I was talking to government advisers yesterday about how to deliver both falling inflation and better growth.
I pointed out that the Bank with its wrong forecasts of inflation and the OBR with its wrong forecasts of the debt and deficit are conspiring to create a recession through excessive monetary tightening and austerity. They now want  to kill the inflation their excessive money creation, spending and borrowing over and post pandemic has generated. They want to put us through another officially inspired boom bust cycle.
I recommended a different approach.Ministers  should require the Bank and OBR to urgently revise their models and back test the new ones to show they can now get closer to predicting what has happened using actual back data. They should assist the government in producing a supply side growth package of targeted tax cuts balanced by spending control, import substitution and abandonment of unhelpful regulations like the ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030  and the extra tax on sales petrol and diesels from next year if EVs are not 22% of the manufacturers total sales.
The Bank should stop sales of bonds at big losses all the time it does not have a reliable forecasting model. The Bankâs  Chief Economist acknowledges the Bank could be overdoing the tightening but without better forecasts cannot tell. A Bank which says its best forecast of unemployment is it might halve or double over the next three years needs to speed its work on forecasting before blundering into more policy changes.
August 10, 2023
Good morning.
For which they will happily sail through unaffected. How is it that such people can sleep at night knowing that they have ruined the lives of millions because they cannot do their jobs ?
Which is what we have been saying on here for years and years. Ministers need to learn how to control public spending and basically cap certain projects. ie You set a figure to spend and, if it goes over, you either stop the project until the new financial year or, cancel it outright, launch an investigation as to why there is an overspend and, if a CS is responsible, sack them ! Over time we will get better CS’s, Ministers and government.
August 10, 2023
I wonder what a private GP might prescribe for sleeplessness borne of guilt?
Mogadon? A handful of Valium?
All the stuff now forbidden to us who must bear the consequences of govt. in all its harsh reality.
August 10, 2023
+1 Mark B
How can cs overspend ever be controlled when cs numbers keep on growing like algael bloom on stagnant water.
August 10, 2023
Phew – that’s a helluva claim. Most of us don’t have the years left to see the ‘impossible dream’.
August 10, 2023
@Mark B – +1
Isn’t that the same as good old domestic house keeping. You stop digging when your additional funds are not keeping up.
August 10, 2023
You include penalties in the contracts so that all Govt Contracts come in on budget for the taxpayer!
If nobody will tender for the project you know that the budgeted amount is a farce, a trick to get commitment and then to lead the Government by the nose to extract huge profit.
August 10, 2023
Not their money not they who benefit from the outcome so they care not on the spend nor on any value delivered! Witness HS2, test and trace, the vaccines, the NHS…
August 10, 2023
HS2 springs to mind ….but the list of overspend projects is huge
August 10, 2023
As the models of COVID spread were repeatedly shown to be nonsense by actual COVID as opposed to the theoretical one they modelled, you would have thought that by now our ruling class would have realised we are not very good at modelling. Same as their models of impact of immigration levels are clearly and obviously wrong. I think a lot of modelling mistakes are intentional as a means of forcing social engineering, they should not be taken at face value as genuine attempts at modelling.
August 10, 2023
âthey should not be taken at face value as genuine attempts at modellingâ indeed. This with climate alarmism, the economy, covid, the vaccines, lockdowns⊠they have got almost every single thing wrong.
Allister Heath Today:-
âThe public still isnât being told the full, horrifying truth about net zero.
A restrictive architecture of carbon budgets and climate committees is killing democratic choiceâ
August 10, 2023
From the Guardian 20 July 2023 ‘under the consultation on the clean heat market mechanism, published in March, ministers are proposing that, from 2024, manufacturers of fossil fuel boilers would face a quota for heat pump installations relative to their gas or oil boiler installations, with fines for failure to sell enough heat pumps’
They’ve lost their collective senses..
August 10, 2023
Indeed as with cars and EV cars where the poor are forced to subsidise the richer EV buyers.
August 10, 2023
The Climate Change Committeee has 5 year plans, similar to that of the former Soviet Union. They are cross party and plans agreed without any democratic input. Bans on ice cars, gas boilers, ULEZ, cycling, meat rationing. It’s all coming and hidden from us. So if we want more of this keep voting for the legacies. If we want choice, start voting for REFORM!!!
August 10, 2023
7.6 million on NHS waiting list now a new record and even this figure is an underestimate. How are the five pledges going Sunak?
August 10, 2023
What can be expected when you import 1.2 million a year with no pro rata increases in Doctors etc.
August 10, 2023
As the fear factor of covid dissipates so the climate doom has to be stepped up. It wouldn’t do for the populace to be free of anxiety, they might end up thinking for themselves!
August 10, 2023
This is all excessively depressing.
Why couldnât they just get it right in the first place?
Whatâs the matter with them?
They got the jobs presumably in the expectation that they were up to it.
Or was this total mayhem and mess always the plan?
August 10, 2023
Top jobs are provided for friends of friends – being ‘ up to it’ does come into consideration.
August 10, 2023
+1. I G
August 10, 2023
Ah, modelling. Worth looking up a paper by ‘CO2 coalition’ ‘Providing the facts about CO2 and climate change’.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/challenging-net-zero-with-science/
‘The paper says Net Zero regulations and actions are scientiïŹcally invalid because [amongst other things] they’:
‘Rely on computer models that do not work. An analysis of 102 computer models used by Net Zero proponents found that 101 of them had failed to match real-world observations. âSimply stated, the (computer) model essential to every government Net Zero regulation, action and the trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables and electric cars, trucks, home heating, appliances and many other products do not work,â said the paper.’
August 10, 2023
Mary M
Interesting programme on the television last Night about the 1978 Fastnet Sailing Race which ended in disaster for many of the 260 sailing boats which took part.
The Met Office admitted that they could only manage at most a reasonable weather forecast 24 hours in advance during that period, as they did not have sufficient information or computing power to produce anything more accurate or longer.
So how come they can now go back before that period, to suggest Climate change has been happening for decades.?
If they did not trust information at the time then for simple weather forecasting, how come they can use figures way before that period now, when instrumentation then was not as accurate, and the locations were different ?
August 10, 2023
But Alan, even though less than 50 years ago they could only really forecast approximately 24 hours ahead they now claim they can accurately forecast 50 years ahead. Also weather on the US east coast was atrocious and it almost always travels across the Atlantic.
As an aside, 2 kids were ‘camping’ in the front garden on the Lizard peninsular that night but come morning they were both asleep in armchairs in the front room so the weather must have changed rapidly.
August 10, 2023
Oops should have said 1979 not 1978, still its only one number out !
August 11, 2023
Actually the Met Office is right to say climate change has been happening for decades. And not just for decades but for millenia.
August 11, 2023
Peter
I wonder if “the Climate Change” goes in Cycles ?
Is it all really Man Made ?
Is it really all about Emissions, and if so which ones ?
Has it nothing at all to do with the Sun ?
For my mind at the moment, too many variables, both in the past and the projected future.
August 10, 2023
The BoE and OBR are still un the EU. They should be urgently reformed or in the case of the OBR disbanded.
Whilst we continue with the ruinous Climate Change act and net zero there will be no growth.
Even Importing a million people annually hasn’t worked.
August 10, 2023
True, else there would, should have been wholesale sackings.
August 10, 2023
@Iain gill – as was shown then(under Covid) a 25 year old Excel Spread sheet created to teach the use of theoretical modelling to students isn’t actual valid in today’s world. Life and the World is more random
August 10, 2023
oh plenty is predictable, but in the world of public sector modelling there are no brownie points for accurate modelling, or competition between different modelling approaches to see which wins, we have all the brownie points awarded for fitting the pre determined outcomes of the woke crazy ideologies our public sector is infested with.
August 11, 2023
I know what you mean. Poor old Prof Ferguson estimated fewer than 50,000 deaths with full lockdowns in his R-9 report. Turned out there were over 200,000 by June 2022. On the other hand he also estimated “if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths.” Not far wrong on the second one was he?
August 10, 2023
Good morning,
Is there anything the BoE and Treasury HAVE got right over the last 15 years?
If they really are as damaging to the nation as you suggest then they have to be replaced.
August 10, 2023
@Peter Wood – or even the OBR. What is the advice Jeremy Hunt is getting from the additional panel he set up to tell him what the OBR is saying? Or is that just more taxpayer money down the drain?
August 10, 2023
I think presenting the models is mis-selling. They must be made liable for the consequences. Letâs have the BOE shoulder the responsibility of an independent organization. If it canât forecast it must say so.
Whenever authority and responsibility are separated, a disaster is engineered.
August 10, 2023
yea and add to the list the FCA, ICO , FOS and so on. the whole regulatory environment is a job creation scheme for useless arts grads who conform to woke views. their failures are massive, there for all to see, ongoing, and outrageous.
August 10, 2023
(1) No. And (2) yes.
August 10, 2023
Force them to publish their software.
Any software that is influential enough to destroy our economy needs to be published.
Itâs not going be stolen by another country and used to destroy their economy. Who wants a busted model.
The only down side is that a bunch of real software engineers will publish criticism of the modelling and assumptions.
The tax payer paid for it and Iâm sure they want it published.
August 10, 2023
@Javelin – Logic, forecasts are a type of science. All science only becomes science when your peers get to evaluate your methodology and results.
August 10, 2023
Itâs not software engineers who need to look at this, itâs the economists who need to see what logic flows and assumptions have been programmed in.
This is the problem of AI. The computer will programme itself perfectly – no coding problems – but it will programme starting with the assumptions and logic âpoints setâ by the politicians and bankers who set it away, and will extrapolate ad infinitum, the problems will increase as the programs are added to – think of a golf ball that is .25 degrees off line, if itâs a putt it might even drop, but if itâs a drive of 380 yards it could be out of bounds.
Nobody will be able to argue with it just as nobody can argue with the BOE until it has been proved wrong by events. Even now JR is whistling in the wind because the politicians and bankers donât want to admit an error. Some politicians, terrified now by the looming financial disaster for the western world and the impending election, have had the wit to consult him, but in my view ONLY because they are looking down the barrel of a gun!
By the time AI condenses 100 years of programming into a month, we will be so far off line and so powerless to intervene that the only recourse will be the sledgehammers.
August 11, 2023
Commercial sensitivity. Companies do have a right to protection of their intellectual property.
August 10, 2023
Exactly perhaps the BoE and Sunak think even just 80 tory MPs after the next election is too many?
August 10, 2023
Huurah, here we again! Blame the BoE – public officials who are not allowed to answer back. NEVER blame the Conservative party that has bene running the country the last 13 years
August 10, 2023
I think your recommendations were right but I wonder if they could go further. I am not sure what the liability is for the members of the BofE when making the decisions that have a direct impact on the wealth of the UK (by messing about with rates or selling bonds at a large loss) but what decision-makers usually hide behind is the statement that they were making decisions with the best information they had available at the time. This usually absolves them of being seen as acting with clear negligence or fault. However, given the BofE have clearly stated the information they have available now is wrong, clearly this defence no longer stands. Therefore by acting as they are now, costing the country billions of pounds and potentially forcing the country into a recession, are they not acting in a gross negligent way. Are there any repercussions for this? If not, why not?
August 10, 2023
+1
August 10, 2023
Sounds sensible. The problem with this approach is itâs going to require a lot of people – presumably including those govt advisers you were talking to – to admit they were wrong. And it seems to have become part of the (upper echelon) public sector ethos never to do that.
Meanwhile I see the blob has at least been looking after itself. Although there is e.g. a widely acknowledged shortage of doctors, and near universal concern at the drastic cuts in uniformed service personnel, the number of civil servants has increased by 100,000 since 2016. Iâd rather see 25,000 extra soldiers and 25,000 extra doctors and the balance saved, I donât recall anguished calls for more civil servants in 2016? Not only that, but the blob has found a way round the pay restrictions by dishing out promotions to itself so the number earning over ÂŁ100k has also doubled or more. I know the deep entrenchment of the blob is very difficult to deal with given all the lawfare and the network of âindependentâ quangos of experts we now have, but surely ministers can at least challenge this kind of stuff?
August 10, 2023
Yes, ‘conspiring’ indeed to incite a recession to enable the Europhile Starmer into power with one aim, to take this nation back into the authoritarian EU
If Labour do get in they will criminalise life, racialise Britain and outlaw speech, destroy GB News and legalise crime. The Tories are useless but Labour and the SNP are evil and keep it well hidden.
August 10, 2023
Let me guess …..
the OBR and B of E will produce new models which will show that the economy is doing rather better than expected and which will then allow Sunak/Hunt to announce in the autumn statement that tax cuts will be proposed in the Budget – to be implemented after the General Election providing we vote “the right way.”
So that will just leave them needing to create “promises” to remedy the rest of the omni-shambles the Not-a-Conservative-Government has created over the last 13 years of Blue-Green Socialism.
August 10, 2023
Sir John – something to cheer you up:
I know absolutely nothing about economics and money so I am not going to comment!
August 10, 2023
“I know absolutely nothing about economics and money…” Mike Stallard
Have you considered taking up a career in British politics Mike?
August 10, 2023
Judging by their performance, neither, do the B of E and OBR, but it doesn’t stop them.
August 10, 2023
But you already have commented. :/
August 10, 2023
You have a lot in common with senior people in the Bank, OBR, Treasury and H of C.
August 10, 2023
Good luck asking the modellers to validate their models using past data. It didnât happen with the Covid models and it wonât happen with the economic models either. The reason is the wrong models give results and policy advice that the politicians want to hear. Hancock wanted lockdowns and Sunak doesnât want tax cuts.
August 10, 2023
Correction: Hancock’s boss wanted lockdowns, and I don’t mean the PM.
August 10, 2023
Tax and spending cuts sound’s like a novel approach we should try it sometime.
We should also try ditching net zero subsidies and charges and subsidising immigration which may reduce business costs but increases living costs and stops the conversation about the long term unemployed an economically inactive. Our inactive disabled population oi growing at a time when medical advances have never been greater. Shurly (sic) some mistake
August 10, 2023
Sir John, we watch with great interest to see what effect your wise counsel had on them!
August 10, 2023
Agreed – though I suspect that the imparted influence will amount to Scotch Mist – that is, mumbled words of agreement followed by great nebulosity of action.
August 10, 2023
‘abandonment of unhelpful regulations like the ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030’
The Telegraph’s Allister Heath’s good article yesterday, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/09/the-public-still-isnt-being-told-the-truth-about-net-zero/ , has lots of nice detail.âTwo relevant bits:
– The next ban is in only eighteen months’ time: new builds can’t have a gas boiler.
– Delaying these various net-zero bans is difficult because multiple, sequential five-year plans have been set out under Ed Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act, amended by Theresa May to be more severe, and attempting to change that will hit legal challenges.
August 10, 2023
Professor Patrick Minford has some excellent models with an outstanding record of accurately predicting the economy. The Chancellor should instruct the Bank to start using these starting Monday.
August 10, 2023
Agree
August 10, 2023
Experts are worse at prediction than schoolboy maths.âThis has been studied and shown across many fields.âModels are typically complex predictions, else they wouldn’t be worth working on.âThis complexity allows the modeller to fool themselves that their tweaks are improvements to the model as judged by it giving the more expected or desired prediction.
Why not have a competing team of modellers to the Bank of England rather than trying, and probably failing, to stop it modelling just the answers it wants? Hire Andrew Lilico. There would then be some competition and success could be judged.
Ideally, scrap the Bank of England’s independence. It was a daft idea, useful for Gordon Brown because it got Blair elected by countering the risk of Labour running the economy.âPoliticians like central-bank independence because they think it will shield them from angry voters suffering inflation, but it never does.
August 10, 2023
I should love to hear what sort of reaction you got. Baffled surprise, or ill concealed yawns?
August 10, 2023
Polite indiference more likely – at least the indifference bit…
August 10, 2023
Patronising smirks I should imagine. And laughter, as soon as he was out of earshot.
August 10, 2023
Spot on John. Thanks. Next question is whether they will pay attention to your wisdom or not. ???
August 10, 2023
And their eyes glazed over knowing that you/they are wasting their time trying to challenge the Treasury/BOE.
On the basis that they are only â12â I suspect what you said went over their heads anyway.
And in other news push back, at least superficially, continues against Net Zero. Funny how MPs suddenly think democracy is a good idea when their seats are under threat. And they wonder why we view (most) of them with contempt.
August 10, 2023
So “I was talking to government advisers ….” – casting pearls before swine again Sir John. I admire your fortitude.
Are we all not just awaiting a new government, rather as we did when Callaghan was prime minister? This time alas there is no prospect of a better replacement.
August 10, 2023
Why is the ban on petrol and diesel cars in 2030 even there? Just seven years? The manifesto said 2050, which is more realistic. Boris goes to a big meeting, gets told what he’s got to do to stay in the big boys club and wham we all pay the price.
August 10, 2023
a-t – Electric vehicles = CONTROL
August 10, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Who are these government advisers you were talking to? Are they SPADS or civil servants or some other category of expert?
August 10, 2023
probably several 20+ years, spotty, ex-Oxbridge and Winchester, family money, clueless but imagined to be intellectual!
August 10, 2023
But did they take any notice of your good advice?
To be honest, HMG advisors should be educated and experienced such that these concepts would come naturally to them – Why do they need to be spoon fed with common sense and practical ideas?
Something is terribly wrong in our establishment!
August 10, 2023
Good old common sense says that if you raise costs, you actually raise price’s. If you cause prices to raise you cause people to want to be paid more. In simplistic terms higher costs and wages is inflation. What is there to model?
Therefore a 70 year high on taxes by its very nature is inflationary. Spending money on growing the State without increased results and output is inflationary. What is there to model?
In this modern world those that drive the economy if they are squeezed the go elsewhere. What is there to model that is obvious common sense?
August 10, 2023
National grid Interconnectors as at 08:30hrs â 18.4% energy from Europe
Maybe @20% imported electricity is the norm and part of the net-zero plan (imported electricity isnât recorded as our carbon footprint âŠ.what if we imported all our energy ? weâd be the net-zero star of the world)
Net-zero stops growth and increases inflation
August 10, 2023
Net zero calculations are simply stupidity in its extreme when the same manufactured goods the Tory’s exported are imported back, produced by by coal powered electricity, cheaply in China. Still let us pray for REFORM and some sanity.
August 10, 2023
Ah yes I had almost forgotten:
So we now have the UK Government setting sales and production targets for Private Commercially run Businesses, telling them if they do not sell enough electric cars, then they will have their taxes increased.
Thus the technology which they have been developing and improving on for the last 100 years, with millions of sales, happy customers, and ÂŁ Billions of pounds paid in tax in the past by those Companies, its customers, workers, staff and supply line organisations, should all be scrapped.
That just shows how out of touch our Ministers and Government are with the real World.
New products evolve and are driven by desire not threats.
Amazing that we have allowed our Politicians (of all colours) to even be thinking in this way in the UK, Could understand it if it was Russia, but here and now ?
August 10, 2023
B A – Exactly. A never ending stream of compulsion, coercion, punishment, threat and waste which people are sick to death of but in many cases also fearful of.
August 10, 2023
In essence the Control Freaks see more tax, more control as their lifeline. In simple terms they personally are not paid for outcomes.
If we first have a thriving resilient, self-reliant economy, we (the Country) then produces wealth. The Country has then earned the resource to fund a future.
Conservative Government lead high taxation is the opposite to creating a tomorrow.
August 10, 2023
âextra tax on sales petrol and diesels from next year if EVs are not 22% of the manufacturers total salesâ
Do they understand that! What they are saying is if the UK taxpayer does not subsidies more Chinese imports they will punish us all. The so-called manufacturers are just foreign assembly depots.
How many UK or even EU EVâs are locally manufactured as opposed to just being assembled with Chinese Components. The EU is currently concerned that 55% of the parts in cars available and called UK or EU manufactured are in fact essentially from the Chinese parts bin. The as a way of kicking the respective taxpayers in the teeth their import is funded by the taxpayer.
As @Mark B, inferred the other day on these pages all these tax subsidies have to stop. They are breeding control freakery, indoctrination and dictatorship from the powers that be.
August 10, 2023
I want to know how the stupid legacies think the Country will earn its keep after all its manufacturing and commerce has been exported under net zero religion and punishing Corporation Tax levels? Ireland 12.5%, UK 25%. I wonder where the multi Nationals like Astra Zeneca, Google, Amazon will place their factories and HQ’s? We desperately need change from the fools we have in charge.
August 10, 2023
Hi john
It seems for all my life time we never get the country managed right we are lacking in the skill of financial planning so we blunder from one financial crisis to another
But it the tax payer who has to pay for the bad management by the BOE and the government
August 10, 2023
If the policies of the BoE and the OBR, and indeed those of the Civil Service and numerous quangos and institutions are inexplicable it is because their goal is Net Zero and not the future prosperity of the UK.
For some impoverishment is necessary to achieve Net Zero and for others the reverse is true.
As Joseph Goebbels said :
âIf you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it.â
Interestingly those who have verbal and writing skills and hence are consider themselves to be intelligent, such as graduates of PPE, modern and ancient history, modern and ancient languages, economics, law, journalism, art etc. are found to be the most gullible to false memes such as CAGW (well, now CAGB) and that renewables can provide us with cheap, reliable and abundant power.
As I write (09:47 hrs) the 28 GW of installed wind power is providing less than 1 GW of power (3% of demand).
August 10, 2023
Nigel Farage today:- â100,000 migrants have crossed the Channel since the crisis began in 2018.
And despite @RishiSunakâs promise to Stop the Boats, the total so far this year is more than 15,300.â
The policy seems to be to encourage every more to have a go. Very little progress on his other four promises either. Is Sunak aiming for even fewer than 80 Tory MPs next year – it seems so.
Solution abandon net zero, cut the size of the largely parasitic state, actual action to stop the boats, cut taxes hugelyâŠ
August 10, 2023
Leave the ECHR, a bonfire of red tape, stop the wars on motorists, self employed and landlords this tenantsâŠ
August 10, 2023
The ECHR is a red herring, like the barge and Rwanda. Any government that WANTED to stop illegal migration would simply ignore it. Ask yourself why we are still in the UN Global Compact on Migration, none of the objections to leaving the ECHR apply to leaving that.
August 10, 2023
+many …the tories love the eu, un, wef and the european council
August 10, 2023
The impression we get is the BoE, the OBR and in the same context the âBlobâ are more content with working with counterparts elsewhere, than for the UK. As such they are enshrining high-tax and high inflation as part of their personal vanity to be part of the âgangâ
Today the Media is stirring up membership of the ECHR, which is fair enough. The real bone of contention is why do we have an elected Parliament with MPâs, given that their purpose is to act as the UK Legislators and that appears to be the thing they refuse to do. The ECHR may have some good points but are they all in a UK context? If one persons human right is awarded that then infringes someone else’s – is that good law? Parliament our democratically elected legislators are powerless when it come to doing the right thing â these are someone else’s laws in someone else’s court.
The real problem is that when Laws, rules and Regulations are not 100% created by our own democratically elected legislators, common sense amendments or even repealing is seen as impossible for our demoniacally elected house. That then means we are even less of a Democracy than they personaly think and lets get real having MPâs is pointless waste of money and space â they themselves have ensured they have no purpose.
NetZero as its called, the ‘COP26 treaty’ was enshrined in UK Law by Theresa May, why? The World has not signed up to the Treaty, the World makes its own Laws. These Laws do not have a UK context so why are they enshrined into the UK in this manner. Fair enough if our Legislators wish to adopt some of the principles in the context on how the UK should play along, but that then also recognises the UKâs Legislators created the Laws, Rules and Regulation and can and will amend them or repeal them to fit in within UK needs and abilities.
Fundamentally the HoC is only playing at being a UK Democratic Sovereign Parliament, you have to question the purpose of MPâs when they are not working for their Constituents, the People and the UK but are disciples of powers elsewhere.
We have a flawed system of Government, as the elected seem to refuse what they were empowered to do
August 10, 2023
From The Daily Telegraph
âTories don’t need ‘long conversation’ on leaving ECHR, John Redwood saysâ
The Conservatives, the HoC and the Conservative Government need to wake up and recognise that in a Sovereign Free Democracy they are the only ones that have been empowered to act as the UK Legislators. If the donât recognise that they shouldnât be MPâs.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/10/leaving-echr-now-sir-john-redwood-rishi-sunak/
August 10, 2023
To think our Government our Parliament have only in recent years created the independent Bank of England and the Office of Budget Responsibility, because they felt, they(the Government) and the Treasury were failing.
Keep digging the holes, there may be a light at the bottom of one of them
August 10, 2023
Off topic, this is shutting down:
https://www.culina.co.uk/chilled-logistics-solutions/#morgan
because of the Northern Ireland Protocol/Windsor Framework:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/windsor-framework-hurting-northern-ireland-haulage-companies-following-proposed-closure-of-lurgan-hauliers-lockhart-4248732
“Speaking following the news, Carla Lockhart MP, explained: âI am deeply concerned to learn of the proposed cessation of activity and site closure of Lurgan hauliers Morgan McLernon in my constituency.
âMorgan McLernon is a major employer in Upper Bann and is part of the Culina group, the largest UK haulier of chilled and ambient products.
âI have been shown the letter from management to workers which explains that despite their best efforts, this decision has become unavoidable because of the negative implications of Brexit in Northern Ireland which are of course defined by the difficulties arising from the imposition of a border down the Irish Sea.
âThe volume of trade movements across the Irish Sea has been falling since the imposition of the Irish Sea border and particularly since the announcement of the Windsor Framework in February this year as retailers have prepared for the introduction of the Windsor border on October 1.
âIt is clear that haulage companies based in Northern Ireland whose business model is predicated on being part of the United Kingdom economy are in real difficulty because of this.â
“The underlying economic changes that inform this announcement clearly demonstrate how the Protocol/Windsor Framework is increasingly replacing the UK economy with a GB economy and attempting to put Northern Ireland in the same economy as the Republic of Ireland.”
So-called “Conservatives and Unionists” breaking up the country for the sake of a pathetic little trade deal.
August 10, 2023
Denis all of this mess was directly caused by brexit – I will go further and say that the outcome for NI was made a lot worse by Boris and Lord Frost feeble attempts at negotiation aided and abetted by deluded types like Lord Dodds and the DUP.
As a result The Windsor Agreement is there now and must be made work because bottom line the economy of NI is relatively small and negotiators on all sides have run out of road – it is not going to be rehashed.
On the plus side the economy of RoI is roaring ahead and am sure there are great opportunities there for NI business and hauliers to ship through Rosslare Port direct to the continent something a lot of GB ‘ers havn’t got. So when all the quirks have been ironed out and working smoothly I have an idea the DUP is going to be hard pressed to explain about all of this grandstanding to their community.
August 11, 2023
No, it is not caused by Brexit, it is caused by unpatriotic anti-democratic elements like you trying to prevent or at least neutralise Brexit. As repeatedly pointed out the correct solution to the relatively minor problem of the Irish land border was offered on this site and elsewhere within days of the Irish government issuing their threats in late 2017. Theresa May chose to collude with Leo Varadkar and allow him to create a mountain out of a molehill on the border to provide a pretext for giving Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI what she was demanding. They, and those like you who support them, are responsible for the present situation:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/national/leo-varadkar-makes-stormont-demand-taioseach-has-a-big-mouth-says-ian-paisley-its-none-of-his-business-says-jim-allister-its-a-cheek-says-sammy-wilson-4251370
“Leo Varadkar makes Stormont demand: Taioseach has a big mouth says Ian Paisley, it’s none of his business says Jim Allister, it’s a cheek says Sammy Wilson”
So where do you think this is likely to end?
August 10, 2023
Denis NI has a population of only two million but there are no Conservative votes there so nobody cares too much about NI hauliers and the politicians have all gone on their hols – mostly to EU countries – so why go on about the Windsor Agreement?
August 10, 2023
It seems UK is not so united anymore but who’s fault is that? The fault lies with the politicians and the rag press – there is no decency left anymore – it’s all a bit like trumps america tell the people anything at all true or not and it will do –
August 10, 2023
Government is not minded to do what we all think is necessary. Liz Truss was on the right path but failed to tackle spending. This gave the financial luddites the opening to undemocratically remove her. Hamving the size of the corps of scribes should have been promised along with her low tax budget. While this government may have its head in lunar sand, the opposition is likewise but on the lunar dark side. If you are so minded, depression all round.
August 10, 2023
It is good news that you are talking to Government Advisers, but with great respect, why? Surely you should be talking to Ministers, who have the power to change direction. Or do they? Where is the intelligent, clear-thinking Minister who listens to both sides of the argument before making expensive decisions based on wrong input?
Any Minister who believes CO2 is a problem should be sacked because Net Zero is an expensive fantasy!
As for the BOE, until Andrew Davies is sacked, nothing will change.
Meanwhile, 520,000 Civil Servants, up by 100,000 in seven years, cost ÂŁ17 billion. So make 420,000 Civil Servants redundant & you have saved ÂŁ13.6 Billion. Right there, you have some decent tax cuts to lift everyone’s morale &
get the economy growing. How about talking to the PM & Chancellor, or are they really as dim as they appear?
August 10, 2023
John Redwood for Prime Minister! Otherwise I wonât vote Tory again. (I live in a different constituency.)
August 10, 2023
Same Here
August 10, 2023
+++
Heâs been the obvious choice ever since the dreadful Major disaster.
But of course whoever is really in charge just wonât allow a sensible pro UK person ( who can read write and do ârithmetic ) to be selected.
So we continue to suffer.
August 10, 2023
âParliament to scrutinise barriers to EV take-up by drivers
Lords committee focuses on governmentâs 2030 and 2035 petrol and diesel ban targets, and how to meet themâŠâ
A bit presumptuous to suggest the Lords is part of a Democracy! How many of the 779 members in that House drive exclusively EVâs? Those that do how do the feel about the Taxpayer that cant afford a new car funding them to do so?
Are they going to ask the real question as the UK is an importer only of these EVâs how much has/will World pollution increase by these cars being built and delivered by the most polluting Countries and transport.
The preliminary discussion they are having is how to impose more tax to pay for all the subsidies they want the elected Government to bow down too.
More inflation and no growth proposed by the unelected
August 10, 2023
John,
Referring back to your 3rd August blog on EU Legislation. Could you please give a few examples of the undesirable legislation to illustrate dissuasions for a number of product / industry / market areas when you do a follow up piece. Or point me to a web site as I am sure there are 1000s of good examples.
The main example I have is the wiring regulations where we changed from sensible colours of red (for live ~ dangerous!), black (for neutral) and green (for earth) to accommodate, I am lead to believe, those with colour blindness to brown, blue and green/yellow. From those colours you tell me which is the dangerous colour. I learnt to change a plug before I was 10 years old. With the new colours no wonder Brussels does not trust the hoi polloi to wire their own plugs!
Thanks.
August 10, 2023
A friend, who works at a university, asked me to review his UK funded research grant – my only question was that it benefitted an EU country and only a EU country and not the UK. He was dumfounded by my response and said what does that matter, I said its UK taxpayer money ? this approach to taxpayers money is endemic throughout universities, local government and the civil service
August 10, 2023
To summarise your blog John, we need less government interference.
August 10, 2023
JR – The Globalist UK Establishment government are not listening and do not give a toss. They are following their NWO scripted agenda. Surely you MUST be aware by now.
August 10, 2023
There is no disguising the use of the f… word used by your party colleague Lee Anderson nor the the term “hunted down” used by Home Secretary Braverman – so just who does she think she is? – a texas ranger – it seems the two are in cahoots determined to follow the Trump fashion of discourse and bring politics to new place. Am afraid you will all pay for this soon enough.
August 10, 2023
You can have a thriving retail high street, commerce, enterprise & industry or net-zero âŠ.but you canât have both (Wilko is just the start)
August 11, 2023
“I recommended a different approach.Ministers should require the Bank and OBR to urgently revise their models and back test the new ones to show they can now get closer to predicting what has happened using actual back data.”
I believe I posted that concept here in another thread a couple of weeks ago. It’s good to see that these comments can make a difference; that they are read, understood and find their way in front of people who make decisions. Thank you, that’s why I post here.
Reply I am glad you support an idea I first proposed earlier this year
August 11, 2023
For the avoidance of doubt, I wasn’t “supporting” anyone else’s idea – it was my own thought which I have put forward for a lot longer than “earlier this year”.
It is actually standard practise in AI/ML that you train a model on existing data. It has long seemed to me that it is even more imperative when known outcomes are available, as in this case.
So one must wonder how it is that no-one across the entirety of the BoE, OBR etc seems to understand this.
August 11, 2023
Which, btw, is the common way to test a model. Run it on past data and see how close to the subsequent situation the results are.
M.L.Deaton, 2006, ââValidation of simulation modelsâ, in Kotz et al. âEncyclopaedia of Statistical Sciencesâ, Wiley.
âModel validation: Simple ways of validating predictive modelsâ, youtube, 25/10/2025, Analytic University
But it is always pleasant to see people reinventing the cheese wire.
August 11, 2023
The UK’s incapacity for self-government is remarkable. It begs the question how does a country improve its ability to govern itself? The answer is not democracy because that relies on there being a pool of competent potential ministers from which to elect a government. If the UK has such a pool it is hidden from view. One can find exceptions such as Sir John Redwood but one person cannot do it alone. Perhaps a benevolent dictatorship is required until the UK has a cadre of competence, only then restoring democracy. There is a desperate need to re-align the political parties of the UK because none is attractive to conservative patriotic voters. We need a strong, patriotic and truly conservative party. That is not what Rishi Sunak’s Tories offer. Perhaps the true conservatives should leave it and join up with others from for example Reform to form a new True Conservative party. Or throw the wets out of the Tory Party.
August 12, 2023
The Bank of England did not raise interest rates quickly enough. Anyone with any sense could tell you rates should have gone up 5 years ago at least. Now with the printing of paper money going into the system they have what they deserve but we do not. Bailey should be sacked and I mean sacked not removed to elsewhere with a big pay off. Sunak is also culpable by paying people to stay home on 80% salaries during the pandemic and not expecting them to carry on with this stupid stunt which some of us are paying for now. The restaurant deals were also stupid and just pandering to the crowd. When will we get someone who has a brain to look at the past and make sure we do not make the same mistakes. We don’t want PR stunts.