We were promised in Labourâs  Manifesto a new era of transparency. The Labour leader came over as a virtuous puritan, out to clean the stables and run an austerity policy. Modest additions to spending would be precisely costed and specifically funded by a small tax rise here or a small spending cut there. It was not exciting or uplifting, but some people liked it whilst many others wanted to show their disapproval of the then government.
So what went wrong? Why are MPs and journalists told that they should not expect to know what is in the alleged ÂŁ22 bn black hole we hear about continuously? Maybe one day the Treasury will allow us to peep, but not before the budget. We hear large uncosted and unfunded spending commitments being made as the government offers inflation busting pay awards to various public sector groups well above the pay inflation allowed for in the budget figures. Why is there no formal Treasury statement of cost and explanation of how it will paid for? Why is there no Office of Budget Responsibility forecast and commentary as promised? The government is busy breaking the new law it is bringing in to make an OBR assessment essential for such events.
Why have various senior civil servants turned up as senior advisers or. Ministers? What does that tell us about civil service impartiality? Why have donors turned up in jobs or with favoured passes and access?
Why are they agreeing to close down our primary steel making capacity before completing and publishing their steel strategy? What is the point of a strategy if you have no industry left?  How are they allowing in the budgets for future revenues for the accelerated decline of the oil and gas industry? This is  the industry  which pays several times as much tax per pound of profit as anything else?
All the government says about anything is that it is all a mess thanks to the previous government. It also complains about all of us, alleging there is a societal black hole. Government is about tackling the problems before you. Normal governments explain the issues and then set about supplying the remedies. When they announce increased spending they cost it, get it approved and explain how it is being paid for. Most leaders try to point the country to a better tomorrow  and take pride in what is working and is good. How much longer can this government keep up the bad mouthing of the country, the NHS, political groups they do not like, and the state of society?
September 13, 2024
This labour government, representing 34% of the electorate are all smoke and mirrors, because what they have to sell is not a marketable product for 66% of the electorate. On their present course they will implode. Let them continue making the case for Reform. The politicised CS are making the case for their contractual employment future.
Much as you SJR might have tried to change the course of your faux conservative colleagues, they remained firmly left of centre, and so badly led as to confirm themselves unfit for government. We have a situation where the current government dare not say what they are and any potential conservative opposition do not know what they are. Be assured it is not fitness to lead our country. That 66% will begin to realise that Reform is the only game in town.
September 13, 2024
Agricola – 34% of those who voted. 20% of the total electorate.
September 13, 2024
Indeed and with FPTP some of those voters will have voted Labour not because they wanted Labour but they though they were the only realistic way to ditch the ConSocialist.
JR Says “All the government says about anything is that it is all a mess thanks to the previous government” well this is certainly true. But Labour are making it far worse still with all the wrong policies.
Labour also say they want growth but almost every single policy Labour are pushing – more state sector, more taxes, net zero, more market rigging in energy, schools, car sales, housing, banking, healthcare, universities, non doms, vat on school fees, nationalisations, more employment red tape, pushing the rich and hard working overseas… zero growth last two months (so negative per cap growth).
September 13, 2024
Essentially Labour are the same as the Con-Socialists but even worse. This appalling new let’s rob landlords bill and harm tenants in the process is essentially Gove’s agenda. Gove also supported VAT on private school fees.
Most drivel from Starmer on the dire NHS he has not got a clue how to solve the problem. The usual we cannot discharge patients due to social care issues. Well get the NHS hospital to have a half discharged nursing home ward then. One are of government blaming another arm of government.
First think to do is encourage more to go privately with tax breaks and give people on a waiting list say 40% of the cost of their ops if they can find the other 60%. Saves 60% and shortens the waiting list for everyone else.
Free at the point of rationing and endless death producing delays our wonderful NHS.
September 13, 2024
LL, of couse Labour say they want growth – We’d struggle to find the idiot that says “I don’t want growth”.
As you say though, words and actions are diverging. Judge Starmer’s competency on actions not words.
September 14, 2024
You donât have to struggle – I am that idiot. This obsession with growth is simply inane. Growth in what? Services? You want us to drink more coffee and get our hair cut more often? You want us to produce more cars? TVs? What?
Ahh, you want growth in GDP per capita. So you want each of us to produce more. Again, more what? If I produce 10 widgets a day and my boss buys a new machine that means I can now produce 12 a day – who is going to buy the extra widgets? And that is more consumption – of what, precisely?
The more we produce the more of the earthâs resources we use and the more rubbish we have for landfill. Or do you want me to produce the 10 widgets in less time – so you can cut my working week? Thought not.
What people really mean by growth is more consumption so the economy becomes bigger so the tax receipts go up so governments can try to keep the plates spinning while they borrow ever more money. Why canât anyone talk about running the economy efficiently. This obsession with growth is nonsense. Hasnât worked so far.
September 13, 2024
Before the election, Labour said they would give the Country ‘more State’ nationalisation, a nationalised energy company.
Everyone knows they reward their union workforce unchallenged or without any expectations from the underperforming companies and employees for the over-inflated pay awards.
Before the election, they said they would put VAT on school fees. That they would end non-dom status.
People thinking that they’d somehow punish the Tories without punishing themselves; their parents and grandparents were the fools.
September 13, 2024
@agricola – may I correct you there, Labour achieved just 20% of the ‘electorate’ i.e only 1 in 5 of those registered vote found that that they could supported them. The 34% is of those that actually voted. The last election, was the stay at home election, the voter had been disenfranchised by the choice of which left of centre, one nation Uniparty they could have. One section is now trying to choose someone to lead us from a list of those that were behind the throwing away of an 80 seat majority – you couldn’t make it up!
September 13, 2024
Anyone that is over 18 and doesn’t vote gives their vote away to the majority; that’s how it has always worked. If they can’t be bothered, then they take what the majority that did bother to vote wanted.
September 13, 2024
Yes!
September 13, 2024
@a-tracy- but how do you get rid of faux Tories that are proven serial con merchants that like this new lot lie to get votes and then renage on all promises. The Conservative party refused to get back on track. Even now they want those that lost 80 seat, by refusing to be Conservative back in charge they haven’t learnt. Labour is bad, the are extremists, but they are not Cameron, May, Johnson or Sunak, they are the architects of 2TK. It can never be laid at the feet of those that were disenfranchised
September 16, 2024
IanB, some people think Reform or the Lib Dems are the answer to that, but when they split the vote, people end up with Labour!
September 13, 2024
Starmer is caught in a pincer movement because his own left wing, represented by many of his MPs, dislike him even more than the Conservatives. 53 of them abstained on Winter fuel, added to those he suspended after voting against him on the two-child benefit cap, which for the very start of a new government is unprecedented, they will be emboldened and oppose him in greater numbers on a range of policies going forward, on the NHS for example, particularly when they hear what people on the doorstep think during the local elections next year.
September 13, 2024
Those who lost the whip still claim they’re Labour MPs online, with their red roses and labour banners. People were surprised when they were told only 1 Labour MP voted against Starmer on the winter fuel allowance because others they thought were still Labour MPs claimed they’d voted NO.
September 13, 2024
Abstained – cowards. Putting their party and their own self interests before their constituents. What is the point of consistency MPs when they are not allowed to vote how they wish but how their party tells them? What pâ-sd me off was 37 Scots Labour MPs voting in favour of scrapping the winter fuel allowance even though it only applied to England and Wales. The Scots Government is responsible for scrapping it in Scotland. Another failure by the ConSocialists to add to the long list, not only scrapping the sop which was EVEL but refusing to address the WLQ and the rotten deal England gets post devolution. Why on earth should anyone in England ever vote Conservative again when they hold us in such contempt. Itâs thanks to their failures whether it be not giving us Brexit, mass uncontrolled immigration, high tax and big state that we now have five long years of the most authoritarian Government ever seen in most of our lifetimes to look forward to. Only Reform can save us but it looks like Starmer and his nasty party of spite and envy class warriors have got Nigel Farage firmly in their sights now. Welcome to Comrade Starmerâs Britain. God help us all.
September 13, 2024
14 years of tory rule laid the foundations for what is happening. With an 80 seat majority they could have cleared out the left wing dross from the civil service ans institutions but instead added to them.
They could have completed Brexit and started fracking our own gas. They could have produced a strategy on primary steel making only fishy wanted to give money to his friends. China should never have been let near scunthorpe but Gideon was a fan
Starmergeddon is just continuing where the faux conservatives left off.
I’ve never seen so much anti government rhetoric and memes on social media, it’s astonishing a government can be o hated in such a short time.
September 13, 2024
Boris trusted Sue Gray and took her advice. The Tories must have known her left-wing leanings. It really is just a uni-party, and people like John Redwood are left on the fringes. Sunak stitched Boris up signing for the immediate fine for a piece of cake he didn’t eat, for a meeting in the Downing St office where someone else had organised the Happy Birthday Boss fiasco during lockdown whilst that office was fully operational.
Boris trusted too many people inside that place, he was warned about them but didn’t want to listen.
September 14, 2024
+ 1
September 13, 2024
Good Morning,
There’s no longer any doubt we’ve been duped, but the PCP had so failed its mandate and become a ridiculous, dysfunctional, party of jesters, that the alternative had to be tried.
The fact that we now have a Baroness May tells you all you need to know.
September 13, 2024
@Peter Wood – the cloak of desption continues
September 13, 2024
Only 20% of the electorate loaned the vote to this vicious foul-mouthed rag-tag bunch of lefties. The rest of us were not duped, we anticipated what misery and damage was to come.
September 13, 2024
Batten down the hatches for the next five years âŠ.its going to be a rough ride for our freedoms & taxation
September 13, 2024
I have an appointment at the surgery of a Labour MP. They canât tell me the location until the last minute. They are very frightened. They have nothing to fear from me, I just want to emphasise that – I just want to talk about bins. Nevertheless an ordinary MP in an ordinary town doing an ordinary surgery has become a dangerous undertaking.
I donât really recognize the country I live in.
September 13, 2024
Kier Starmer is quite typical of those on the left. Demonising his opponents using “be nice, be fair” rhetoric while being so certain of his own viewpoint that he will brook no dissent.
The moral certainty of this Labour administration will be its downfall. Unfortunately not before it has wrought extreme change to government operations and societal make up.
The genuinely rich can up sticks, leaving the moderately well off to pick up the tab.
Twas ever thus but Kier Starmer and his merrie band are more certain than most, which is worrying. They don’t need to be transparent for they are right.
September 13, 2024
Yes Labour is in power because voters wanted the Tories out. Why reward failure? Labour has a philosophy so it naturally advances to fill a vacuum. The Tories created the vacuum by having no conservative phlilosophy of its own that the whole party could agree on. Half of it was/is as socialist as Labour. Its broad church rendered it inefective in giovernment, incapable of forming strong policies in the national interest and sticking to them. It could not stand up to the Blob. It could not stand up to the EU. It could not control the borders. Sunak’s Windsor Framework cemented EU rule and ECJ jusrisdiction in Northern Ireland permanently and committed the whole of UK to close regulatory alignment with the EU by making it too onerous for NI-GB trade if standards or regulations diverged and giving the EU unilateral rights to punish UK if it perceived UK was becoming too competitive. UK failed to get back control of fishing in its EEZ, or more accurately it was given control automatically by international law as soon as it left the EU but immediately gave much of it straight back to the EU. So the EU largely held on to the asset it most wanted and was the reason it conjured up the CFP just before allowing UK to join in the first place: to grab UK’s fish. Conservative PM Heath told his negotiators to, “Swallow the lot.” UK did and it rolled over gain as it left.
Why would a true, patriotic conservative vote for more of the same? Lessons are painful. UK will have to go through pain until its politicians learn once again to whom they are accountable and whom they are to serve: no longer the international elites, their collegaues on the grander loftier stage of supra-national government but the boring ordinarly people in their constituencies. This is not directed at you, Sir John. You never deserted your people. But far, far, too many of your colleagues did. The civil service likewise. It is going to be a long hard road.
September 13, 2024
Sir John
“new era of transparency” – the last administration did open the door, with their continuous inexactitudes just to get elected, the renaged on everything. 2TK has only got to do one thing once and he will a 100% improvement. The sorry sad status of what is fast becoming a corrupted and fake democracy.
In the last couple of days we have had the so-called arm of the investigated media just ‘cutting and pasting ‘ advice from the IFS and the OBR and so on, on how the Chancellor should proceed on tax. Not one has checked what is spouted, not one has reported that historically alone all these bodies have been wrong – where is the Free Press? Just click bait stories with exaggerated un founded headlines written by others.
September 13, 2024
‘where is the free press?’
Just check the funding of almost all the MSM thoughout the world, and BBC. He who pays the piper……
September 13, 2024
@Peter Gardner – so very true, they also brought us the 5 year term in office instead of the ‘free democratics worlds” 2 year term before seeking confirmation of the direction being travelled
September 13, 2024
@David Andrews – the opposition leadership candidates have got on the list because they personally helped throw an 80 seat majority away and the parlimentry party organiserr if not rulers want the continuity of being another wing of the Uniparty. After all being faux conservatives were such a success.
September 13, 2024
Yet they don’t mind Ireland being too competitive,
The EU doesn’t mind Ireland not making their 2% of GDP investment into military protection cover from the rest of the EU and the UK; no-one just stays out of paying their 2% GDP; if they all paid the same, then defence systems could be funded far more fairly.
September 13, 2024
Labour is, in effect, copying the Conservative party by saying one thing (to get elected) and doing another once elected. Labour actually said very little during the election campaign, leaving the Conservatives to self destruct. The claim now that they have discovered spending black holes is absurd, just as is the feigned surprise at the OBR’s most recent forecast about the unsustainability of government spending. These are just excuses to raise taxes on everyone in sight but especially those who might be expected to vote Conservative. The UK now faces five years of tax and spend, aided and abetted by the organs of state that are insulated from the consequences of Labour policy.
September 13, 2024
@David Andrews â the opposition leadership candidates have got on the list because they personally helped throw an 80 seat majority away and the parlimentry party organiserr if not rulers want the continuity of being another wing of the Uniparty. After all being faux conservatives were such a success
September 13, 2024
But what will happen after 5 years as you describe? Who will vote Conservative next time – if all they offer is more of the same? Labour got elected by 20% of the eligible voters. Unless things radically change, next time we will get the same thing – the 20% of the electorate that passionately, always vote Labour will give them a huge majority again. While Reform and the Tories split the votes of those who want small state, low tax government. One can but hope that, at least, an electoral pact occurs between Reform and the Tories.
September 13, 2024
David, I’m afraid I have to disagree; they said plenty in opposition.
I saw all the pensioner bashing, the messages that Labour felt they owned too much of wealth in assets, they had benefitted too much from house price increases, they did too well (not all) out of final salary pensions.
They said they would take on small business, lowering the vat threshold was discussed openly, they mentioned lots of extra costs on all employers and more rights from day one for employees.
They even said they’d work closer with the EU.
That too many people chose not to listen is on all that thought it would just upset the Tory ‘party’ to vote against them.
September 13, 2024
Nothing can escape from Labour’s Black Hole; not even light. It is a closed system.
Labourâs claim of âtransparency and opennessâ was false. Not even X-rays will work.
September 13, 2024
The answer to all those ‘Why?’ questions, Sir John, could be: Because there’s been a coup.
The elite blob which previously interfered with government has now become the government.
September 13, 2024
+++ Agree and they have no accountability
September 13, 2024
Afraid the Conservative Party is paying the price of failing to deliver, and failing to control the civil service, as well as failing to put forward and agree sensible and traditional conservative policies.
The BBC has also been shown to be anti conservative, and the Labour Party took advantage of all of the above and won, even though it failed to convince any more voters than at the last election.
Thus your leader at the time failed to make his case strong enough to be able to continue
Those undercover opponents in grey suits, and those within the party that did their best to frustrate any sensible conservative policies need to be exposed and removed before the party has any chance of a return to power.
Reform if it gets its act together, is the only real option to Labour for conservative supporters.
September 13, 2024
Why do you think they’re all so desperate to get Nigel and the other MP off the tele.
He can run a blog, a YouTube channel, or an X channel for his constituents to discuss current events anyway. They’d be best leaving him on one channel rather than setting him free to do his work on social media, at least Ofcom have control over that channel.
September 13, 2024
I think the answer is that under Two-tier Keir, the Labour party are an incompetent rabble. They duped the public into thinking they weren’t as bad as the incompetent Conservative party.
Despite the massive majority, I can see this government failing fairly quickly. A failure that could be hastened if the Conservatives could provide opposition, which isn’t happening. A good start would be to elect a new Conservative party leader, but they’ve decided to string that task out for months………..
September 13, 2024
A new leader won’t help the Conservatives looking at the quality of those who have put themselves forward. The party doomed itself by allowing central office to select parliamentary candidates over many years. Nothing will improve until they investigate who was behind this self-inflicted destruction of the party. It has become infected by left-wing liberals and woke dogooders and voters can see this.
September 13, 2024
Why is there no transparency about the alleged ÂŁ22bn hole in the finances, you ask, Sir John. Perhaps because Starmer does not want the spotlight shone on what caused that hole. More than half of it (ÂŁ12.5bn) is accounted for by military aid to Ukraine. But as he wants to keep the war going, he’s loth to have that discussed in public. Especially now that Ukraine is a lost cause.
September 13, 2024
For all those who wish to signal their virtue,Lidl have ‘Ukrainian Style Borscht’ on offer this weekend.Only ÂŁ1.49! Go on,treat yourselves!
September 13, 2024
What is curious is that Starmer has growth as a target but he and his chancellor spend their time talking the economy down, saying how terrible the finances are, and threatening massive tax rises thus creating an atmosphere in which both people and companies will stop spending and investment and so reduce growth. They don’t seem to have mastered being in government rather than opposition where perpetual negativity is expected.
One interesting insight into government as a whole in UK is the issue of a lack of an impact assesment on the winter fuel payment withdrawal. No 10 say the law only requires an impact assessment for policies that cost more than ÂŁ10m to implement. The focus is entirely on what government spends (the input) rather than what happens as a result of that spending (the output). Based on that law Starmer could cancel all state pension payments tomorrow and no impact assessment would be required because it cost him nothing to implement that policy.
September 13, 2024
Roy, I think Starmer has been having lessons from Smiley Carol Smillie this last week. The message has got through he is just too gloomy and people are getting very depressed, other than Angela of course who is raving.
September 13, 2024
Not only was it that “We were promised in Labourâs Manifesto a new era of transparency” but the new era has been delivered: this government is transparently rotten.
It is now admitted (showing Labour does not care how many pensioners it kills) that the winter fuel cut was decided upon without any impact assessment. What would the Court of Session make of that?
September 13, 2024
Didn’t the high priestess of thieves promise after getting elected that the OBR would virtually take control and be empowered to approve all expditure. Or wasthat just a inhibitor for future administrations?
No one has mentioned that the OBR has never been correct with their predictions
September 13, 2024
It’s blatant corruption, but our system of governance allows them to get away with it. We have a democracy in name only. It is really an elected dictatorship, supported by a Mandarin Class who are “above democracy” and can thwart any policy which is not intended to deliver the long-term goal of the Establishment.
Starmer and his goons are accelerating the WEF’s “Great Reset” plan for what Schwab calls Stakeholder Capitalism to be imposed ….. which is really a command and control, Chinese-style, form of Corporatism: a fusion between a dictatorial government and big business with “the peasant class” controlled by AI-surveillance, a social credit system and digital currencies.
The target year is 2030, but many people have now woken up to the plan and are pushing back so the timescale is slipping.
People in a hurry make mistakes.
September 13, 2024
+1 I like your last point, Donna. It’s what happened with Operation Covid. The truth got out. Eventually. It took a lot longer than with Operation Swine flu in 2009, and the scam was orders of magnitude more expensive to the public purse, but a lot of people now have their eyes open. The UN’s pandemic treaty has been delayed, because the Covid operation generated far more pushback than its organisers had bargained for.
As happened in Eastern Europe in 1989, governments that are seen by the people as lying and corrupt and criminalise dissent will be overthrown. It takes time, but it happens.
September 13, 2024
Well said, Donna!
You summed up things very accurately.
September 13, 2024
Well described Donna.
The freedoms we have enjoyed in England were gained by our ancestors, who often had to be absolutely determined.
Thankfully Nigel Farage, one of some, is speaking out and leading but almost no traditional party loyal member wants to join him. They are deceiving us they have changed.
They don’t want to get themselves in trouble with the authoritarians who are taking over. They like the comfortable lives they live.
Members of ‘the peasant class’ must take action to defend themselves.
September 13, 2024
And he will get away with all this because the BBC, Sky and ITV in particular like what he is doing and saying, and keeping criticisms away.
September 13, 2024
‘How much longer can this government keep up the bad mouthing of the country, the NHS, political groups they do not like, and the state of society?’
answer: they have 4+ years to wreak havoc on the country, our dim electorate handed the power imagining ‘things can only get better!’
Older voters remember, and can’t forgive what ensued the first time. You reap what you sow.
September 13, 2024
Letâs tell it like it is. Reeves and Starmer are lying over the supposed âblack holeâ. All the numbers are public there is no secret set of âbooksâ to which only ministers in the last government were privy. Reeves as I understand had privileged access for 10 weeks or so before the election to the treasury to ask whatever she liked. Boris Johnson was kicked out for lying about the presence of a cake in a meeting, which in the view of a committee made that meeting a âpartyâ. He was very foolish so to expose himself. Reevesâs and Starmerâs lies are much more serious. Meanwhile as Robert Jenrick points out, innocent lives are now threatened as thugs are released early from prison so their places can be taken by people whoâve made distasteful remarks on social media.
September 13, 2024
He was set up Richard.
How can you be foolish walking into a room with a 2m distance from everyone in there (1m was acceptable at the time if circumstances wouldn’t allow 2m) on your birthday where ‘other people’ bought the goodies on the table and you don’t partake, it was Sunak who capitulated accepting the fine, Boris should have stood his ground but the wolves were out to get him.
His bigger bashing from the media attack was on Pincher. Isn’t it odd that all that just went away? Were any charges ever brought?
September 13, 2024
Indeed they were out to get him. But that was quite obvious from the start. He should have conducted himself so as not to give the left and the blob the slightest chance to nobble him. While weâre at it, he should also have made some attempt to implement his 2019 manifesto upon which he was elected.
September 13, 2024
Not sure how this govt. can moan about the previous one, blaming it for all problems.
Labour was in opposition!
I donât remember a great deal of opposing.
Labour appeared to back the Tory govt. in just about everything.
Isnât that how the epithet âUnipartyâ came about?
September 13, 2024
I remember beautiful crisp autumn mornings like this.
An army of briefcase-toting men marching down to the station.
They walked past the police station and doctorâs surgery,
Past the busy early morning shops.
The bakerâs shop where tradesmen queued for freshly baked filled rolls.
The greengrocer taking a delivery from the local farm.
The friendly garage filling up peopleâs tanks.
All gone.
Where, I would like to know, is our brave new world?
How is decline and decay and misery the better choice?
I certainly did not vote for those!
September 13, 2024
WHY – because politicians lie, have always lied and will always lie. They will do and say anything to get into power.
We now see a clamp down on free speech. They are coming for what remains of the free press, namely GBNews and Talk Radio. They are trying to take away the only platform remaining for Nigel Farage and the Reform Party to get their message out to the public by attempting to ban MPs from having second jobs.
We haven’t seen anything yet regarding the destruction this government will have on what remains of our once great country.
September 13, 2024
It’s a dishonest government which will be out at the next election given a strong opposition.
September 13, 2024
Somewhat off subject, but this is being pushed on us by socialist administrations, led by the London Mayor – Why is nobody talking about it?
National and local Govt is making car ownership impossible for the ordinary person… with the latest subset of netzero called VISION ZERO
It’s centred around extreme, unrealistic and dangerous ideas as netzero is, but specifically driven by:
Authorities in the UK are now embracing Vision Zero, and its key to the London Mayor’s Transport Strategy which aims to create a situation in which 80% of all trips in the capital be made on foot, by cycle or public transport by 2041.
You can hear the fanaticism in Transport for London’s Vision Zero statement: âThe Vision Zero approach is based on the fundamental conviction that loss of life and serious injuries are neither acceptable nor inevitable.â
It appears inevitable that they will force us away from our cars because they have plotted each step along the way to ensure we get used to the idea of 15 minute cities.
Where is the transparency in all of this hidden agenda!
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/vision-zero-action-plan.pdf
September 13, 2024
The Tories did nothing to stop this. They abetted it.
Instead of prisons and reservoirs we got… HS2 ! (And even then only 1/2 HS2)
I cannot believe that we actually paid and knighted people to do this to us.
When the country implodes economically (very soon) how will public sector pensions be paid for ? By early release prisoners or by an illiterate who has just turned up by dinghy ?
September 13, 2024
âWhy have various senior civil servants turned up as senior advisers or. Ministers? What does that tell us about civil service impartiality?â
The partiality of the fifth column Communists in the Civil Service, quangos, regulators, institutions, MSM, academia, judiciary and now even the police has been obvious for some considerable time. The Conservative MPs did nothing to stop it as they are part of it and will not be any use as an opposition. Unfortunately the collapse of the Conservative vote at the last GE was still insufficient.
Just as the BBC cannot be trusted neither will it be possible to trust the data from the Civil Service which includes the OBR, ONS, NAO, Met Office, DESNZ, Home Office etc etc.
September 13, 2024
PS : The only way out of this mess will be for an incoming administration to organise a series of referendums to obtain the mandates necessary for the wholesale changes which will be required.
September 13, 2024
âWhy are they agreeing to close down our primary steel making capacity before completing and publishing their steel strategy? What is the point of a strategy if you have no industry left?â
The purpose of Net Zero, based upon the entirely false concoction that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from Western nations have caused a climate emergency/crisis/breakdown, is to de-industrialise and impoverish the nation by transitioning our energy to expensive and chaotically intermittent renewables and by electrification leaving us economically and militarily exposed to hostile attack.
The 31 GW of installed wind power is currently producing just 3.7GW. We need to have a referendum on Net Zero.
September 13, 2024
Morning John,
The OBR forecasts as per usual.
The new government is similarly employing âtruth by repeated assertionâ mechanisms to justify their actions in service of the almighty âfiscal rulesâ to the detriment of the population. HM Treasury has just refused to release the information used to construct the âspending auditâ that is being paraded around as gospel. The Financial Times requested it.
Iâm surprised the FT had to ask given the reserve claims are detailed in the Supplementary Estimates published every February, and which show that government has âoverspentâ its declared spending allocation (ie had a âblack holeâ) every year since 2016. And the sky has yet to fall in.
In reality the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), which Labour has said we must now all bend knee to, completely botched its capacity and inflation predictions and therefore the last Spending Review was not fit for purpose. Plus HM Treasury has singularly failed to do its job of keeping departmental spending to budget.In any other organisation they would all be sacked for incompetence.
” When they announce increased spending they cost it, get it approved and explain how it is being paid for. ”
There is no being ” paid for ” as taxes and borrowing do not fund spending. There’s none during wars and was none during the pandemic as it is simply keystroked into existence. So every âpay forâ is fake in that regard.
The truth is, most lawmakers donât actually care whether theyâre voting for so-called âfakeâ offsets. If they genuinely support the policy, a âpay forâ that works on paper (if not in practice) is often good enough to garner support. They understand the pay-for game, soâŠa wink and a nod will normally suffice.
We pretend that the government needs to budget like a household. We think of taxes as something the government needs (i.e. revenue) instead of remembering that taxes are there to subtract spending power from the rest of us so that the governmentâs own spending doesnât push the economy beyond its full-employment limit. We hamstring legislation by demanding that the government âpay forâ new spending, even when the economy could safely absorb that spending without the need for higher taxes. And we do all of this because weâve decided that these household budgeting practices somehow serve the public interest. They donât.â
The public needs to understand what this whole âpay forâ game is really about and whyâdespite appearancesâit doesnât actually result in responsible budgeting practices. Why the OBR forecasts are always wrong.
Quite simply, the budget constraint should be replaced with an inflation constraint. that the governmentâs budget constraint is the wrong constraintâthe correct constraint is whether or not a particular budget position will raise inflation beyond an official target rate.
A budget deficit is ALWAYS good for someone. They should explain who is going to benefit from their plan to increase the deficit and if it will cause inflation.
How this could work rather easilyâjust as the OBR and IFS now evaluate government budget proposals regarding their effects on the budget stance, they could instead shift focus on evaluating these proposals against the inflation target. An inflation constraint provides more fiscal space than a budget constraint, but in no way does it provide unlimited fiscal space.
We could add quite a bit of detail here if we want, but Iâll just say a few more things. First, itâs quite clear that economists donât have much expertise modeling how to use the governmentâs budget stance to manage the macroeconomy âbut this is largely because they have come to view monetary policy as the main macroeconomic policy tool, not because itâs not possible.
Taylorâs Rule says to adjust the carpet bombing approach and move the interest rate to manage the macroeconomy; when fiscal policy could be used.
Replacing a budget constraint with an inflation constraint is not hard. It involves a change in perspective. It doesnât give license to policy makers to do whatever they want. It does mean the OBR and IFS will finally be doing something useful with its deficit projectionsânamely, building models to understand how deficits will affect the macroeconomy (while their current practice is to assume an economy at full employment and warn of impending financial ruin as a result of deficits). The tax payer money myth.
This is why we never get tax cuts.
A budget deficit is ALWAYS good for someone wether it be government spending or tax cuts. On the other side of every government deficit lies a financial surplus that accumulates in some other part of the economy.
While it is an indisputable fact to acknowledge that every government deficit is matched, ÂŁ-for-ÂŁ, by a financial surplus in the non-government sector, it would be foolish to conclude that the best set of policies is the one that dumps the biggest pile of cash into the broader economy. Yes, every deficit is good for someone. But for whom? Can it be done without stoking inflation? And what are those deficits helping us to accomplish as a society? Fatter wallets for those at the very top or safer communities, better health outcomes, and a cleaner environment?
When the question is put to both candidates, instead of pointing fingers and waging a rhetorical war against government deficits, both candidates should take a deep breath and explain how they plan to use the deficit to deliver material gains for the British people. The moderators should know this too. They should press each of the candidates to explain who will benefit (and how) from the contributions that their deficits will make to the broader economy. Then the OBR and IFS job should be to analyse it it will cause inflation rather then the nonsense they do at the moment. That they always get wrong.
September 13, 2024
Look I went through all of this in the 1970s and it is starting off again but with less educated types since we lost the good schooling system we had then which I was lucky enough to prosper through (my own achievements too as I had to pass for grammar school and had to fight my way through everything as we did then). We have stupid types now who do not seem to have done comprehension and see things all ways not their way. I really fear for our country and what mess they will leave it in this time round. I did not expect to come to end part of my life and have these types around me again. The Tories have brought this on us with their greed and infighting so they are in it too. I curse the lot of them for making my ending days unhappy. Thank goodness my parents who did active service in the last War are not here to see this.
September 13, 2024
What has become pellucidly clear and is out in the open is that Starmer and his Government are clueless.
1. No financial impact analysis before scrapping winter fuel payments – just a âequalitiesâ assessment. Good to know that an equal number of men, women, homosexuals, transsexuals and everything else will die.
2. He is proposed a direct attack on Russia with U.K. personnel and U.K. weapons, a country âwe are not at war withâ. Putin says he will retaliate. Starmer, UNBELIEVABLY claims âRussia stated it (the war). He is soooooo ignorant that he hight even think that is so.
The people of the west must expect poverty, and dire consequences – war, if we donât expel the madmen we have speaking for us and ruling us with a Rod of iron against our constitution.
September 13, 2024
The NHS has a fully functioning Management team in each Trust. Remember that word Trust, they are meant to be people we trust to look after our health, their workforce and provide the best service.
Many of them earn much more money and rewards than the MPs who are supposed to oversee them and give them a mission, goals, and targets. It’s amazing that billionaires who run large companies worldwide can delegate to managers, and they perform well. Still, somehow, management in the NHS gets away with blaming all their mistakes, their cost overruns, and their failure to meet goals and targets on their boss!
We put up with this failure because privatising dentistry has given us a taste of expensive treatments, even for basic check-ups, not being able to get an appointment unless you pay private, then just having your teeth pulled because you can’t afford the crown (you’d think you were buying a real crown some of the pricing).
I have a community hospital about 10-15 minutes away, but we’re not allowed to use it other than for the odd blood test. Call 111; we aren’t sent there; we’re sent 30 minutes away to a much busier hospital. That is one demonstration of how broken the current system is.
I’d like to know where in the UK mental health hospital wards Darzi wrote about are infested with mice and cockroaches; is this true? Can’t they get a ward cat and the exterminators in?
A seven-day-a-week service is not only open five days, well 4.5 for early-finish Fridays. Now we have Labour, will that soon be four days or 3.5 days? We have the workers running the service rather than the Management, and we have fully qualified grade 7 and 8 nurses on administration.
Do you think Elon Musk’s Managers would get away with that?
September 13, 2024
It is extremely scary to be either denied information or not to be able to trust.
This feels totalitarian. In particular, the removal of racial information feels strange for a country that has absorbed identity politics from the USA. With the BBC not covering stories and putting a leftish spin on everything, it is very hard to know what is really going on. (I note the word left-wing has been replaced by the word ‘liberal’ making us even more the 51st state.)
I recall that Gordon Brown was constantly tweaking indices to make like on like comparisons with the past difficult and to make his own dismal performance as chancellor look good. All growth in the 1997-2010 era was debt funded (public and private.)
September 13, 2024
On the issue of escalating the war with Russia and Ukraine. I dug into the legality of the treaties and invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
It turns out the peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine was signed legitimately by the previous pro Russian Ukrainian Government / despite protests by a minority.
Further it looks to me like Ukraine breached the peace treaty and the peace treaty made it clear Russia could take any action it felt appropriate.
The only possible issue of center in. is whether NATO was a threat to Russia. Given it has thousands of nukes whose sole purpose is to attack Russia I would find it difficult to argue that the most severe threat invented by man in history was not a threat.
Any way here are the two key clauses in the peace treaty for you to mull over. I put this treaty through 3 different Ukraine translators and they said exactly the same thing.
Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, signed in 1997,
Article 6
Each of the High Contracting Parties shall refrain from participating in or support of any action directed against the other High Contracting Party, and undertakes not to conclude with third countries any agreements directed against the other Party. Neither Party will allow its territory to be used to the detriment of the security of the other Party.
Article 7
In the event of a situation which, in the opinion of one of the High Contracting Parties, threatens the peace, breaches the peace or affects the interests of its national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity, it may address the other High Contracting Party with a proposal to hold appropriate consultations without delay. The Parties shall exchange relevant information and, if necessary, take concerted or joint measures to overcome such a situation.
September 13, 2024
What a relief it is that article 6 has not been breached, failing as it does to prohibit the undertaking of action by a High Contracting Party rather only seeking to deny participating in or supporting of any action (the clear inference being action by others).
Article 7 amounts to nothing if a High Contracting Party does not wish it to. Assuming lobbing drones at one another mght meet the “exchange relevant information” condition, it seems neither Party considers the “if necessary” requirement has been met to admit measures to overcome.
Is there a secret annex dealing with the conduct of special military operations by chance?
September 13, 2024
The Tory party had 14 years in which to repeal the Climate Change Act. The result of that would have been a massive reduction in costs for industry and households and a country whose economy raced ahead; if the Tory party were still defeated at the ensuing election for everything else they got wrong: warmongering, failing NHS, sieve-like borders etc, they would have had a strong case to argue against the Labour party if in its doctrinaire Miliband-based idiocy it decided to reimpose it. But no, in practice they did nothing to benefit this country at all as a result of which things actually got worse as their inherited problems festered. We had to listen to debates about how our foreign owned steel industry could operate successfully when it required large quantities of cheap energy to make it competitive as well as all the other manufacturing industries dependent on it.
Just think, if the Tories were not extremely stupid, they could have spent no time discussing how safely to dispose of carbon dioxide caused by making stuff. The Tories never left the EU and remained controlled by the Brussels Commission in their thinking.
September 13, 2024
Forthurst :
I think the fifth column Communists in the Civil Service are running the country which is why there is no change of policy (mass immigration, Net Zero, warmongering etc) when the administrations change and why the Conservatives are totally incapable of acting as an Opposition to the governing party. To make matters worse they removed the PM elected by the party to be the leader using a financial disaster, which the BoE has now admitted it caused largely by itself, and has enabled Labour to assert for the next 2 election terms that the Conservatives cannot be trusted with the country’s finances. This is why the Conservative Party is now toast.
September 14, 2024
+1
September 13, 2024
Today’s topic shows great insight and commentary by SJR into how the Labour Party and Starmer are ultra secretive and spinning their warped ideas more akin to an authoritarian diktat from an alien state. Hypocrisy on steroids.
(To burst this bubble today Nigel Farage was spot on with his comment on Labour “not having the guts” to reform the NHS, a major black hole that they dare not really confront, like most of their legacies…..).
September 14, 2024
Well said Sir John I am fed up with the blame game Labour is playing The steel debacle shows a totaal lack of strategy
September 14, 2024
I am hopeful that once the Conservatives get a new leader in November we may have an Opposition again to this awful government. That opposition and the highlighting of the many Labour downsides will very much depend on who is elected. In particular, unless that person comes to her/his senses on Net Zero, I fear we may never have an effective opposition.
September 14, 2024
If they put VAT on private schools, then do they put VAT on uni fees too?
In the interest of transparency and openess, perhaps fairness across all education?