics output and the rest that we need to curb imports and increase supply.
January 20, 2023
Good Morning,
Yes, please do show how government can CUT expenditure, however, you know the effect. Labour will jump on any cuts and shout it from the rooftops in the sure knowledge that sheeple don’t vote for governments that reduce ‘entitlements’.
The Tories have made this rod for their own backs; you’ve become so socialist, getting the population to rely on government largesse, returning to a budget surplus is a pipe-dream.
January 20, 2023
Peter,
Your first sentence is the key polint. Rather than say “we can’t afford tax rises” why do MPs never say “we can’t afford spending increases”?
An individual can only spend more if they borrow or if they earn more. The State is no different. The UK today is spending too much and as a consequence borrowing and taxing too much. Treat the disease not the symptons.
January 20, 2023
Why do they talk of “unfunded tax cuts” and never of “unfunded tax rises”?
January 20, 2023
JR,
Waste of breath. Hunt has made it clear big, state high taxes and spray around the world to gay abandon.
Today we hear and read Sunak taking a private jet three times in a week to get around the country. Tory Sutherland MP saying he is busy, has a full diary and it is practical!! How about the electricians, plumbers and other tradesmen trying to earn a living where Sunak and Hunty are killing their businesses through ULEZ and taxes!! Their diaries are full as well but they are not getting their travel paid by the taxpayer unlike Sunak and his climate scam- do as you are told climate scam only applies to small peopleI will do as I like Sunak!! Unbelievable lack of self awareness!! He also broke the law, again, for a self promoting video shoot! Yes he should get a FPN everyone else does. It was not a brief error of judgement as he falsely claimed, it was a planned video shoot and it was known where and when it would be taken. Serve with integrity my foot, the man is habitual liar.
January 20, 2023
Exactly. Bring down the 5 million on unemployment benefits, make them time limited. Cut the number of Civil Serpents. Reduce Council numbers. Stop all diversity and equality employees. Its called existing management. Stop Foreign aid, HS2, deport all illegals and Stop luxury accommodation. Bonfire of the quangos. That’s a start or call an election so we can rid ourselves of the Consocialists.
January 20, 2023
+++
Plus of course ÂŁÂŁBILLIONS sent to and spent on Ukraine.
However much per day on 4*hotels ( apparently now illegal to report/film so it ainât happening).
The vast sums spent on Net Zero.
And of course the cost of the Plague!
NONE of it OUR fault!
January 20, 2023
Oh and of course HS2.
And an out of control âWelfareâ system.
Do backbenchers realise just HOW MUCH out of control?
January 20, 2023
The welfare system – people in work can survive on whatever below inflation pay rises their employers offer. Those on welfare, we must protect and give inflationary rises to!
Spot the error.
January 20, 2023
Modern day ‘Catch-22’
January 21, 2023
No – not catch 22 Glen. Give the benefits claimants average wage rises not inflation. Equity for all.
January 20, 2023
You forgot overseas aid given away without knowing what it will be spent on, per JRâs previous blog on Africa. Tory govt did the same for the EU. I still do not know if the UK still hands EU overseas aid to spend as it wants ie mating programmes for exotic fish! We read in Guido this week millions of our taxes still given to Stonewall!, and worse it takes civil service weeks to decide if it is required!!
When will the socialist Tories get a grip from wasting billions of our taxes, this is our money not Sunak and Huntâs, our money at a 75 year high and Hunt claims there cannot be tax cuts!!
January 20, 2023
That’s why every public service is on strike …they believe that our government has loads of cash
January 20, 2023
Sunak addressing tax cuts yesterday: because they werenât âidiotsâ theyâd have the capacity to comprehend why he wouldnât be cutting taxes any time soonâŠ.
JR, socialist Sunak and Hunt think anyone who wants tax cuts is an idiot!! Backstabber Sunak thinks tax cuts cannot happen because of covid and helping Ukraine! His fault of wrecking the economy during covid and UK does not and should not help Ukraine!!
The other half of your party under Starmer wants regulatory alignment and closer trading with EU! We have not diverged!
Reform party is the only conservative Brexit choice.
January 20, 2023
Imports of âdirtyâ coal from South Africa to Europe up 700%. So Green, so affordable, so sensible⊠Greta and Gove are not upset, thatâs the important issue.
500 double coal trucks waiting to turn off to Richards Bay to load a ship, they have already driven 500 miles from the mine.
Tax MUST go up to pay for all of this, all the salaries, the trucks, the roads, the truck drivers, the ships, the sailors, the fuel the port workers at either endâŠ..
January 20, 2023
Mr Hunt gave a condescending little video lesson on inflation ( I think in the very nice HoC restaurant?) using paper/plastic coffee beakers. He FORGOT to mention the inflationary effects of money printing.
Could JR give him a little lesson in economics?
January 20, 2023
“We” – the people – cannot afford real-term year-on-year pay cuts, nor private medical care to make up for the fact that the Tories have run the NHS into ground, nor energy bills through the roof thanks to doctrinal deregulation in the sector exposing us – to a far worse extent than most of Europe – to spike prices, and so on, and so on…
January 20, 2023
yes successive governments plus excellent help from NHS ‘management’ have stressed the NHS to breaking point by throwing money at every whinge, or by insisting on rigid structure and inefficient working practices 9 to 5, 5 days a week.
We the people are the victims and have had enough of the bleedin’ strikers. Get rid!
January 20, 2023
Good morning.
The Central Bank, ie the Bof England, is in control or, at the very least, partly incontrol.
The Bank of England has part of its mandate to keep inflation to around 2%. It has no interest in growth or the political fortunes of MP’s and their parties. Neither does it have interest in business, people, families or society in general. It is the classic, “sorry, you have come to the wrong department, I will forward you onto someone else” mentality.
To combat inflation it has one major tool in its box – interest rates. The housing market is on the slide and this will mean much reduced revenue for the government. I did say the government should have gotten rid of Stamp Duty but, like the Tax Junky it is, it would not listen. So raising them is not a easy option.
The other way of reducing inflation, and not in the BoE’s box of tricks, is taxation. They need to hoover up all that money they and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer created back during the SCAMDEMINC.
I predict inflation will fall but a great deal of damage, certainly to the Tories election hopes will have been done.
If only they had listened to the REAL science and stuck with the original plan we would not have been in this mess.
January 20, 2023
The next thing the BoE, like other central banks, wants to do is to introduce a digital currency. (This is already being piloted by the EU central bank, as announced last June.) The effect would be to give the BoE vastly greater control over the economy and people’s lives, since they will have oversight over, and potentially the power to intervene in, our spending. This is not what I want, nor I imagine what most of the public would want. Yet it is curious how little media attention the subject is getting.
January 20, 2023
Digital currency managed by a central bank = COMMUNISM
Think it through. Control of everyday spending of the entire economy means control of the means of production, distribution and consumption.
January 20, 2023
The thought occurs that the only way to escape Government surveillance of our spending would be to use your digital account to purchase coins made of a material of intrinsic value, say gold, which could be exchanged with others for goods and services without the say-so of our masters. These coins would escape other possible abuses of the digital accounts such as programmed depreciation or ‘haircuts’.
January 20, 2023
How much media does any controversial issue get e.g. the Waspi women complain they weren’t informed, the BBC is paid for by the public and taxpayers to be the public service broadcaster and keep people informed. Why aren’t they in the court explaining how many times they talked about pension ages increasing and the Pensions Act 2007.
“25 May 2006 â The state retirement age will rise in line with life expectancy, from 65 to 66 in 2024, then a further year each decade until it reaches 68”.
A Pensions Commission chaired by Lord Turner of Ecchinswell proposed last November that the state pension age for men and women should rise from 65 to 66 by 2030, to 67 by 2040 and to 68 by 2050. In return, it said the state pension should be more generous, rising annually in line with earnings rather than prices from 2010.
And now people want to stop pension payment increases, call it welfare and a benefit when it was an insurance contract you couldn’t opt out of.
January 20, 2023
MB,
BOE definitely did have interest in political fortunes of Truss and remain in EU. Bailey should have been ousted by now. In any other business he would be toast.
Carney was the same. He sang the right tune for Tories so his contract was extended. Again, he should have been toast.
January 20, 2023
Who wants to live their life through the prism of someone elseâs view of âequalityâ?
People need to be left alone to earn money, save it with interest and buy the things they want to buy.
Of courseâŠpoliticians have already ruined everything but surely they donât need to make it worse?
As everyone saysâŠcut the red tape. Stop stealing our hard earned and we just might flourish.
January 20, 2023
Leaders of Govt are supposed to do good things.
The amount of guiding and urging ours need to do something sensible is evidence theyâre idiots.
We must eject them with the other waste they cause dumped on their head.
January 20, 2023
Bloke – They are controlled by the globalist UK Establishment and will do their bidding.
January 20, 2023
Net zero was not costed.
It was imposed by the useless treacherous May as one of her last left wing Marxist acts. Johnson was led by his zipper/wife to do a complete U-turn on what he repeatedly preached and wrote about to get fracking and the net zero scam.
We still do not have a costed analysis for net stupid or where the energy will come from.
Nutty Charles continuing his political games as King by allowing and promoting climate scam by wind farms on Royal estates. Perhaps it is time for the people take back the land from Charles and give it back to the state for our governments to decide what to do it on it. It strikes me Charles has forgotten why the power was taken from the monarch to an elected parliament. He seems to have forgotten that he would not interfere politically as well!
January 20, 2023
What your saying should be the mainstay and narrative of every Tory MP âŠwe need to ask why it isnât
January 20, 2023
To keep the people on side there is much to be said of the old saying about profit that applies to taxes.
A little often brings better results than the big ones all the time.
High taxes are counter productive as the real wealth makers talk with their feet which impacts on everything and everybody. Another case of more is less but government never seems to learn.
January 20, 2023
You are right, turboterrier, as is Sir John, but everything must bow down to the taxation of the middle class: the poor are too poor to pay, and the rich can vote with their feet, so who is left to tax?
January 20, 2023
The PAYE serfs who have no method of avoiding punitive taxes so have it taken from their salary before they see it.
January 20, 2023
SM. Tell me. I’m curious. Do the ‘poor’ on benefits of thousands a year actually pay ANY tax?
January 20, 2023
My husband has applied for a job in a school. One of tge teachers said that many between the ages of 11 and 15 can’t read or write well. She then said there was no incentive to do so when they see their parents having a very nice lifestyle on benefits. No need to get a job when the state takes care of all your financial needs.
January 20, 2023
confirms what I’ve been saying for some years, and on here, reading, writing and arithmetic should be the basics in Primary schools. More teachers, more assistants less report writing about young Jimmy who can’t look at a clock and tell you the time. Schools should be really embarrassed to have pupils move to secondary without those basics. It almost merits an inquiry!
January 20, 2023
@Fedupsoutherner
“Do the âpoorâ on benefits of thousands a year actually pay ANY tax?”
Some state benefits are taxable and some are not. The reasons are not immediately obvious to me.
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits
January 20, 2023
Sir John your own cabinet rarely listens to mp’s like yourself. Sunaks said he won’t announce tax cuts come the spring budget, he will do a u turn if pressed by a number of high ranking Back benches.
January 20, 2023
Fishy is not a conservative he’s a limp dumb. Apart from believing in high tx and big government he will sell NI out to Brussels.
His puppet Hunt is doing his masters bidding.
It’s now more beneficial to not work and live off the state.
Fishy is just standing in as manager ready to hand over the sir kneelalot.
January 20, 2023
Puppet is the word, but whose puppet? He advocated 12% corporation tax in his leadership bid a few months ago.
January 20, 2023
+1
Both are working hard to align UK as closely as possible to EU. Leaving us with a technical leave in name only. I suspect they are working with Labour/Starmer, as the Tories did under May. They manage within the rules that the EU give them.
More billions of our taxes wasted on weapons for Ukraine. No mandate for wasting our taxes in this way. Ukraine of no strategic interest to UK but is a political foreign policy dream for EU to March east capturing former USSR states.
January 20, 2023
Seems so.
Sunak says âPeople Are Not Idiots’: Rishi Sunak Explains Why He Can’t Cut Taxes, Says People Understand.
But he clearly must think they are stupid as he keeps blaming inflation, energy prices and the current economic problems on Putin and Covid. But we all know they are caused by his money printing, the idiotic net zero energy policies, the governments over reaction to Covid with lockdowns, the endless government waste and corruption⊠in short by Rishi Sunak to a very large degree.
The reality is if we do not cut tax rates, tax receipts will actually fall and the much of UK economy and jobs will relocate.
January 20, 2023
There is no ‘we’, there is only the woke State and it wants our soul and our ALL our income.
For all John’s protestations he’s still wedded to the myth that the State exists to serve the interests of the public. This naivety is extremely damaging to our freedom and culture. It is the one thing Thatcher understood, that the State must be limited by statute and culture. Her ideas have been trashed by Tory and Socialist alike.
I see Starmer’s been at the WEF this week. If you want to know what Labour and Sunak have in store for us all then dig deep into WEF news cuttings and you’ll find horrific examples of authoritarianism
The naivety of the voter putting their cross next to Tory, Labour and SNP grifters is an act of the most ignorant sacrifice
January 20, 2023
Did you see that Tony Blair might be taking over from Klaus Schwab? I heard a bit of his speech about digital health passes and vaccines⊠He stumbled and ummed and ahhed as though trying hard not to reveal what he really meant. Hearing him stumble yesterday, I think heâd be as bad as Klaus Schwab with his authoritarian ideals. If cajoling doesnât work, make themâŠ
January 20, 2023
++++So well put.
100%
Funny to think that hardly any time at all ago, WEF was a deletable, naughty old conspiracy theory⊠isnât it?
Do they show their hand when they can no longer hide it or is the new âhonestyâ (re WEF etc) some sort of confidence trick?
January 20, 2023
Its strange isn’t it , that Davos is so big and important …and yet the HoCs never debate its outcome !
Reply Davos reproduces the same net zero / diversity/ cyber conversations Parliament has all the time. This is a global movement led by governments, not by Davos meetings.
January 20, 2023
Farage last night showed a clip of Blair at the WEF saying that the nations need a digital database showing who’s been “vaccinated” for the new “vaccinations” they’ll be rolling out and that future “vaccinations” may be multiple ones.
He had the nerve to talk about “forgivable politics” and “unforgivable politics.” Well unforgivable politics is LYING to Parliament and the British people and participating in an illegal war. And it’s also forcing people to have medical products they don’t need and don’t want.
That man is pure evil.
You can watch the “debate” on the WEF website entitled “100 days to outrace the next pandemic” and will be watching it later.
January 20, 2023
De-globalisation is under way. The signs are everywhere, including the recent US decision to return semi-conductor production to the USA. Covid restrictions and the Ukraine war are driving countries inevitably towards self-sufficiency as far as possible. The WEF is on the back foot now. For once Sunak has made the right decision, by not going to Davos, like Elon Musk.
January 20, 2023
Any country with an ounce of common sense comes to realise globalisation all too easily works against your interest. The US built the first and best Fabs (semiconductor fabrication plants) then found labour and electricity supply issues (state interference) so went offshore – UK, Dresden, and Far East. Now with reducing security of production, indeed security of what goes into the chip/processor, current and future economy is threatened. Solution is bring inhouse, back to square one.
January 20, 2023
DOM
No one can tell us that we were not warned. Two articles highlight the Labour dream, which is exactly what the EU and the WEF want. The people of this country will be nothing but collateral damage
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/19/labour-will-end-north-sea-investment-says-sir-keir-starmer/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/01/20/labour-will-end-north-sea-oil-investment/
January 20, 2023
Turbo. The consequences are not good for the working poor.
January 20, 2023
Dom. Your last paragraph is spot on.
January 20, 2023
Correct Dom – As will might fear the demise of democracy under Labour, so too we must fear the demise of democracy under the Tories …our only hope is Reform to reset politics towards the people, freedom & democracy
January 20, 2023
Johnson was also at Davos and seemed reluctant to explain his presence.
January 20, 2023
Job Interview
January 20, 2023
Taxes could easily be reduced if all of government departments stopped the waste and clawed back the millions paid out in error and stopped the dingy invasion once and for all. Stop all benefits that make it not worth getting out of bed to work. Are we a soft touch or what?
January 20, 2023
When the EU Retained Law Bill is passed hopefully pretty quickly then the government can get rid of the VAT which is a burden to nearly everyone
January 20, 2023
And how would you replace the revenue? I’m open to the idea of changing the VAT regime, and removing it from some categories of goods and services, but I have yet to see any convincing proposals.
January 20, 2023
M,
Dream on. We were told Gove used ÂŁ3/4 billion in preparing for no deal. The whole of the preparation in every Govt. dept. should be on the shelf ready to go. If not what was our taxes spent on? It does not take 7 years to achieve nothing other than caving in time and again to EU.
All plans should have been tested and war gamed that includes legislation. The fact the govt. is only talking about it graphically illustrates how treacherous, useless and dishonest the Tory party are. Instead of using former Labour ministers why not use JR,Bill Cash etc? Answer: because they are a small fringe of the party who is ignored because they want to leave the EU. JR and chums are given a few crumbs and ignored.
JR claims to speak for England. The Lothian Question not answered, England given a crumb under EVEL then repealed and ignored. What has JR and others said or done about it? Hunt and Gove now implementing EU regionalisation of England which was rejected 20 years ago by the country under Prescott and 10 years ago under Cameron!! Keep asking until you get the right answer is the EU way.
Tory and Labour are wedded to the EU. Hunt and Sunak are on a mission to achieve this against the public will and behind the publicâs back.
January 20, 2023
Itâs the only way of making the black economy pay some tax.
January 20, 2023
A government abolish a tax without a replacement?
Never going to happen!
The Tories are finished. Major was the start, continued by all of his successors of which “Runaway Dave” Cameron was the worst, closely followed by Theresa “A wet week in” May.
Truss gave some hope, but very little and she didn’t have the steel to stand up to the Tory MPs scared sitless by the MSM…
January 20, 2023
Sorry our government nor parliament can’t review VAT, as they’re busy today debating the ‘Shark Fin Bill’
Our elites have truely lost the plot
January 20, 2023
How can government justify people on benefits receive more than the minimum wage?
There should be a sliding scale the longer on benefits after three months, payments reduce accordingly over a period of time to the level of the minimum wage. The more who come off the system then start to contribute as they find employment and pay into the system where “every little helps”
January 20, 2023
It needs to reduce below minimum wage. Why go out to work for the same money?
January 20, 2023
Turbo. Amen to that.
January 20, 2023
Why can’t government not see what the electorate see?
The country is on skid row.
Who put us there? Government policies.
They do not listen to their own critics let alone us. It is not that they have not had enough warnings.
Instead of trying to keep all the plates spinning and the balls in the air just stop, think, plan and act. Stop throwing millions around here, there and everywhere. Prioritise the really important issues and get them done.
Stop trying to be the leader hoping others will follow. It is the road to nowhere. When will they ever learn?
January 20, 2023
Theyâve all contracted Ivory Tower Syndrome
January 20, 2023
Dyson apparently criticised Cameron for having overly strict immigration rules which saw foreign trained-in-in-the-U.K. engineers sent home and effectively blocked from getting jobs here.( Never mind why not train U.K. students first).
How on earth has that come to what we now have?
January 20, 2023
He will have students queueing around the block for a Dyson engineering apprenticeship and yes we also need to ask why we aren’t training sufficient British engineers or do they want more money?
January 20, 2023
Cameron was also a lot stricter on asylum. He preferred us to pay for large camps in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, and then select particular families from them to give asylum here. The camps in Turkey were particularly well run and well supplied with education, medical care etc. The understanding with all those countries was that refugees want to be as near to home as possible. (This was borne out by the refugees from Ukraine who didn’t want to go to Western Europe but preferred to be as near to their menfolk as possible in Eastern Europe.)
How on earth has that come to what we now have?
January 20, 2023
Tax rises do damage, real damage. Period.
January 20, 2023
UK taxes and government spending are currently about double what they should be for the good of the country and people. The vast majority is wasted much does positive harm. Then on top of this we have the insanity of Net Zero and vast over regulation just for good measure!
January 20, 2023
Especially when we are so hugely overtaxed already and public services are generally appalling and still declining.
January 20, 2023
I agree with that – we are now too highly taxed and too subject to stifling regulation for growth. But is there a mercantilist tone creeping in at the end? The last thing we want is to cave in the George Eustices and NFUs of this world and go protectionist. By all means letâs have more U.K. production of the items you mention if we can do so by being competitive – but only in that way.
January 20, 2023
Agreed, Sir John. Unfortunately the oh so socialist Conservative party is wedded to high taxes, top down spending (levelling up), big state, subsidies (green energy, ev’s etc.) Net Zero will that will drive most of us into poverty and never work. Intermittent energy that cannot power a modern economy (ask China, India and most of Asia) while the UK has plenty of its own fossil fuel reserves.
Then there is the wasted .7% of GDP on so called overseas aid and the hundred & ten billion on HS2, or is that now ÂŁ150 B? The obese in numbers and overpaid cs now striking for more money while providing poor service.
As for food and fish, I will believe that when I see it.
January 20, 2023
Sunak says we are not idiots and know why taxes have to rise. There is only one idiot around here as James Dyson (add the head of the CBI plus Martin Sorrell) publicly, add the legions they have not surfaced yet, labels government policy short sighted and stupid.
Gove came out with his usual self important pomposity to try and pushback but his answer merely confirmed, as if we needed it, that Dyson was spot on.
Sunak/Hunt, economic jokes, unfortunately not funny.
January 20, 2023
+1
Hunt does not want to be more competitive than the EU. The EU needs help and Hunt is do8ng all he can to provide it. Back stabbing Sunak just wants to be PM and will go along with anything.
January 20, 2023
Nigl. Spot on.
January 20, 2023
Yet Sunak thinks we are idiotic enough to think the current inflation and economic problems are due mainly to Putin and Covid as he keep claiming. Not many are quite that stupid Sunak! It was your money printing, the net zero energy policy, the absurd over reaction to Covid with lockdowns and the vast government over taxation & endless waste.
In short mainly due to your policies Sunak as Chancellor & now made even worse by Hunt.
January 20, 2023
Tax cuts are there for the taking. Renewable energy subsidy cuts would show that the consumer’s interests are paramount, but as this ‘tax’ is imposed directly on our bills reducing it would not generate the right headlines.
Cancel HS2. Cancel Sizewell C and further EPRs. Admit that Hinkley Point C is a disaster and apologise. More tokens than serious savings but at least an earnest of good intentions.
There’s one cut which might bring other benefits – reduce road tax on smaller vehicles, smaller that is in physical footprint. For some years I drove a long wheelbase Transit which was little bigger than some modern vehicles used as family transport. An incentive to choose something that fitted the usual car park would be welcome.
JF
January 20, 2023
Hinkley Point C – well at least that’s two of us in the country that think its a waste of money. Quite made my day
January 20, 2023
Start taxing vehicles on their weight, a simple thing to do. Clearly, a heavy vehicle requires more energy to push it up hills & even to get moving (whatever the source of that energy) – and if you want efficient energy use – weight is a key factor. Heavier vehicles are also generally larger vehicles, so take more room as well as creating more wear on road surfaces. Frankly, they are lot more dangerous if they hit your vehicle at speed too. We’ve seen Diesel go from Government favorite to outcast in the wilderness in just over a decade – I wonder if this is the eventual fate of EVs too? đ
January 20, 2023
JF, when the King made his gesture yesterday, it seemed to me he would have done better to get the green levies and social levies removed from people’s energy bills. Then he would not be embarrassed by large windfall gains on his turbines. No good deed ever goes unpunished and this will shine a light where it would perhaps have been better not.
January 20, 2023
Exactly. Perhaps stop spending millions on his private jets, Astonâs and helicopters too.
January 20, 2023
J,
Why have a car when a private jet will suffice three times in a week!
January 20, 2023
Sir John is making the fundamental error of thinking that the people who carried out the coup last October are Conservatives who are working in the interests of the British people.
They’re neither.
January 20, 2023
He is just trying to work with them for the greater good. That is only sensible.
January 20, 2023
D,
+1
Worse is someone who will not see the day light no matter how it shines. Widdecombe was clear this week and very resolute in her answer, the Tory party is not conservative.
January 20, 2023
Exactly, Donna.
January 20, 2023
The Usurper’s second FPN brings the word “hubris” to mind. For all of them engaged in the double coup d’etat..
January 20, 2023
The most feared words to be heard. “I am from the Government, and I am here to help”
The simple fact is Government departmental people on salaries, sick pay, holiday entitlement, and good pensions, do not have a clue about how the self employed, and small Company owners, run and fund their businesses, and the risks/rewards and work life balance associated with doing that.
January 20, 2023
Exactly Alan.
You listen to the socialist’s big media mouthpieces who hate profit and private enterprise.
They lord the social enterprises over and above, but look what happens in social enterprises for a moment; RHT is a perfect example; there are others around the Country as bad, but they’re happy as long as all THEIR staff and directors are taking ALL the money in income, perks, pensions, as long as it is shared out without reinvesting, without building any new homes (number of homes they look after have shrunk), without improving homes that they know are harming and killing people with mold. Without improving the shops they were virtually gifted, one housing trust has a community centre in a bungalow with a long list of people waiting for that bungalow, who would then free up a three bedroomed home. They have community centres but rather than spending money doing them up, making them bigger, and using a room in them to hold their meetings they leave them to rot. They want top ups from the taxpayers to pay for insulation well hold on a minute they promised to invest ÂŁ685m over 30 years in these homes, they are raking it in, the houses would have been paid off within a year’s rental income.
January 20, 2023
You are right, turboterrier, as is Sir John, but everything must bow down to the taxation of the middle class: the poor are too poor to pay, and the rich can vote with their feet, so who is left to tax?
January 20, 2023
Well you might reduce the deficit by growth, but how about reducing it by reducing spending by the state? Anyone thought of doing that?
Not in politics it would seem, where the aspiration is to grow the state and spend ever more.
Sorry I’m going to decline the plea for growth. I work to the level of income that makes me comfortable and I’m not about to bust a gut just so government can tax me more to spend on their waste.
January 20, 2023
And to take what you’ve saved from taxed income – and tax it again when you die. I was interested (but not suprised) to hear recently, that Austrilans pay no inheritance tax and that even in the US – the threshold for IHT is $12M. What are the incentives to work hard, save and be Prudent?
January 20, 2023
How much foreign investment and what protection from them having more say than ourselves if mass immigration suits their investment?
It seems strange to me that we have all this money taken off us to hand out around the world, then have to go round with the begging bowl for others to come here and invest.
We invest heavily in those being brought here for another pip on the shoulders to show off to the global over lords, yet can’t invest in our own which surely must pay huge dividends for us all.
I love all those talking heads of the media/celebrity world with their script to ‘tax the rich’ and it’s all the fault of the wealthy, all the fault of those privately educated etc. etc. Comedy gold in hypocrisy, they’ll be some of the first to skip town if their remedy was to be followed.
Certain ‘working class hero’s’ sniffing round Wilson, who then cleared off when he took them at their word and taxed the rich.
January 20, 2023
“Tax rises usually do damage. They deter investment, destroy jobs, prevent people spending money, cut business turnover, push rich people out of the country.”
Anyone with common sense already knows this, so it is a deliberate strategy. A strategy that is damaging to the UK, just like mass immigration is destroying the very fabric of our society. I get the feeling we are being ‘punished’ by our pro-EU government for some reason. I wonder if new party candidates will be pro-EU or pro-UK. They can’t be both. Then again, we cannot rely on their honesty either, as experience has taught us that manifestos and election campaigns are just a ploy to get votes, and can be ignored once bums are on seats.
January 20, 2023
Mass immigration from the Third World is going on across the current EU countries, encouraged by EU leaders. What are those countries being ‘punished’ for? This is more like agreed continuation of an agenda despite Brexit.
January 20, 2023
Dear Sir John, perhaps you could list what the Government spends the tax on. We get a breakdown of Council tax to see where the money goes.
Maybe MP’s should have a basic salary and a negative bonus. Every time the Government spends money the bonus is proportionally reduced.This way they will get the feeling of spending their own money and not the tax payers
January 20, 2023
It is available on the gov.uk website âHow public spending was calculated in your tax summaryâ 17/12/2021. The 2022 version is likely to appear soon.
It is also available to any Self-Assessment Tax payer with just a bit of clicking.
January 20, 2023
Back in 1973 when we had the three day week, there were no HMG hand-outs. What has changed? Why canât we be responsible for the way we live?? How do we get rid of the nanny state?
January 20, 2023
hear hear
January 20, 2023
RICHI insists ‘only idiots would cut taxes’. There you have it, the Conservative policy for the future laid bare.
January 20, 2023
Rish! might not be wrong. The usual story is tax cuts leading to more prosperity via more consumption (something that in the past the UK has been good at), but also via creation of new companies, all that providing more employment, and hopefully more taxes collected by HMRC.
This was certainly a reasonable model when unemployment is high, and/or when Foreign Direct Investment is expected to go up (as when the UK was the preferred entry point for the EU markets).
How can anyone be sure that the presently unemployed people are going to queue for a job? or that presently employed people will switch to a better paid possibly more qualified job? or that FDI is going to go up soon and help create more high earning (possibly exporting) new companies?
It might be questions worth asking specially in a country where people with money are more likely to go BTL than invest in start-ups?
An interesting statistics (Hargreaves Lansdown, Investment Times 154) is that the proportion of UK households managing to save has decreased from 50.5% in 07/â22 to 31.8% in 12/â22 and that most of them only have the equivalent of three monthsâ worth of essential expenses in an emergency fund.
So will cutting tax really incite them to âinvest in the UKâ? Answers on a confetto.
January 22, 2023
So why doesnât Ireland put up its Corporation tax from 12.5% to 25% like the rest have agreed to?
Ireland is referred to as a tax haven because of the country’s taxation and economic policies. Legislation heavily favors the establishment and operation of corporations, and the economic environment is very hospitable for all corporations, especially those invested in research, development, and innovation. Source Investopedia
January 20, 2023
In practice:
Four middle aged people.
A senior architect lives in a three story house built in Edwardian times in an English town. His three children all want to live and work abroad.
A secondary school teacher in Australia has just purchased a five bedroom luxury house by the sea in a large city. His two children go to state school nearby and they get free health on state insurance.
A publicity manager lives in Asia virtually tax free. Value of his house: millions of pounds. It is paid off too.
A comfortably off oil man lives in UAE in an enormous house. His job involves fracking.
January 20, 2023
“Why is one of the UK’s greatest entrepreneurs Sir James Dyson having to decry government policy towards jobs and investment?”
A bit of fact checking -DYSON does not make any products in the UK. Based in Asia. How much does DYSON contribute to the UK economy? Nothing as far as I can see. More than happy if someone can show I have got this wrong.
January 20, 2023
His headquarters are in Singapore but there are two R&D centres in Wiltshire (Malmesbury, Hullavington).
His top people pay 22% tax in S while his equivalent UK people might be paying 45% tax.
Where would you prefer to be located?
(dyson.co.uk 03/03/2022)
January 20, 2023
You are very wrong he has contributed to the UK hugely with R&D facilities and his Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology in Malmesbury. In business you have to make things where it is competitive to do so. Rarely is this the UK. Not that I am that keen on his absurdly noisy jet engine hand dryers (give me a silent paper towel please) or rather his rather over priced yellow vacuum cleaners.
January 20, 2023
We have been turned into a socialist state. The Conservative party have implemented WEF policies not the policies in their manifesto that the people voted for.
Every conservative PM in the past 12 years has a page to themselves on the WEF website boasting how they are âWEF leadersâ and not national leaders.
The WEF has become a world Government that nobody voted for and nobody wants.
January 20, 2023
100% correct
January 20, 2023
Problem is that a large portion of your own party believe in a large public sector fed by the efforts of the private sector. While I and much of the Conservative party and people at large believe in your path to post Brexit success, many of your colleagues and specifically your Chancellor do not. The upper echellons of the civil service believe in a big state, logically as they are it, and big business is content with it because they and their accountants can duck and dive to avoid big state constraints by incorporating outside the UK.
I would first redefine the purpose of government, and shrink its involvement in the lives of citizens. I would do much the same with little government such as the mayor of London. Just as the none medical segment of the NHS at 47% requires slash and burn so does the civil service as a whole.
The heart and future of the UK economy are the self employed and the SMEs. They are the ones from whom the burdon of the state needs lifting. End Inheritance Tax entirely, reduce Corporation Tax from Aprils 25% to 10%, move the Income Tax thresholds so that it does not start before ÂŁ20,000 and then runs at 10% until ÂŁ50,000/ÂŁ100,000. Moves like that would cancel nurse impoverishment and put a vast amount of wealth into the economy in ways in which the people choose, not the government. In so doing, the tax take as a finite sum could prkve greater than it is now with punative taxation.
Were I a thirty year old with the tallent I had at that age, I would not waste my time on the UK as it is currently governed. The UK is not worth the effort or the uncertainty. I would be off to more welcoming bases of enterprise. Equally, because I see you as a lone voice, I do not see myself voting for your party in the next election.
January 20, 2023
To crudely demonstrate what I have proposed imagine a nurse earning ÂŁ35,000 gross. Tax starts at ÂŁ12,500 leaving ÂŁ22,500 taxed at 20%=ÂŁ4500 for HMRC. If tax started at ÂŁ20,000 it would leave ÂŁ15,000 to be taxed at 10% = ÂŁ1500 for HMRC. Nurse is ÂŁ3000 better off.
This is not definitive only indicative of what can be achieved by manipulating tax rates. If done sufficient to cover nurses shortfall it solves the problem across the board for every similarly salaried person. Government must then dictate to the scribes what the savings in their activities must be. Savings to be achieved by more productive working or less intrusion in peoples lives.
January 20, 2023
From the OBR website In 2022-23, we expect it to spend ÂŁ1,182 billion, equivalent to around ÂŁ42,000 per household or 47.3 per cent of national income.
ÂŁ42,000. Income tax (including ERS) collected from a median wage earner is ÂŁ8K, plus Council tax ÂŁ2K plus VAT and VED and other Excise duties ÂŁ2K means that from a dual earner median wage earning household we are collecting a maximum of ÂŁ24K. That is ÂŁ18K shortfall and suggests that there are very few net contributors.
Yet our political classes continue to increase spending. Where does the money come from and when will the sluice gate of borrowing become shut to us? Less tax is vital but it can’t happen until politicians stop seeing more money and further intervention as the cure to each problem. “What about the children” has to become “What about the country!” Someone else will not pay as the above figures demonstrate.
January 20, 2023
The left want extra taxes to pay for insulation. Who for? Private householders? Will they want a stake of the property and the share of the insulation cost as a % of what the house is worth that day, if not why not? I read a multi-millionairess got the public to pay for her railings – because she could! Social Housing, well those social houses have rent paid, often by taxpayers because the people living in them are on benefits, where is that profit going, why aren’t they already insulated?
If I’d bought 13,644 homes, 1,606 garages, 83 shops, 8 community centres, 40 playgrounds, a significant amount of land, including development sites with all the previous housing debt written off I would have built and improved many more homes, bringing in more money to reinvest to provide better facilities.
Selling these houses to HA’s shouldn’t have ONLY been the choice of the tenants. We all owned them. When our council owned them, all the people in the Borough owned them. And they call private companies for paying dividends, dividends that go into private sector workers’ pensions and isas as they don’t get taxpayer-guaranteed defined benefit pensions and just rely on multiple savings streams because they have no guarantees.
January 20, 2023
By the way that portfolio was sold for just ÂŁ25.5m in 2012. After the government wrote off housing debt! Housing debt ÂŁ220m, net capital receipt ÂŁ21m.
January 20, 2023
So the Prime Minister would say you are an idiot; I would say ‘It takes one to judge another’.
January 20, 2023
On Talk TV this morning it claims that 30k immigrants have still not be processed from entry illegal or otherwise 10 years ago. Who the hell is picking up that bill then?
By this time they will be knocking out sprogs and claiming immunity from being deported. Government my backside.
It just gets worse on a daily basis.
January 20, 2023
So King Charles is to give a few million back from the vast wind farm profits he makes to charity. Will he also pay the ÂŁtens of billions of IHT he escaped on his mothers estate? Or are taxes only for little people who have a bit more than ÂŁ350K at death and lose 40% of it?
The huge wind farm profit he make are of course from tax payer subsidies and the rip off rigged energy market. Often paid by shivering poor and elderly people and tax payers with insufficient to live on King Charles.
The big mistakes you have mad so far are your and William’s absurd reaction against Lady Hussy and your deluded, hypocritical political interference on Climate Alarmism. But then you have a huge vested interest here in farming tax payer subsidies and the rigged market!
January 20, 2023
As well as being bad in terms of exchanging economic growth for extra inefficient public spending, high taxes are politically bad at elections, especially for parties of the centre-right. As well as Brexit, Boris Johnson won the last election partly because of the promise not to increase Income Tax, National Insurance and VAT instead of Corbyn’s proposed tax increases and unaffordable extra spending. To win elections the Conservative Party should be the party of social sanity (limited immigration and no extraordinary rights for transgender people) and lower taxes.
Sunak apparently disagrees and thinks his government can win a general election by showing he leads an economically competent government that aims to balance the books via more taxing. The flaw in that strategy is that even if his government were relatively competent the opposition can always find, choose and focus attention upon some sphere (and there are many possible spheres) be it growth, unemployment, inflation,trade deficit, personal incomes or whatever let alone increasing taxes where it has done poorly economically and so is not really competent.
So Sunak and his flawed election strategy needs to be replaced by some talented communicator who will go with a low tax growth strategy (Boris Johnson).
January 20, 2023
Fish has a cameo passing in your diary today. I maintain it is misunderstood as an industry in th UK. I am very positive that UK waters, 200nm or the median line, should not be open to foreign boats now we are out of the EU. The UK population have a very limited interest in fish and shellfish so the industry is an export industry. The near market is Spain, France, Belgium, Holland , Germany, Denmark etc. There is potential in the Far East.
Protect fishing as an export industry but do not delude yourself that the UK is into Pulpo Galega, or even Oysters, it isn’t.
January 21, 2023
Agreed, but the inhabitants of these islands used to eat fish in profusion before the CFP made it expensive. This is sometimes advanced as an explanation for their cleverness and inventiveness which seems to have deserted us now. Immigrants still eat fish. If lower prices were to return, would the natives not then reacquire the taste? Especially if they are to be priced out of eating meat?
January 20, 2023
Sir John
The only analysis and reasoning for tax rises is to punish or to go through the make believe scenario that you know what you are doing.
Successively Governments have removed Democracy and the need for a Parliament. Labour got rid of the Governments ability to ensure energy security, created a lame form of devolution and created an unnecessary banking crisis. Labour also abdicated the Treasuries(Governments) control of our banking in the form of the independent BoE. The Conservatives come along and abdicate their responsibility to manage further, they force through ever more Quangoâs to keep friends who couldnât find a proper job on the taxpayers payroll. They then create the OBR because they and the Treasury donât have the intelligence to do the job that their forbearers have been doing for centuries.
So we now have a lame Parliament and Government unable to take on Democratic duties and responsibilities. When someone outside of the UK says jump they say how high.
The only thing left within the Governments remit (and then only just) is to increase tax. Even then the feeling is these rises come from being told to ensure the UK is not competitive.
Sir John as you and many free thinkers keep saying, âits the economy stupidâ High tax takes money from the economy and deliberately and maliciously slows growth
January 20, 2023
“They need to be affordable costed growth promoting tax cuts…”
Costed by whom ?
Hopefully not by the OBR nor by HM Treasury.
January 20, 2023
They knew exactly what they were doing.
Far from getting the country on an even keel, HMG is determined to ruin us all. You can just see it coming, when the country is so much in debt we can’t afford imports, and individuals have reached a point of total apathy concerning their own indebtedness, thanks to the prices explosions, the wonderful new world order people will tell everyone how this can all be solved by the Great Reset, where everyone owns nothing and everyone is happy.
January 20, 2023
One way to help get the deficit down would be to ensure that all current taxes due are actually collected. Given the news this week, perhaps this could start around the cabinet table?
January 20, 2023
We have a lame Duck Government in a lame Duck Parliament.
Taxes are increasing exponentially(a more than 70 year high) because of an imaginary crisis that how ever you take on board it was Government created from their simple act of refusing to Manage.
The bit were they are kicking every one in the teeth is they say there is a problem, they ask every one to cut back on their lives so as to give them more of everyone’s hard earned money. Then they go about increasing the size of the State, creating taxpayer funded entities as if cash is going out of fashion. Then to rub it in the taxpayers face even more, the money is going into unknown pits our Government has no control of and takes no responsibility for.
Itâs as simple as the Government is in refusal, denial, of it is position/duty to manage the State on our behalf. No taxpayer money should ever go anywhere were there is no control â no control by a proper Democratic process.
January 20, 2023
You are only getting to the halfway stage of this depression which started in 2001 when labour started taxing pension and borrowing 30 billion a year to buy artificial growth and the people have voted for that ever since. 3 trillion coming up, thats a lot of artificial growth that went to the few and not the many, as for november 0.1 growth that will be revise down, cost 21 billion on the book and more off the book. They go to war when all else fails which has been in planning for years but the funny thing is they don’t have a army worth pissing on.
January 20, 2023
One great thing I would like to hear. When Government hits the media whether being one of its lame statements or straightforward advertising, when the word money is used it should never be âGovernment Moneyâ, it is âTax Payer Moneyâ
The way Government uses the word money for the most part is illegitimate if not illegal political campaigning.
January 20, 2023
Fiscal Job One for any government wanting to be seen as Conservative: sort out the ‘fiscal drag’, at the next budget.
P.S. I buy most of your arguments in this article, Sir John, but not: ‘Get rid of all the rich foreigners and … we will also lose their investment money to create jobs and say good bye to their spending power diverted to competing countries.’ Some ‘rich foreigners’ are entrepreneurs, who add to our economic performance – but many are just rich (through fair means or foul) and add somewhat to our tax-base but at the cost of pricing our own citizens out of the housing market. Short version: we need to be selective as to who we let in to this country.
January 20, 2023
I believe that you’re not allowed to use the terms ‘drag’ or other inspirational words like ‘growth’ in the Tory
January 20, 2023
High taxation with wasteful spending is deliberate. They know that democracy can only exist in countries with a prosperous middle class. The CAGW scam has been deliberately devised to concoct Net Zero as a way to destroy the economy with supplies of meagre, expensive and intermittent energy and a forced transition to useless evs and heat pumps. There is no energy security when China supplies the wind turbines and solar panels. The next step will be the introduction of a wealth tax.
January 20, 2023
I agree with your posts John but the civil service will not allow it.
January 20, 2023
From the MsM
Quote Rishi Sunak âWe had a massive pandemic for two years, we had to shut the country down, do a bunch of extraordinary things that didn’t come cheap. Now we’ve got this war going on which is having an enormous impact on inflation and interest rates.â
âA senior Tory MP who backed Ms Truss said: âWe do want tax cuts and I don’t think I’m an idiot, frankly. The only way to stimulate the economy is to cut taxes and that’s the conservative way, it always has been.â
It is a rarity for there not to be a war somewhere in the World. Usually the UK is involved and costs a lot of money for our long term safety and security. Usually Governments manage their economy
Yet even after all those Costs he winges about he still increases the size of the State and still has no idea where the money has gone because it appears government is only responsible for collection(tax) not expenditure.
January 20, 2023
@Ian B
âWe desperately need a growth strategyâ
John Redwood, the former Cabinet minister, said: âA tax cut in the budget is essential to help people. We are overtaxing businesses and individuals.
âTax cuts are eminently affordable: in fact it is the tax rises we canât afford, stopping growth and higher pay. This is not the way to go: we desperately need a growth strategy.
January 20, 2023
The easiest way with immigration is for the applicant tangible proof that they have a minimum of ÂŁ25k so they can be considered for acceptance and entry.
That enables them to have no demands what so ever on the State system. If they have proof of skills we need then they can manage until they have paid into the system for 18 months to qualify for any benefits. Australia, Canada have adopted this system access only if you can be no burden on the state.
January 20, 2023
Certainly, “High taxes, low growth, excessive borrowing come from each other. Labour proved that by their more extreme excesses on tax in the 1970s ….” and so to replace this government (and its likely Starmer continuation) in order to be saved we will need a second Thatcher, will we not?
January 20, 2023
SirJ I wouldnât worry too much about our UK tax policy âŠIâve no doubt its being arranged right now at Davos
January 20, 2023
Good morning,
In response to our Prime Minister’s five ‘Edstone’ pledges, suggest the following:
1) Vote Reform
2) Vote Reform
3) Vote Reform
4) Vote Reform
5) Vote Reform
January 20, 2023
Good plan
January 20, 2023
Don’t taxes need to be raised so that essential public services, including the N.H.S., can be funded? Something went wrong with the growth strategy last year, and, to a layman such as me, it now seems unlikely that it will be attempted again in the near future.
January 20, 2023
Enough is enough ; we have reached the stage where all sections of the public are in despair . The recent statement from Hunt has destroyed any hope that the strangulation of the economy is going to end . The poor and the rich see nothing to encourage them . Sir Johns’ post this morning hits the nail on the head . I now favour a revolt from all sections of MPs to force change and , if it means ousting Sunak and Hunt , it must happen . Actions now speak louder than words .
January 20, 2023
From todayâs Telegraph
âRishi Sunak suggested that only âidiotsâ fail to understand why he does not immediately cut taxes to boost the economy.â
Oh I do so hope this has nettled/needled/annoyed a few MPs ..woken them up a bit even.
January 20, 2023
Sir John doesn’t want to lose rich foreigners which means of course he wants more of them. They make sure their profits and surplus cash goes abroad.
I rather he forgot about foreigners and emphasised his energies on getting our people, particularly in England, the ignored nation, to get rich by making products here and keeping ownership, profits and surplus cash here.
January 20, 2023
When our government actually wakes and puts its head into the sunshine, another catastrophe is waiting around the corner to be bailed out by either the tax or energy bill payers. The safe disposal of redundant solar panels. Yet another great article from STT by John Droz highlights the pitfalls of safe disposal of the units which will impact environmental damage. Highlighting the risks of using china manufactured components as their safety standards are not a patch on ours. This is not a UK problem it is a world problem
Solar Realities
Election Integrity
John Droz
http://stopthesethings.com/2023/01/20/unwelcome-treat-tonnes-of-toxic-solar-panels-already-headed-for-a-landfill-near-you/
January 20, 2023
Seen elsewhere, and I couldnât put it better: âThe UK had a distinct competitive advantage in offshore oil and gas and engineering. Has been thrown away by successive governments and this announcement by Starmer will be the final nail in the coffin. Who would invest when it is almost certain that Labour will get voted in in 2024. Rishi’s windfall tax was bad enough – now this.â
The current regime, afaics, do not like growth. Neither does the opposition.
January 20, 2023
The ’70s brain drain has an echo down later years.âA contempary’s older brother, by some ten years, went down the drain back then to the USA and stayed.âYears pass and the younger brother does the same even though the original allure has been diluted.âFrom visits, he had seen what the country had to offer and existing family over there made the move easier.âHis children were born there, not here.âGiven the brains which drained in the ’70s are in part genetic traits, familial later drainage also has an impact.
January 20, 2023
Non-employing businesses should not be included in small employers’ figures. SMEs should start at one employee, not 0.
2019 there were estimated to be 5.9 million UK private sector businesses, 1.4 million of these had employees and 4.5 million had no employees
SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) account for 99.9% of the business population (5.9 million businesses).
January 20, 2023
a-tracy, But only 51.9% of private sector turnover and 53.6% of private sector jobs.
Donât be shy, do not do as Sir John does cleverly sampling his statistics.
January 21, 2023
I believe a-tracy was counting people, not money (turnover). Like her, I believe it’s people that count.
January 21, 2023
Hefner, less work now is being contracted by this government directly to SMEâs, they go to large often foreign companies who register a single office in the UK. Some of these companies prefer their workforce to be made up from single individuals. There should be another word for it âpersonal service companyâ doesnât really sum it up.
A business with a 0 workforce is the equivalent of a self-employed freelance individual.
A business with a 2 person workforce is the equivalent of a partnership.
I believe the statistics should represent that and not just lump all together as Micro. Micro starts from 3 to me.
January 20, 2023
More lost tax revenues with the announcement that the giant Chinese company BYD CO. has agreed to franchises selling their cheaper EVs in the UK. Last year they outsold Tesla. Reported on Net Zero Watch and covered by NALOPKT and Bloomberg. Another lost opportunity? Time to put a tax levy on each vehicle to cover the cost of safe environmental disposal of the batteries in the future? Another real cost for being Net zero.
Up to now the EV owners with subsidies and free council charging points it has been a case of take, take, take
now is the time to start give, give, giving.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/01/19/the-real-winners-of-net-zero-chinas-cheap-evs-will-swamp-europes-car-market/
January 20, 2023
Rishi Sunak vowed to get a âgripâ on inflation again on Thursday as he ruled out tax cuts in the near future. The Prime Minister insisted the public understands that he cannot take immediate action because they are ânot idiotsâ. [The Express] âIâm a Conservative, I want to cut your taxes ⊠I wish I could do that tomorrow, quite frankly, but the reason we canât is because of all the reasons you know. Youâre not idiots, you know whatâs happened.â
Mr Bailey suggested Britain faces an âeasier pathâ out of recession than predicted with a âlong but shallowâ contraction. Interest rates are likely to peak at about 4.5 per cent instead of more than six per cent as had been feared last year.
Who predicted it would be 6%?
January 20, 2023
Government policies have cut the profit on our Buy To Let portfolio by 75% through a combination of harmful tax treatment by successive chancellors and ludicrously fast-rising interest rates.
Bailey, ( that incompetent man, again ), delayed interest rate rises and completely undermined the Truss government so that interest rate rises have been rising faster and further than necessary.
There is really no need for further rate rises as inflation is now on the way down and energy bills are sucking vast sums out of the pockets of taxpayers.
January 20, 2023
Hello Sir `John,
Once again, you are stating the obvious but who is listening in government? It is good you will focus on ways to cut tax in future diaries as you have focused on ways to cut government spending. I mean no disrespect when I say you are tinkering round the edges. What is needed is a ruthless focus on reducing the cost of government, so cut Civil Service numbers by 75%. You cannot control 500,000 Civil Servants who are dedicated to delaying, obstructing & not implementing government policies.
Cut all Quango spending by 50% immediately & stop paying Stonewall with taxpayer’s money & make redundant all Diversity, Inclusion & Equality employees in any taxpayer-funded organisation.
January 20, 2023
Off-topic, I know but of vital importance :
Shamefully, the new guns for the 149 Challenger 2 tanks which are to be upgraded to Challenger 3s, are being bought from Rheinmetall in Germany. The whole upgrade is being carried out in the Uk by a joint venture between BAE and Rheinmetall.
Could you please ask Ben Wallace if a Germany export licence would apply to these tanks, or at least the turret or gun, after they have been upgraded? That would be completely unacceptable.
January 20, 2023
Actually, I would be happy if Wallace faced some blocks to his giving away from our war-stocks.
January 20, 2023
I wonder if our host, as a Conservative MP, has considered the possibility that parliament is stacked with remainers on all sides, therefore the government’s view of “the right thing to do” is coloured by issues such as rejoin.
The EU is not doing well, if the UK does well outside the EU then their dream will be shattered, the public will never accept rejoining a failing bloc that charges us a fortune just to trade with them.
Or is that too much of a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory for a sitting MP, despite all the evidence to suggest that either MPs are dense or they’re up to something?
January 20, 2023
There is one place taxes could be raised.
If we have to have green taxes, then let’s tax the miles a product (and all its components) has to travel to get to a British market.
On that basis, manufacturing in China should become cost-neutral with manufacture in the UK, even if labour costs are different. If green taxes were high enough and the quality of British goods is also high enough (I believe it already is) then there’s no reason to buy from China.
If you want to reduce trade with China (and we should, they’re playing the same long-term game as Russia, only slightly differently) then this would achieve that. If you want to encourage China to do some green stuff, cut emissions etc, then that would also achieve that aim, since the taxes can include the efficiency and perceived “harmfulness” of the methods of production – possibly just taking a blanket view of the source country asa whole rather than at the level of individual companies/products (which would be difficult).
January 20, 2023
In the meantime the Scottish government has (surprise surprise) today announced that they are introducing long term rental controls in the housing market. We have been down that road before. Rent controls donât work. Have never worked. Will never work. There is ample evidence to show that all that happens is that it causes landlords to disinvest from the housing market. Indeed this is already happening, due to the so called âtemporaryâ controls which were brought in last year ostensibly to operate until April. The disinvestment will now speed up, resulting in less housing being available to rent, spiralling rents and hurting the very people that the government wants to protect. We really need to stop electing stupid people to Parliament. They seem to think they can move investors around like pieces on a chessboard. The reality is that the people who would otherwise have invested just simply say âbye byeâ.
January 20, 2023
Rishi thinks people with viewpoints like us are idiots JR đ
Zorro
January 20, 2023
The idiot chucks money at all and sundry, gets a fixed penalty notice while boasting about it, and stashes away tax money for Labour to spend.
January 20, 2023
We’re lucky he didn’t call us deplorables.
Is there a word for someone who doesn’t remember to wear a seatbelt?
January 20, 2023
Human.
Forgetful.
January 20, 2023
I see that the British company Harbour Energy, having previously decided not to bid in the current North Sea licensing round, will now be making redundancies in Aberdeen. The Energy Profits Levy is doing real damage to our economy and to the resilience of our energy supply; it should be scrapped. And the government should stop kow-towing to Labour’s socialist demands.
January 20, 2023
I see it being reported that the Rail Minister has stated that it would have been cheaper just to settle the rail dispute than to have pursued the government’s current policy.
January 21, 2023
but the message to all is then ‘strike to force pay increase which always works’.
Cave in to demands will rapidly follow.
January 21, 2023
Why would it have been cheaper?
Is it because this government is covering rail companies profits and turnover, if so donât pay the rail companies the subsidies on any day they donât offer the service. It is the rail companies whose EMPLOYEES arenât satisfied with their employer.
Trains are getting cancelled all the time now on days they are working. People are getting tired of this strike, paying subsidies for companies that are taking the Mickey out of the general public.
Your solution just fill their pockets with everything they are for, how many businesses do you run Peter? Do they only provide services to the public sector that pays you whether you work or not?
January 21, 2023
“Why would it have been cheaper?” I suggest asking the Rail Minister for his calculations. My understanding is that things such as the total loss of revenue are now greater than offering a better pay deal would have cost in the first place.
It has also been reported by the General Secretary of the RMT that a deal that was previously agreed between the union and the employers was, in his words, “torpedoed” by the government. If the employers and employees had come to a deal that both were happy with, why, other than to play politics, would the government interfere?
As a country, we can’t recruit or retain enough nurses or teachers. Is this government really serious about dealing with those challenges, or is playing politics more important? What about market forces? In the private sector, if you can’t recruit or retain at the salary you’re offering, the solution is usually a pretty simple one.
January 22, 2023
Peter, I hope someone in the press with more clout than me does clarify with the Rail Minister. I would also like to know the full story behind the GS of the RMTâs claim that a previous deal was âtorpedoedâ by government.
There are people wanting to train as nurses (Iâve not researched teachers yet) who are turned away from courses. I would shake the whole lot up. I would revert to successful past practices of longer term on the job nursing training with day release from the age of 16. I would encourage a lot more male trainees into nursing, they will train as paramedics but donât like the word ânurseâ it needs changing. Men will often take more unsociable shifts because they donât have primary child-caring responsibilities, the public are quite happy to be treated by male paramedics so we should have ward paramedics. 85% women too many, by the time they finish their degree they are 21, they need time out for child-care and want to retire at 60, the reported health problems are high, the shift lengths are too long although they do like only 3 days to help with childcare. More evenings, weekends, nights earns a lot more money.
Whatever, the current model the nursing unions prescribe arenât working and havent for decades. John Tweets âThe Chief Executive of the NHS said the strikes are a dispute between the staff and the government where she is neutral. Surely as the person who hires, appoints and pays the staff she needs to lead on employee issues and agree a policy with Ministers.â She needs to leave, she is responsible.
January 20, 2023
So Sunak again shows us he’s operating out of a parallel universe. Very bright but daft as a brush.
January 20, 2023
I have long wished that Sir John was chancellor.
January 21, 2023
If any one of the recent PMs from Cameron onwards had chosen him, they would probably still be PM and we would all be a lot better off.