In the closing years of the Thatcher/Major Conservative governments Ministers accepted dreadful advice from the Bank of England and Treasury. They based UK economic policy on the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. I wrote a pamphlet, made speeches, lobbied Ministers not to do this pointing out it would lead to high inflation or recession. One Cabinet Minister agreed with me and a few economists and commentators. Labour, the CBI and TUC agreed with the officials. They had their way, caused a big inflation, then gave us a savage recession to correct the first error. Conservatives plunged to around 30% in the polls when the damage of the policy became clear and stayed there until the election which resulted in the loss of 178 seats.The present government is too trusting of current Bank/ Treasury advice. It has given them high inflation. The Bank has blamed the Ukraine war impact on energy and food prices yet Switzerland, China and Japan avoided such a result despite sharing the same world inflation pressures. The UK inflation rate was already 275% over target before the war. Now the Bank threatens to make the opposite mistake and cause a recession. It ignored the advice I and some others offered not to print so much money in 2021 and buy so many bonds at crazily high prices. It now wants to undermine the bond market further with large sales of bonds at ever lower prices.It is vital that before Parliament breaks up for a long summer recess the Chancellor changes economic policy and the Bank of England produces the results of its review of its economic model and forecasts. The country needs and deserves a better policy. There are ways to bring inflation down faster and grow the economy more. We need to lift more people out of real income hits and low spending power through better paid jobs. The Conservative party also needs to be more competitive, to avoid a Labour government which would make the economy worse and would double down on policy tendencies that are creating inflation and slow growth. The danger is that people, disappointed with the last couple of years of economic performance, vote to impose a worse approach on themselves in frustration.The Bank of England has wisely and bravely admitted that it has been getting inflation forecasts horribly wrong. It admits its current model of the economy does not work and has said it now ignores most of what its model says. This is dangerous. The whole purpose of the Monetary Policy Committee is to forecast inflation, then to adjust policy to keep it around 2% in the light of the forecast. Two and three years ago the Bank was confidently forecasting inflation would stay around 2%. It soared to over 11%, way outside acceptable margins of error in what is a difficult task. The MPC cannot have a clear take on what to do all the time it cannot define the extent of the inflationary problem ahead. The Treasury and the Treasury Committee of Parliament should urge the Bank to make early changes to their model. They need to back test the new model and change it sufficiently so it can forecast what has happened . Then we might have a model that the Bank can rely on more when charting the future. I doubt they can get a model to work without including a bigger role for money and credit, which they currently ignore in their MPC publications. We have a Money Policy Committee that does not do money.The Bank should study the Peoples Bank of China’s critique of the Federal Reserve Board of the USA which made similar mistakes to the Bank of England for similar reasons. China currently has inflation at 0.2% and did not experience an inflation overrun from world oil and food prices surging over the Ukraine war. China criticises the over expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. There is now a danger that the Fed and the Bank of England over contract their balance sheet as they try to correct past mistakes. In doing so the Fed helped bring down some regional banks. The Bank of England helped bring down the highly leveraged Liability Driven Investment bond funds, including the large holding in its own pension fund. Both Central Banks stopped the damage spreading by creating more money to offset the big sales of bonds they were undertaking to drive up interest rates.If the Bank sells fewer bonds the Treasury will be spared some huge losses. They should stop shrinking their balance sheet so much before something other than LDI funds breaks.The Treasury has set itself against any tax cuts on the grounds they would increase the deficit and therefore inflation. Meanwhile the Treasury approves many new increases in spending both for new programmes and to compensate for inflation of costs and poor productivity in many parts of the public sector. Inflationary increases in public spending are clearly generally inflationary. The CPI is now powered upwards by service sector inflation. The Treasury needs to be encouraging higher pay for higher output, with something for something public sector pay deals . It needs to put a stop on more recruiting ither than front line and uniformed staff into the public sector, promoting and streamlining from within. NHS England has recruited an extra 3500 managers this Parliament to supervise a big fall in productivity. This has to be reversed.There are tax cuts that do not lead to tax revenue losses, as Ireland shows us. Their Corporation tax rate half the UK’s produces four times as much revenue per head as the UK rate. We need a supply side revolution, with business expansion and more investment in extra capacity. Lift IR 35 from the self employed. Raise the VAT threshold for small business. These measures will boost output. Suspend VAT on fuel and see inflation fall. Take carbon taxes off high energy using firms to avoid closures and relieve cost pressures.
A new economic policy needs to rely on selective tax cuts and supply side measures to bring inflation down, and on driving a productivity catch up or recovery in public services to help bring state borrowing down. The Bank hitting mortgage holders ever harder to reduce their spending will not cure inflation, With government pressing for savers to get more interest their demand can rise as their children’s demand falls as a result of the mortgage squeeze.
July 12, 2023
Good morning.
The problem as I see it is that too many people are just using what few tools they have to tackle the problems that they are meant to solve. For example. The BoE can only tackle inflation and to do that it has only two tools at its disposal. 1) Interest rates. 2) Money printing / QE. Neither is enough to control inflation and the control of inflation is only one aspect of the economic model. So the processes of government have hobbled themselves.
The late Chancellor, Lord Lawson and his predecessors had full control of the economy. From taxes, to interest rates, to subsidies and spending. ALL under his control. With such control he was able to make changes as things suited.
I am no economic expert but, if I believed that price inflation was a cause of our problems I would not be hiking interest rates, I would be hiking VAT. Yes I know it itself would be inflationary but, it would also put a break on consumption and, in most cases, VAT does not have to be paid if nothing is purchased.
I argued a long time ago that I thought interest rates were too low and that they should have been raised to control house price inflation. But the government kept them low so that they could borrow cheaply and spend and, to inflate the asset market and cream off more money via Stamp Tax. Sheer greed !
Now the people are paying for government largess and incompetence. We are also paying for putting our trust in fools and liars.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
July 12, 2023
History has repeated itself because nobody learnt from the last fiasco.
The quality of 90% of our politician’s just begs belief. The people on the street who really took the hit at that time have never forgotten it as it destroyed many of their lives.
We still don’t learn. To give an amnesty to 10k so called unknown immigrants is just reinforcements for the forward column of infiltrators already here to form the bedrock for the eventual demise of British life and cultures.
July 12, 2023
+1 TT
July 12, 2023
And me =2 guys!
July 12, 2023
Meanwhile, the previous week ‘Conservative Home’ columnist – yes, columnist even though he was booted out by the Tories – has been telling the readership ‘There Is No Alternative’.
He seems to get a favourable response on that site.
July 12, 2023
The sensible readers are prevented by the moderator from commenting.
July 12, 2023
Re “The quality of 90% of our politician’s just begs belief” correct, but the quality of 90% of our public sector just beggars belief too. The absolute shockingly poor quality of their work, ethos, etc. The whole country is ruined by having to drag such a poorly performing public sector along behind it. Then a lot of our private sector is really the public sector in disguise too, as such significant parts of their work is simply doing stuff the public sector is incapable of doing, but still on the public purse. If this mass of inefficient incompetence could just get out of the way of the rest of us we would all be richer, healthier and happier. Its not going to happen though with the Conservative in name only government we have.
July 12, 2023
Iain Gill
+1
July 12, 2023
Labour is in government and Mr Redwood supports them. They’re called the Conservative Party, a party that now exists simply to grease the careers of those who belong to it. That’s unacceptable
July 12, 2023
It seem so and the only alternative is Labour or a dire coalition of Labour/SNP/Libdims so even worse.
July 12, 2023
Toby Young on Twitter – “Labour’s commitment to bring state-backed censorship of the press into force to fight ‘misinformation’ means if you thought things were bad now, they can only get worse with Labour.”
Indeed yes but so much “misinformation” or propaganda comes from government:- the suppression of the source of covid, the pushing of pointless lockdowns, masks, the net harm vaccines even for young people to protect granny, the vaccine efficiency lies, net zero and climate alarmism, the claims to have delivered a real Brexit, the causes of inflation (actually Sunak’s QE, net zero, the lockdowns, the vast gov. waste and corruption, the open door low skilled migration policies, vast tax increases…)
July 12, 2023
Some truth hear but not on vaccines, it is quite clear the vaccines did a remarkable job saving lives and making people less ill than they otherwise would have been. It’s true they didn’t stop the spread of infection as anticipated and hoped for. The claims about them causing large numbers of unexplained deaths are nonsense.
The problem with this is if conservatives (small c) here and elsewhere continue to push this anti-vaxx nonsense amidst sensible comment, the sensible bit will get ignored! I suggest you (and others) drop it. The evidence simply isn’t there.
July 12, 2023
Richard1
The evidence is overwhelming, from experts who have conducted detailed analysis of official data. The one thing that cannot be hidden is deaths. Excess deaths that simply keep piling up and coincide with jab roll out and boosters.
July 12, 2023
150 excess deaths each and ever day about 100K of excess deaths (non respiratory) so far. How much evidence do you need. The stats are clear the vaccines did vast net harm and more certainly for those under 60. Please study the stats properly – the vaccines even killed young people who were never at any serious risks from Covid.
“It is quite clear the vaccines did a remarkable job saving lives and making people less ill than they otherwise” Not true the main reason people we less ill later in the pandemic is better treatments and milder variants. Sill 150 excess all cause death a day.
July 12, 2023
Lifelogic, you don’t have to vote for Labour/SNP/Libdims or Tories. It is time the existence of alternative small c conservative parties was made more public, pushed even. If enough get into parliament, if not into government, they can at least influence parliamentary goings on.
What is clear is that the country cannot survive anymore socialist skullduggery.
July 12, 2023
No you do not “have” to but the other sensible parties will be lucky to win a single seat let alone any power.
July 12, 2023
@DOM The people may have voted over overwhelmingly for members of the Conservative Party. But just as the Conservative Party didn’t vote for those in this Government neither did the electorate. You could say this Government has no legitimacy. The Conservative Party is to blame for allowing it(the Party) to be high-jacked and ignored by those with a different agenda – maybe that was the left wings plan.
July 12, 2023
After Liz, the vote for PM should’ve gone back to the membership ….I can only describe it as a coup
July 12, 2023
+1
July 12, 2023
Surely you are being too kind; the PCP must be defined as socialists bent on national extinction.
I draw a major distinction between the appalling PCP and the true Conservative membership.
July 12, 2023
+many
July 12, 2023
It will be interesting to see who loses their seats at the next election and immediately picks up well paid posts in the charitable and net zero scams.
Already a fair amount are baling out of the sinking
July 12, 2023
Yip! You got that right Dom! But in my mind it applies to all in Westminster , bar a few like Sir John and Jacob Reece – Mogg
July 12, 2023
Yes indeed, it’s only in the UK that organisations as thoroughly useless as the information commissioners office can survive on the public payroll while so spectacularly failing in their basic role. And a political class which allows it. It’s an outrageous disgrace.
July 12, 2023
“The country needs and deserves a better policy” – oh we know! We will not be getting it from this government though, will we.
July 12, 2023
There is nothing ‘brave’ about the BoE admitting its inflation forecasts were wrong, any more than a weather forecaster who wrongly predicted rain would be showing courage in recognising that it didn’t rain. What would be brave would be for the government to completely overhaul the BoE, including P45s for its directors, and start again with a different kind of national bank run more like the Chinese, Japanese and Swiss models SJR mentions. But has the Tory party got the courage to try and save itself from meltdown at the next election? It doesn’t look like it.
July 12, 2023
According to GB News this morning, the IMF has warned British citizens that there will be more interest-rate rises coming soon, making it abundantly clear who is really running the British economy.
It was the IMF which effectively sacked Kwarteng and a couple of weeks later Truss (who had dared to propose a different financial strategy) in favour of their Preferred Puppets, Hunt and Sunak who went straight back to the orthodoxy.
Sir John can write all the articles he likes, pointing out to Sunak, Hunt and the LibCONs the failure of the decisions being made – they’re not allowed to change the IMF’s policy.
July 12, 2023
Thanks to politicians being fooled by the great lie of liberalism.
ie that it has anything whatsoever to do with care and kindness
We now have several generations of lefty liberals who imbibed said nonsense in school.
And now they are in charge!
July 12, 2023
We need the Reform Party to ruffle some feathers, to upset the apple cart, to kick up a fuss ….it needs a change as the next cohort of labour & tory politicians are just the same
July 12, 2023
Agree 100%
July 12, 2023
Perhaps you could save time and simply re-post the exact same message every day – “things are terrible, it’s the BoE’s fault, it’s the OBR’s fault, it’s not at all the fault of the Conservative government that’s been in power thirteen years”. O hang on …. that is what you are doing!
July 12, 2023
I agree with your comment apart from who’s fault it is – its this tory government, the tory MPs for backing it, the tory party for supporting them and the tory voters like me (never again) for electing a government with history of empty promises and inaction
July 12, 2023
Lemming, do you actually read John’s post or just come here each day to repeat your false claims?
1. It is vital that before Parliament breaks up .. the Chancellor changes economic policy and the Bank of England produces the results of its review of its economic model and forecasts. The country needs and deserves a better policy.
2. The Conservative party also needs to be more competitive,
3. The Treasury has set itself against any tax cuts ….The Treasury needs to be encouraging higher pay for higher output,. It needs to put a stop to more recruiting other than front line and uniformed staff into the public sector.. an extra 3500 managers this Parliament ..has to be reversed.
There are tax cuts that do not lead to tax revenue losses..We need a supply side revolution..Lift IR 35.. Raise the VAT threshold for small business. Suspend VAT on fuel. Take carbon taxes off high energy-using firms to avoid closures and relieve cost pressures.
Sounds like he is holding the Chancellor and his party to account to me!
July 12, 2023
“The Conservative party also needs to be more competitive, to avoid a Labour government which would make the economy worse and would double down on policy tendencies that are creating inflation and slow growth. The danger is that people, disappointed with the last couple of years of economic performance, vote to impose a worse approach on themselves in frustration.”
“Disappointed” doesn’t even begin to describe the absolute fury of those Conservative/conservative voters – who voted Johnson an 80 seat majority, primarily to Get Brexit Done (not Brino+) and for controlled and reduced levels of immigration.
It isn’t just the appalling economic performance which is going to see the Not-a-Conservative-Party obliterated in 2024, as even Ken Clarke is now recognising.
July 12, 2023
Yes, the high hopes we all had for Bunter, after the appalling assistant librarian from Maidenhead, was such a disappointment. Now we have an inexperienced Maitre’D as pm, who does what he’s told by some unelected club. Suggest you keep reserves in a secure location.
July 12, 2023
Indeed. The Tory’s imposed Soonout on us and will pay a heavy price.
July 12, 2023
Apparently the latest banking debacle
Which appears to be targeting businesses dealing in cash
Is badly affecting our defence industry
One day all the jig saw pieces will click into place and we will see the full picture…
July 12, 2023
Not certain how it works
But surely if the treasury wanted the tories to get back in
They would make/allow tax cuts?
July 12, 2023
Good article. There’s much about this government that disappoints, but it’s attachment to failing policies – ‘sticking to the plan’ – is the worst aspect.
I also think that Sunak is spending too much time on international matters. The battleground for the general election will be domestic issues. Sunak should leave more of the foreign affairs stuff to, er, the Foreign Secretary and get stuck in to what matters to the man in the street.
July 12, 2023
Sunak’s carrying out an extended job application for a high profile position in one of the Globalist organisations he represents in the UK, for when he’s kicked out of No.10.
You don’t really think he is putting the interests of the UK first and foremost do you?
July 12, 2023
Soonout needs his five minutes of fame before he disappears like the rest of the Tory failures.
July 12, 2023
Supply side measures gain only a brief mention in your latest critique. But government supply side measures on energy – the most significant sector arguably – have been unconvincing in the context of the continued legal commitment to net zero. There’s no way a man like Sunak will relent in this area. That would be tantamount to admitting to his international friends that he’s been wrong. Labour is coming, and they are even more explicitly committed to destruction in the name of the ‘climate emergency’.
July 12, 2023
‘The danger is that people, disappointed with the last couple of years of economic performance, vote to impose a worse approach on themselves in frustration.’
That is just what the sheeple will do! It will only be a change of colour but will do nothing to prevent the plans put forward by the WEF from being implemented largely by MP’s schooled by that rotten organisation. If people do not change their voting habits, as we are witnessing in the Netherlands, we are sunk.
July 12, 2023
The problem is, BOF that most of the ‘sheeple’ are unaware of the existence of alternatives. The media are all or at least supportive, of the status quo and provide no publicity for Reform and the like. My wife will continue to vote for the destructive Tory party because she knows no better and of course hubby knows nothing.
July 12, 2023
J H
Sigh… I know how you feel.
July 12, 2023
I don’t agree with the philosophy of increasing wages through better jobs. Many jobs can’t be bettered, yet need to be done.
Better to reduce living costs through reducing taxes and housing costs. Higher interest rates are doing something to bring down house prices, so better not steepen the curve right now and put people into negative equity. After this reduction has gone through, bear down in house price inflation further by ending foreign ownership and limit sales for second homes and holiday lets. Reduce taxes by shrinking the bloated state.
July 12, 2023
I’m glad you said that, Dave. My Nan was a cleaner her entire life and an excellent cleaner she was, working in a hospital. What would be done? Replace her with a robot mop, duster and vacuum because her job isn’t deemed good enough. This attitude leaves many non-disabled people unwilling to work in necessary, essential roles because those jobs are overlooked. If they’re not done well, sickness bugs in hospitals spread like billy-o. Older people are bullied and left on the floor in care homes; pavements are overgrown with weeds and grass etc.
July 12, 2023
Exactly we need growth and the government policies are all designed to kill any growth and export jobs and industries with over regulation, bloated inept government, currency debasement, over tax borrow and endless waste, net zero lunacy, the idiotic lockdowns, the net harm for most vaccines…
“Our pensions are now piggy banks for the Chancellor’s pet projects
Governments are fond of tinkering with retirement plans, but it has usually ended in economic tears” Hunt is a disaster amd getting worse.
Philip Johnston today.
Also Tony Abbott one of the very a rare PPE Oxon people in politics who still has an ability for rational thinking. (Nigel Lawson, Ann Widecombe two others)
“Neo-Marxists have won the battle of ideas
When culture trumps the public finances, centre-Right politicians face an existential challenge”
July 12, 2023
What a truly dire list of politician PPE graduates this with very very rare exceptions:-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Oxford_people_with_PPE_degrees
So is it the degrees or are in the main only truly dire deluded lefty people drawn to such a degree?
July 12, 2023
Lifelogic, they get away with abusing private sector pensions because we’re not a large collective, and no one defends our position. They are all ok in the public sector. Nor do they appreciate how much all their extra holidays, sick pay, perks, and benefits cost annually (they are purposefully hidden).
We need a party to represent us, our taxes, and our pensions like the diligent labour party protects their members.
July 12, 2023
Sir John
Will they change, will they listen to those that voted, pay and empowered them, the answer will be no on all counts.
If there is no World wide conspiracy, they are certainly playing into the hands of those with Globalist Socialist views. A good Conservative would have created before anything else an economy to fund anything and everything that is thrown at the Country.
This is clearly not a Conservative Government and the Conservative Party has a lot to answer for. The words due diligence comes to mind.
July 12, 2023
@Ian B – However, well stated Sir John unfortunately your hard work at being a Conservative while resonating with the Country at large it is falling flat were it matters
July 12, 2023
To much money and people chasing too few resources = inflation.
Your article does not mention net-zero and immigration. It also does not mention your government’s attack on landlords which has pushed rental prices up significantly.
The Bank of England and the Treasury may have exacerbated the effects of government policy but this mess is entirely of your government’s own making. You mention China, Switzerland and Japan as having low inflation, well they do not encourage net-zero nor do they welcome hoards of immigrants.
July 12, 2023
Not hoards. 1.2 million every year, plus 50,000 plus illegals who they refuse to deport. Then they wonder why we have 7.4 million and rising English NHS waiting list, no dental services, lack of school places, congestion on our roads, a housing crisis etc etc. Tory incompetence is everywhere and Soonout is away on another foreign jolly. I wonder how much of our taxes he’ll promise to give away this time?
July 12, 2023
…and every Tory MP when asked, replies that ‘Immigrant is great for the country’
July 12, 2023
As you say largely due to Majors predictable ERM disaster “Conservatives plunged to around 30% in the polls when the damage of the policy became clear and stayed there until the election which resulted in the loss of 178 seats.”
This was despite the fact that post leaving the ERM disaster the economy had had years to recover and was relatively sound by the time of the election. Though the fool Major failed to even apologise for his ERM disaster and pointless recession and still pushed ever more anti-democratic EU treaties.
This time Sunak obviously plans to enter the next election in the middle of these house repossessions, huge economic pain, with his five broken pledges, open door migration, net zero rip off energy lunacy, taxes the highest for 70+ years and still increasing due to the inflation he caused still being rampant . Clearly he is trying to bury the party for 4+ terms this time and lose even more Con-socialist seats. Yet another socialist PPE dope.
July 12, 2023
The Not-a-Conservative-Government is slowly realising that a pre-election tax cut isn’t going to save it from the hammering it so thoroughly deserves.
And the Establishment is slowly waking up to the fact that the Blue-Green branch of the Westminster Uni-Party may be so badly trounced that it will give a genuine conservative alternative an opportunity to break the CONsensus. Hence Bilderberger Ken Clarke’s article in the DT saying a watered-down version of the Rwanda Plan must go ahead.
July 12, 2023
A pre election tax cut to be reversed that day over an election is a worthless promise.
July 12, 2023
Meanwhile, the previous week ‘Conservative Home’ columnist David Gauke – yes, columnist even though he was booted out by the Tories – has been telling the readership ‘There Is No Alternative’.
He seems to get a favourable response on that site.
July 12, 2023
Difficult to understand why they stuck with the old model programmes for so long, when they were so often inaccurate. Is it simply because no one was held to account, or did they think that an error of that magnitude simply did not really matter.
July 12, 2023
A pub landlord objected to the legal requirement of having to pay unskilled workers such a high minimum rate. He explained it stopped him paying his skilled chefs the differential he feels they deserve because his local customers would reject the added impact on price.
Legal minimum pay is odd, and often a bad burden to impose. Workers should be paid according to what the market accepts as a fair balance of worth. Folk working alone, such as window cleaners have to accept that reality, meeting high performance standards constantly.
Minimum pay for an employee is as daft as a law stating fish and chips should not be offered for sale below £19.27 plus VAT.
July 12, 2023
indeed it is a law saying low skilled workers cannot work even if they want too. Perhaps they prefer to work in a garden centre next door for £8 PH rather than £10PH in a factory 10 miles away perhaps earning less after commuting costs.
July 12, 2023
But that’s only the legit pubs employing legit employees ….and they’re competing with half the high street foreign restaurants & takeaways, perhaps not aware of minimum wage laws
July 12, 2023
While I agree with your economic policy, there is a real problem with the “establishment view”.
Bailey and his establishment friends deliberately plotted and successfully ousted Liz Truss, in what was in reality, nothing less than a thinly concealed coup. I am no longer sure that any government could diverge from Treasury orthodoxy along the lines you suggest.
July 12, 2023
Inflation is always the result of money printing. Your government, Mr Redwood, engaged in massive money printing for the fake pandemic. This was entirely predictable and of no surprise at all to anyone capable of thinking and breathing at the same time. You insult our intelligence to claim that it is the result of bad advice from the Bank of England. To also claim that the cure for appallingly bad policy is more policies from the same people is laughable. Government should get out of economics altogether seeing that everything it does makes things worse. Cut regulation, cut public sectors workers, cut taxation and stick to keeping the roads usable and borders secure (not that you can even do that competently).
July 12, 2023
A lengthy contribution, but none of your own lot are listening or ever have done. You must find it very frustrating. At some point it will dawn on you that you are in a party that has moved away from you. Fear not they have moved away from almost all who have voted for them in the past. Time for a serious reassessment.
July 12, 2023
Hoping SJR will move away from his position is useless. It doesn’t matter how dangerous his party in government is, no matter how it allows or encourages the breakup of our economy, political and cultural lives, he will always support it. He will write pieces like this, as if that removes all blame from him. It helps them in their wrongdoing because they know they have nothing to fear from him.
July 12, 2023
If we’ve all sussed its a Not a Conservative Party. I’m sure Sir John, Sir Bill and Sir Jacob etc have all sussed it too. So what are they going to do about it? It’s a tad late now!!
July 12, 2023
So strange that govt.s never managed to solve the homelessness problem.
We are now apparently spending £500,000 per day on empty pre booked hotel rooms..
Just in case there is a “surge” ( surely not!)
The 4**** treatment proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that had the political will been there we never would have had a housing problem nor a GP and dentist one!
Tens of thousands jumping all the queues.
I challenge any politician of any persuasion to disprove that!
July 12, 2023
Oh yes.
And as for taking refugees into our homes.
Have we ever taken indigenous homeless into our homes?
Politicians are totally divorced from reality.
July 12, 2023
For now they’re ASKING you to admit migrants to your home…..
July 12, 2023
The surge isn’t any longer from the encampments in Calais, we have all of them, the surge now starts in North Africa and Turkey and arrives a couple of months later ….we are the pull factor
July 12, 2023
Meanwhile the Lib/Lab Lords and the bogus Conservatives are busily manufacturing loopholes for illegal immigrants and holding up the legislation for as long as they can.
July 12, 2023
Mr. Redwood – how many of your Tory MP colleagues agree with your general position?
If there are enough of you to effectively remove the government’s majority (about 40 would be needed?) – you owe it to your country to force Sunak and Hunt to listen. It’s time to put country before party. Will you do it?
Time’s running out. After the next election you won’t be an MP any more and your party will face extinction.
Reply Yes there are more than 40 but we cannot usually win votes to change policies we do not like because those policies are backed by Labour.
July 12, 2023
The fact that Labour back the Government policies that you dislike says it all!
July 12, 2023
But Sir John, as shown by the amendments to the immigration bill your leaders do not want to be seen as requiring the votes of the opposition to get things done.
The 40 or more of you could make a difference to us by dissenting with your votes.
July 12, 2023
GB News in the form of Liam Halligan has said about 60.
July 12, 2023
I remember that fiasco and the fools who voted in the direction they had been pushed!
Most voters do not have a clue !
July 12, 2023
Of the currently 354 Conservative MPs it seems only about 20 Conservative MPs are listening to you. Ken Clarke thinks the Conservatives need time in opposition. The last time the UK was the sick man of Europe it was the fault of Government. The UK is doomed to become the sick man of Europe again as a fault of Government. Ask the British people if they feel they live in the 7th richest country in the World. What is wrong with the Conservative Government with its huge majority that it has the opportunity to Govern but fails to do so.
July 14, 2023
Ken Clarke wants us tied back into EU rules by aligning with the SM and CU and taking all the restrictions; he believes the best way of achieving that is with a Labour government, even though this Conservative party has conceded so much for so little.
July 12, 2023
Make no mistake, these two “mistakes” are deliberate actions to destroy our economy. They tried firstly with the ERM and now, far more seriously, with the attempted implementation of the impossible Net Zero Strategy using the totally false premise that we have CAGW evidenced by “the oceans are boiling” (ex VP Al Gore at the last WEF conference).
The idea that we can power ourselves with renewables is complete nonsense. Downloading the demand, wind and solar data for 2022 into an Excel spreadsheet and quadrupling offshore wind, doubling onshore wind and tripling solar as proposed by Labour last month shows that we will still have times when we are short of up to 42.4 GW of power.
To put this in perspective, and using the Dogger Bank Wind Farm metric that “1.2 GW will power up to 6 million homes”, – 42.4 GW will result in no power to up to 212 million homes (28 million total in the UK).
There are no plans at all for any grid scale backup, which leaves us with CCUS which requires lots of gas. But the plan is to close down our gas production from the North Sea!
The giveaway was when our PM, then Chancellor, said at COP26:
“So our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero.”
July 12, 2023
++++
Spot on!
July 12, 2023
They’re traitors to the sovereign democracy and traitors to the indigenous people
July 12, 2023
This Government is out of control. It’s clear to most people that they are wasting far too much of our money. Your party still has a huge majority, use it. Stop pussy footing around immigration and sort it out. Forget the Lords and their leftist ideals. Cull the quangos and the faux charities that are funded by the taxpayer. I was just looking at the list of young WEF leaders based in our country and most were in highly paid parasitic jobs that add no value to our wealth and growth.
What do we get from the media as our Government flushes our country down the toilet? Yet another smoke screen of a nonstory about some pictures from a non-entity C-list celebrity that people will have forgotten about in a few weeks.
July 12, 2023
Losing big didn’t harm John Major.
Losing big now won’t harm its architects, Sunak and Hunt.
It all seems to be going to plan.
You’ve got Labour pretending to be all things to all people, but without the turning-around economy, they usually inherit.
Just listening to the next generation on what they think Labour are going to do for them is an interesting exercise:
1. They will bring down rents with rent caps and help people buy by building more affordable homes for first-time buyers.
2. Create more free nursery places with a newly launched Sure Start for over one year olds reducing childcare costs for all (I wasn’t aware of that one!).
3. Cap mortgage interest by taking it from savings, pensions, and investments of older adults who got their gains unfairly by just buying a house or inheriting money.
4. All the while protecting public service unionised workers who will get significant pay increases for fewer hours/days; 4 days work for the price of 5 oh, and productivity isn’t going to be affected by that because they’ll be happier and stop working to rule, inflation won’t be affected by that at all, the imbalance between public and private perks no-one will be bothered with that!
5. Oh, and the arts will get lots of funding equal to Germany.
6. Child Trust Funds will be reinstated, and money while at college.
7. Businesses will pay for everything, and non-doms and rich people, not general taxation.
Money for nothing; get your kicks for free. Will their kicks become legalised to apply the tax?
July 12, 2023
Home Office data as at 11th July 2023
Illegal Immigrants – 34
Small Boats – 1
Sunak it isn’t stopping
July 12, 2023
glen
He said he will stop them by the end of the year – When the bad weather makes it impossible for them to travel 😉
July 12, 2023
What ….we’ve got to wait till December
July 13, 2023
December can be mild, wait until Feb/March…
July 12, 2023
In what world do the PM & Chancellor live? Both appear deaf to any opinion that conflicts with their group-think Treasury & BOE orthodoxy. If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got! Are they both thick or just plain stupid? You would never think we are only a year or so from a GE. Both could write a book on how to upset & antagonise voters.
Why, Sir John, do you & the 39* colleagues not go & see the PM & demand a change of direction?
* only 39 – what a disgrace, it should be 309 at least!
July 12, 2023
They’re both one-trick pony ….raise the interest rate, raise the interest rate & raise the interest rate
July 12, 2023
Excellent article. Do you get the chance to put these arguments to ministers in private fora & if so do you get any sensible response?
July 12, 2023
How about dispensing with politeness, tell the government publicly in a speech what they are (though you would find it hard to get your speech broadcast) – socialists, globalists, internationalists deliberately digging this country’s grave with their every policy, not only financial? There is little time.
July 12, 2023
Apparently Theresa May has a new book coming out entitled ‘An Abuse of Power’
I will leave it up to you to make of it what you will…..
July 12, 2023
LOL. I wonder who suggested the title?
July 12, 2023
Well she should know. Just ask David Davis 😉
July 12, 2023
Andrew Bailey is doing a cracking job in promoting LGBTQIA++ rights.
I thought his job was supposed to be controlling inflation, but apparently not.
July 12, 2023
Priorities my old mucker priorities
July 12, 2023
“It [the BoE] admits its current model of the economy does not work and has said it now ignores most of what its model says.”
The reason the BoE’s, the SAGE pandemic and the IPCC models are all wrong is because the models are designed to follow the politics.
Just like when the company accountant is asked by the CEO, “what’s 2 + 2”, his reply is “What would you like to make it this year?”
July 12, 2023
The BOE is voluntarily selling bonds that have not reached maturation. They think t hey are cleverly manipulating the markets without anybody understanding what they have done. JR has ensured that many of us understand where to lay the blame for inflation.
However there are bonds reaching maturation, rather like many mortgages which have to be refinanced. I understand that the increased interest payments on these soon-to-be-refinanced-bonds will equal the GDP of Germany and Japan. And that is the German economy before deindustrialization, which is well underway.
The smug Governor of the BOE and the grinning Chancellor might soon understand what ‘pulling the levers of power’ and having nothing happen really means.
July 12, 2023
In our political system and banking leadership style we have the quantity but unfortunately maybe not the quality.
And is our political voting ststem we call it democracy ‘first past the post’ is it throwing up the people we really need. If the people at the top are only there because they managed to sideline other hopefuls more brighter but not schemers who might be better suited then there is something seriously wrong.
Likewise if bankers are in place only because of the old school tie then that’s more of it.
As private Frazer would say we are doomed doomed! We need reform
July 12, 2023
and now for something completely different…
The chief executive of the HS2 high-speed rail project has resigned amid cost and political pressures on the delayed project. Mark Thurston, 56, announced he will leave the job in September after six-and-a-half years, making him the longest-serving chief executive of the state-owned enterprise.
Another leader is needed for the project, Mr Thurston said, as HS2 moved to a “defining period” with the installation of railway track and signalling equipment.
Mr Thurston was paid a salary of £617,300 in the 2021-22 financial year, according to HS2 Ltd’s latest annual report. He also received benefits worth £5,400, it shows.
Multiple delays have beset HS2. It was initially expected to open in 2026, which was pushed out to between 2029 and 2033 due to construction difficulties and rising costs. Major building work is currently taking place at more than 350 sites as part of phase one of the construction project, between London and Birmingham.
July 12, 2023
Isn’t Ben Wallace a very stupid man making remarks about Ukraine not showing gratitude – no wonder he was passed over for the top job – stupid stupid