Jon Moynihan’s new book on growth

I was delighted when Jon Moynihan became  a peer. He has done much to foster more and better businesses in the UK and has much to offer to the debate on how the UK can grow faster and create greater prosperity and wealth for many. His often unfashionable views and clear analysis deserves the Lords as a platform.

He is this week launching the second volume of his important book on growth. This is a great book which all interested in the future of the UK and our prosperity should read. Its  main themes set out how to deliver the  faster growth we need and will be no surprise to readers of this site. He backs the lower taxes I have always campaigned for, and draws on Laffer’s work that higher rates can lead  to less revenue. He believes that smaller government is part of the answer, preferring competitive providers charging buyers and users directly. He  promotes free trade internationally. He chooses Adam Smith , not JM Keynes for economic guidance.

The book is a treasure trove of data and arguments to show how these three principles when applied work well. He shows how the more a state chooses government ownership and direction and the more it goes  for higher taxes the poorer it becomes. He wants more Singapore and less Venezuela  and North Korea in policy.

The disagreements I have relate to priorities and tactics as to how we could get the UK back to greater free enterprise, freedom and growth. Jon for example argued for doing away with pensioner fuel payments before Labour. I think that a bad idea to do in cold snap in winter when government is forcing our energy prices ever higher. We need to address  the  underlying problem of energy markets rigged against UK consumers. I would  start by dismantling the self defeating net zero energy bans, subsidies and adverse price fixing, not by mugging the pensioners.

Jon is also a vigorous free trader. Of course the world would be richer if all allowed tariff and obstacle free trade. We need however to survive in a world where many others play unfairly, so there are areas like food and defence equipment where we need to consider national security as well. It can sometimes  be better to be a multilateral rather than a unilateral dismantler of barriers.

These are tactical arguments born of a wish to see more the recommendations in Jon’s book adopted. The overall case is a strong one, well researched and argued. Back this book.This is the best book on how to remodel our economy for growth available. It should be compulsory reading in government.

87 Comments

  1. Mark B
    January 13, 2025

    Good morning.

    Its main themes set out how to deliver the faster growth we need and will be no surprise to readers of this site.

    If I may, on behalf of everyone that is a very kind comment, Sir john. Thank you. 🙂

    There indeed does need to be some barriers. Free Trade should come with ‘equivalency’ attached. By what I mean by equivalency is that standards are broadly the same. Same materials, standards, pay, working conditions etc. Just because a company say in China can make a similar product cheaper does not mean that a company in the UK must go bust despite said UK companies product being that much better made and longer lasting.

    I have always argued that markets should be free and fair and that governments should work towards that end and not directly determine what and how much is produced. eg BEV’s. We need to see the end of Soviet style tractor or wind turbine production announcements.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 13, 2025

      What of the British company produces worse quality goods? Does it deserve Govt protection so it survives?

  2. Ian Wraggg
    January 13, 2025

    Jon is of course an outlier in the debate on governance and growth strategy. His ideas are diametrically opposite to the uniparty belief in tax, spend borrow and waste.
    We had 14 years of tory government with 5 as coalition meaning all 3 major parties where involved in the UK s destruction.
    Now we have the Melon Green Party promoting a private members bill, supported by many MPs which is the final destructive document
    Full speed ahead into the abyss cheered on by about 600 of elected politicians.
    Madness.

    Reply Jon is a Conservative peer. There is no uni party.

    1. Ian wragg
      January 13, 2025

      Jon is a conservative peer
      Maybe but that doesn’t alter the fact that the liblabcon aka the uniparty are all wedded to net zero, mass immigration and ruinous levels of taxation. Even after the trouncing at the last election Badenoch refuses to change direction, the rump tory party is infested with one nation wets so who is going to implement Jon’s radical ideas.

      1. MFD
        January 13, 2025

        I agree with Ian, we have a load of corrupt politicians , bought by the Corrupt WEF, we need to root them out!
        A lot of the honest members of Westminster have retired , being replaced by some who are only there to get money ! Climate con is
        only to fill their wallet.

    2. Lifelogic
      January 13, 2025

      But there are clearly uni-party policies. Tax, borrow, piss down the drain, over regulate, kill and export jobs, kill growth, block the roads, push EVs and heat pumps, kill high energy industries, stop fracking drilling and mining and have rip off intermittent “renewable” energy.

      We know how to get growth but we do not know how to get a government that does this.

      Any questions this week with Alex Forsyth as Chair Woman. Four socialist net zero dopes plus one sensible person Greg Swenson. The BBC Chairwoman wanted to show her due BBC impartiality so said “Can I just get some clarity on that, people are wary of attributing any one single weather event to climate change but there is very clear concensus that the intensity and frequency is linked to climate change”.

      No Alex, just look at the data this is just not true and certainly not by manmade climate change – you started to read medicine so should be able to cope with the rather clear data. But it is not the Chairwomen’s job to get “clarity” by talking total nonsense!

      Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Lord Finkelstein (fake Conservative), Meg Hillier MP and the Chair the socialist & net zero dopes and Greg Swenson the one voice of reason.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        Look too, while you are at it Alex, at the appalling data on excess deaths that are clearly related to the Covid “vaccines”. Still no correction of the record by Sunak on his statement of assurance to the house on Covid Vaccine Safety – so I assume he has still not bothered to look at the appalling data?

      2. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        At least Trump is a climate and energy realist and – and also realist on the vast damage done by the unsafe net harm Covid Vaccines. He will hopefully expose both appalling scandals to full sunlight.

    3. Donna
      January 13, 2025

      They’ve given a very good impression of being a Uni-Party for the last 20-or-so years. Perhaps we should call it a CONsensus Party instead?

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        The Net Zero, open door to vast low skilled immigration Con-socialists and the full on Net Zero, open door to vast low skilled immigration, Labour socialists. Take you pick we suffer the later due to the Con-Socialist agenda of the former.

      2. Original Richard
        January 13, 2025

        Donna :

        Yes, the Conservative Party, or the blue section of the Uniparty, are now a broken, toxic brand having supported mass immigration, Net Zero and high spending justifying high taxation policies. The red section are determined to achieve the same, especially with their idea to pay Mauritius large sums of money to take the Chagos Islands off our hands.

    4. Bloke
      January 13, 2025

      A Foreword or first Chapter explaining how to overcome Labour intransigence may be needed if the fine effects of the Jon’s book guidance are to have effect before the next General Election. Otherwise, the distance between cause and effect may extend to another 4.5 years, which is a long, slow-burn fuse.

    5. Denis Cooper
      January 13, 2025

      Ian, on January 11 you wrote “Read the private members bill which is wending it’s way through Parliament.
      That intends to count emissions on all imports and exports with transport costs calculated from the port of origin”, and I would like to do that but I have been unable to find it. Please could you post the link to it?

    6. Sir Joe Soap
      January 13, 2025

      So if the three “main” parties plus the Greens have such a wonderfully diverse range of policies, please explain why yet another party would be needed and is becoming successful?
      Clearly the Greens are absolute outliers, with Lib, Lab & Con occupying the socialist left wing ground in various guises, while Reform occupy the basic common sense centre ground.

      The possible difference with the Cons being honesty, or lack of it. It’s absolutely useless saying you’ll leave ECHR, ditch EU rules, balance the budget, stop boats, implement inquiries etc. then just not doing it. More honest to admit this is not the intention. At least you’ll get a modicum of votes for being honest.

  3. agricola
    January 13, 2025

    However good the book, we must waste and decline a further 4.5 years, unless the current incumbents implode. Then we are dependent on their replacements being prepared to take the steps necessary to effect a recovery from whatever low we reach. Had lunch with a well retired, very senior employee of HMRC. His verdict was that we are on a path of economic and cultural decline from which there is no prospect of recovery or reversal. Singapore offshore Europe is a dream cancelled. The currwnt path is a nightmare.

    1. Dave Andrews
      January 13, 2025

      Implosion looks a real possibility. Reeves is now talking about cuts in public services – also known as austerity (falsely I say, as there will be no attempt to reduce national debt). This is anathema to the rank and file Labour Party, and I can say them voting them down. What then? Reeves is sacked, and replaced by someone who understands even less about economics.
      What to do?
      Cuts will be voted down by the back-benchers, as it violates their doctrine.
      Increasing taxes will stifle business further, leading to tax receipts going down further.
      Borrowing will send yields up higher, making it more unaffordable.
      I can see the Labour Party voting for money printing. Wise heads will tell them not to do it, but the words will just go over their heads and they will do it anyway.

    2. Charles Breese
      January 13, 2025

      I am less despondent about the UK because it is a great developer of step change innovation, which is the fundamental engine of wealth creation. In spite of our governments of whatever hue, there are still people building UK businesses to solve global problems – such businesses can take at least 20 years to become commercially established, so governments elected for 5 year terms are just another uncertainty to manage against the background that they have a propensity to hinder rather than help due to lacking any experience of building wealth creating businesses of this nature!

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        January 13, 2025

        Once US energy prices match the lowest in the world, why would any European business with prospects remain in Europe?
        I agree of course with the fact that we British do more than our fair share of innovation and business development, but can we do it here?
        Remember, we invented the modern computer – Silicon Valley is our invention, why is it not in the U.K.?

        1. hefner
          January 13, 2025

          power-and-beyond.com 28/04/2023 ‘The history of Silicon Valley – How it began, how it boomed, and where it’s headed’.
          Was Frederick Terman a Brit, no, were William Hewlett or David Packard Brits, no. I am afraid that from the mid-40s, top electronics / computer technology had stopped being a British forte.
          Were in those days Oxford U or Cambridge U ever the epicentre of computer developments, whether in hardware or software? No, I’m afraid not.

    3. Lifelogic
      January 13, 2025

      Even if we get to an election what guarantee do we have that the manifestos will not be a pack of lies and we will not be cheated yet again after the serial lies of Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak, Starmer… for so very many years.

      I had a coffee with an HMRC collections chap he said arrears on VAT and PAYE from businesses were the highest he had know in his long time at HMRC.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        Do we have confidence that even Reform (even if they got a majority) would try to deliver or be able to what they promise on immigration levels and ditching the net zero lunacy? Who knows what the reform MPs would look and be like if they had more than 350 of them? Let alone if there was some coalitions.

        1. agricola
          January 13, 2025

          LL
          Remember, that while you have every right to question the potential performance of a newly elected Reform, you are all to aware of the talents of the 645 alternatives. They have a well documented litany of failure.

    4. K
      January 13, 2025

      And at least before Brexit we could escape it. Either it could not be delivered or was never going to be allowed to be delivered.

    5. Ed M
      January 14, 2025

      It’s first cultural decline first. As in how Nietzsche’s modern man ‘has killed God’ (not a literal God necessarily – depending on if you’re religious or not) but Judaeo-Christian values for sure. 90% of the success of a country is down to culture not politics. Doesn’t matter how sophisticated or true your politics are without the culture underneath you got nothing to work with. Like trying to build a castle on shifting, wet sand.

    6. Ed M
      January 14, 2025

      The good news is that a strong leader can profoundly change things for the better. Look at the effect of the disciples and St Paul on the world. Of St Joan of Arc in France. Of Winston Churchill here (he wasn’t a saint but still a strong leader with a positive impact on our country).

  4. Wanderer
    January 13, 2025

    The book does sound very interesting and might also be good reading for economics students, whether their universites recommended it or not.

    The US is about to test of two of Moynihan’s themes. I wish President Trump success in reducing the size of government, but he’s also not a free trader, saying and he’ll embark on tariffs. The latter does worry me, as the results (including reciprocation, worsening foreign relations etc) are somewhat unpredictable and can be disruptive to wealth and peace.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 13, 2025

      Well I think, in reality, he is largely a free trader, but will use some threats of tariffs to get free and fare trade and more defence expenditure in Europe.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        As we know with all PMs from Blair through to Starmer politicians usually say what they have to get elected then very often do the complete reverse to kick the voters in the teeth.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      January 13, 2025

      Trump falls into the Redwood camp – a ‘fair’ trader? Pointless opening your markets to those who block their market from you.
      But we all want as many markets open as possible, that’s why the English speaking world was so successful – our markets in each area were open to the all the rest, as well as to all other countries who wanted to play the game that lifts people out of poverty en mass.

    3. Ed M
      January 13, 2025

      I hate tariffs. Trump is the tariff king. He doesn’t understand that he’s not that powerful. What makes a country ‘great’ are its entrepreneurs in particular from high tech. And what breeds entrepreneurs is more about the culture not politics.
      America’s real problem is cultural (cultural malaise) not politics (although can always be improved for sure).

    4. Bloke
      January 13, 2025

      I’ve just noticed the book’s cover design, which is a fine example of creative excellence.

  5. David Andrews
    January 13, 2025

    If you want to live with free trade you need a political economy that supports the creation and encouragement of innovative businesses that can compete in and with low cost, state subsidised producers. That type of political economy is being, if not has been, crushed by legislation, regulation and taxation at every level of business activity. There needs to be a revolution in the UK to create that world. The evidence of businesses going bust, quitting the LSE to go private, relisting on NASDAQ, or just packing up, and the obvious decline in returns (most obvious from the decline in the AIM All Share Index) is accelerating under this dire Labour government. Nothing will change for the better until there is a government elected that believes in and supports an enterprise culture.

  6. Paul Freedman
    January 13, 2025

    His work sounds like sound economics and Britain’s future depends on it. I have much to read for a forthcoming exam at them moment but I look forward to reading his work afterwards. I was also delighted to recently receive a copy of Popular Capitalism, (Sir John Redwood, Routledge Revivals) as a birthday present. I look forward to reading that as well. I have an instinct for the nature of both books and I know we need to adopt such thinking if we want to see a much better economy with much better opportunities for all.

  7. NigL
    January 13, 2025

    Excellent. Labour stuffed with ex union members and the Tories, one nation high tax social democrats so if they do read it, doubtful, their minds will be too closed to change.

  8. NigL
    January 13, 2025

    If you want to see the dead hand of funding cuts together with over besring market controls, look at the fires in California.

    Insurance companies with their expertise pulled out owing to being unable to make any profit and the fire service finding was reduced.

    The State thought it could provide the insurance, current liabilities umpteen billions, assets a few hundred million so effectively bankrupt and much of LA destroyed.

    1. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      The LA Fire Chief was very candid when asked if the cuts to the LAFD budget had impacted their ability to tackle the fires. The Mayor (fresh off a plane from Ghana) then told the Press that she would be having “a PRIVATE conversation with her Fire Chief”. I bet she did! If I lived in LA, I know who I’d be backing and I suspect will feel the same, as the Mayor (and Governor) will discover when the time comes to ask them…

  9. Mickey Taking
    January 13, 2025

    ‘It should be compulsory reading in government’
    How will you get the few who actually read, but favour comics, to pick it up? Perhaps send a free copy to each MP?

  10. Donna
    January 13, 2025

    I’m sure the book is interesting and is recommending strategies/policies which I would support.

    However, when it comes to the Establishment, the current Government and the previous ones for the last 25 years, he is talking to the hand; the face isn’t listening. And they’re not going to, because with the EU “Deal” and Sunak’s Windsor Treachery, they have made it impossible to change significant policies without first scrapping them and actually LEAVING the EU: most notably Environmental and Energy Policies.

    Although I admit I haven’t scrutinised the “deals” I strongly suspect that we are also still committed to run our economy in the interests of the EU, as we have been since the Maastrict Treaty. I can’t think of any other reason why Sunak would state, when he created the Windsor sellout, that “we don’t compete with friends.” Perhaps Sir John knows and could respond?

    It remains to be seen whether the latest iteration of the Not-a-Conservative-Party pays attention to Moynihan and says it is adopting more Conservative economic policies but personally, I no longer trust them so they can say whatever they like. I watched what they did when they had power and what they are doing now they don’t; and I’m not remotely impressed.

    1. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      I do think this is a very real problem for the Conservative Party Donna.

      They can change their Leader but have they really changed? Our establishment has been throughly infiltrated by “Progressive” ideologies (the pseudonym for ‘Socialist’ used by the media & political classes these days). So it seems, has CPHQ and therefore (via selection) have many Conservative MPs. I can understand why local CP membership has dwindled. Why do all that legwork, if you are just going to have your views ignored by the Grey Men in Suits ?

    2. Denis Cooper
      January 13, 2025

      Have you have seen this, from Professor Robert Tombs?

      https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/brexit-is-not-yet-done/?mc_cid=c4798e388e&mc_eid=ee84cb59c6

      “Brexit is not yet done”

      He asks why the number of people seemingly regretting Brexit has increased but the answer to that is obvious – day after day there is a continuing stream of anti-Brexit propaganda which goes almost entirely unanswered.

      He judges that formal accession to the EU is “financially and politically unthinkable”, but “the EU has adopted since 2016 a multitude of restrictive laws, including on finance, artificial intelligence and gene editing, which are damaging its future prospects (as many EU enthusiasts admit) and will damage us too if we align with them.”

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        Have not read this but Prof. Robert Tombs is usually sound rather surprising he was not fired by the dire last vice Chancellor at Cambridge.

      2. Donna
        January 13, 2025

        Thanks Denis, no I hadn’t seen it.

        It was interesting today that during his latest robotic bore-fest, Two-Tier mentioned that we were not tied into the EU’s regulatory restrictions on AI. Whether that freedom will survive his attempt to drag us as close into alignment as possible, without actually rejoining, remains to be seen.

  11. Rod Evans
    January 13, 2025

    As time goes by, I am increasingly convinced there is a swath of society that do not want the things that those of us in favour of free enterprise do.
    The Left/socialists in general focus on soft issues as the most important matters to be pursued. DEI, Woke, ESG that range of interests.
    Those of us who think wealth creation will enable society to uplift all, thus improve the chances of the poor/less fortunate to climb the ladder of opportunities are ignored.
    The Left want to ensure there is no independent/individual focused opportunity available. They imagine a world where the state literally provides everyone with everything.
    The Left imagine they are the ones who should decide what is needed. To do this, they want to close the market of personal choice. The left are focused on the famous or perhaps infamous Klaus Schwab nostrum.
    “You will own nothing and you ‘will’ be happy”

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 13, 2025

      ‘“You will own nothing and you ‘will’ be happy”
      ought to be ‘“You will own nothing and you will accept what you are given, take it or leave it’

  12. Michael Staples
    January 13, 2025

    Getting rid of the Winter Fuel Benefit was one of the only Labour policies with which I agreed in principle. The Conservative way is to reduce the cost of fuel by abandoning Net Zero, drilling and fracking for oil and gas, digging coal and removing all carbon taxes and removing subsidies from renewables.

    1. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      IF Labour had first reduced the cost of heating peoples homes by £300 and had then removed the WFA, it might have been justified. However (as in life) it’s always pain first, reward afterwards. In the case of this Government’s policies, it appears very likely that we will get a great deal of pain with very little reward.

    2. Chris S
      January 13, 2025

      The problem is that since Boris started taking too much notice of his new⁹ wife, Conservatives, with few exceptions, and almost every other MP in the House of Commons, have signed up to the same extreme net zero plans as that idiot Miliband E.

      They are all intending to bankrupt the country.

      1. Mickey Taking
        January 13, 2025

        ‘They are all intending to bankrupt the country.’
        While feeling safe from the plight of the plebs.

    3. Original Richard
      January 13, 2025

      MS :

      From where do you get your information please that the Conservatives wish to abandon Net Zero? Do you have a link?

      Unfortunately the Conservative Party are fully signed up to the Net Zero Strategy. PM May enacted the law that the UK must be Net Zero by 2050 and did this without a proper debate, without a vote and without a costing (which I understand is required for all bills). PM Johnson brought forward the banning of the sale of new ice vehicles to 2030 (5 years earlier than the EU date of 2035) and announced to the World at the UN that “we were the first to send the great puffs of acrid smoke to the heavens on a scale to derange the natural order” and consequently that we are not only responsible for any bad weather anywhere in the World but even more importantly for the existential threat to our planet.

    4. Jazz
      January 13, 2025

      Makes sense to me

    5. glen cullen
      January 13, 2025

      I also agree in principle, no law should be set in stone, no law should be beyond repeal and politicans shouldn’t be so scared of media opinion to amend or scrap laws/treaty

  13. Tony Willis
    January 13, 2025

    I’ll take your advice and read it,
    Thank you
    regards

  14. Peter Gardner
    January 13, 2025

    Economics is not an easy subject. Econoimists rarely agree with each other. For politicians the choice of guru is persuasive and decisive. Mrs Thatcher had Hayek and Fieldman, both Nobel prize winners, and Sir Alan Walters. Walters disagreed on much with Nigel Lawson but Lawson was a superb chancellor of the exchequer and contnues to do excellent work with his Global Warming Policy Foundation which is rightly opposed to Green Energy policies in sway in UK, the EU, the US (until Trump takes over) and the WEF and elsewhere.
    How does a leader know when he or she has the right guru?

    Reply Sadly Lord Lawson died in 2023.

    1. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      Yes, sadly missed. He was banned from appearing on the BBC because “climate science is settled” and therefore cannot be debated (even the economic impacts). This is something which they should be deeply ashamed but (of course) failed to mention when he passed away.

      1. hefner
        January 17, 2025

        bbc.com 03/04/2023 ‘Obituary: Nigel Lawson’.
        bbc.com 04/04/2023 ‘Nigel Lawson: Reforming Chancellor died aged 91’.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      January 13, 2025

      Lord Lawson was very wrong in one issue, supporting the Abolition of the £ in favour of the Euro. Gurus are not always right or wrong. That’s the problem, else life would be easy just a matter of finding ten person who was right all the time.
      Each can be right 95% of the time and need to be opposed on the other 5%. Many are wrong 95% of the time. That’s why John Redwoods record measured against reality is so important. It proves he is probably better than the 95% team.
      Mrs T knew when to oppose, and got troops in to help her with detailed arguments.
      We have not had a PM able to do that since. That’s the gift of ‘governance’.
      That’s the problem.

    3. Lifelogic
      January 13, 2025

      Lawson alas got the ERM and shadowing the DM wrong but was a good man certainly relative to most of the other Chancellors we have suffered, and sound on the net zero lunacy. He originally was going to study maths but switched to PPE at Oxford.

  15. Original Richard
    January 13, 2025

    Lord Moynihan is one of the very few HoL Uniparty members who is knowledgeable, rational and consequently very brave to be speaking out against CAGW and Net Zero describing Net Zero as a “religion rather than a logical decision”. I would recommend anyone to watch his HoL speech of 24/10/2024 where he said, having described the Net Zero Strategy as being the very opposite of any growth strategy:

    “To conclude, sooner or later the Net Zero program will come to be seen as having been a tragic cul-de-sac. The longer we take to conclude that the worse it will be for our economy. We owe it to our country to end this this misguided, ultimately catastrophic, program as soon as possible.”

    https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/6d04f969-7e42-4b27-a26f-b13fb8ef6512?in=13:15:09

    1. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      Extremely well made points and completely ignored by the media.
      Uncomfortable listening for Lady May whether she likes it or not….

      1. Lifelogic
        January 13, 2025

        Baroness Teresa May – talk about rewards for gross incompetence, dishonesty & serial failures.

  16. miami.mode
    January 13, 2025

    The Express is saying Rachel Reeves is depressed. Well we’re also depressed with the actions she has taken with no obvious way out of the depression You say this chap is a vigorous free trader but some powerful nations will use their power to bankrupt other nations so free trade will for ever be a pipe dream and it’s pointless even talking about it except in limited circumstances. Unfortunately in this world you too often have to look out for yourselves.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 13, 2025

      Rachel Reeves claimed to deliver a budget for growth but everything she delivered and Ed Miliband delivered on energy, the Workers Rights bill delivers, the insanity of the bill to restrict free speech on line and the two tier crime out of agenda.

      Nearly lost my phone to a scooter mugger doing 25mph or so on a Swiss Cottage pavement on a heavy scooter Thursday last week. Fortunately I have just finish my call a second earlier so he missed it. My phone is perhaps not posh enough for them I suspect – being a six year old Samsung. Had l stepped the wrong way I would likely have had broken bones and serious injuries too. London is largely lawless with circa 90,000 thefts PA reported and nearly every time I go I see shoplifters blatantly filling up huge bags and just walking out.

      1. Mickey Taking
        January 14, 2025

        It has been a budget of growth. Unemployment going up, taxes going up, dissatisfaction growing, political argument growing, national debt growing, imported energy growing, giving away national assets growing….

    2. IanT
      January 13, 2025

      The world is beginning to fragment into blocks – something we haven’t seen for many decades. At that time we had financial and technological supremacy in the West. That ‘supremacy’ has been eroded and is no longer supreme. America is slowly losing it’s world fiscal and economic dominance as other global powers emerge. We have to choose our allies carefully, whilst ensuring our own national well being.
      I voted to leave the EU for good reasons, most of them not economic. We should be firm with both Brussels and Washington whenever our own strategic needs (in terms of our defence, energy & food) are involved – if only because (when push comes to shove) they will always give their own needs first priority.
      The Nations defence should be the top priority of any UK Government but it clearly has not been for many years. Being sufficiently independent in power and food should also be considered critical parts of our overall defence strategy, as without them we would not survive very long. So listen to the Farmers, encourage our Fishermen, start Fracking and building new Gas & Nuclear – and FOR GOODNESS SAKE start understanding who are NOT our allies. They are most certainly NOT going to be the Chinese for a start.

    3. Sir Joe Soap
      January 13, 2025

      Yep well, I’m pretty depressed trying to grow a small engineering business and being given the choice to assemble parts using very expensive foreign robots which take time to develop or very expensive minimum wage UK employees.
      The robots will win because they won’t take us to court on a whim.

      1. IanT
        January 13, 2025

        I think I’m very pleased not to have had to deal with all this nonsense Joe. I wouldn’t have the patience required.

        Having said that South East Water called me today (about their Customer Service levels) which also seemed to cover my “eco concerns” and DEI issues. Feeling slightly mischevous, I told the young lady (when asked) that I currently identified as a man but had always liked the name ‘Murial’. There was a long silence from the other end but (fortunately) it is much easier to keep a straight face on the phone. 🙂

    4. Mickey Taking
      January 13, 2025

      Rachel from complaints is looking 5 years older already, and the reality has hardly hit home..

  17. Bleeperq
    January 13, 2025

    A Conservative peer – he might well write a book on how to do it now being practically retired – however it’s not so easy to turn the supertanker around in short time although the mariners do know some tricks and that’s the centre of it – the right person at the right time calling the shots to bring about whatever changes are needed – a lot easier to say from the comfort of the Lords

  18. Jim2
    January 13, 2025

    All the usual nostrums – less tax, no daft regulations and free(ish) trade. All well and good but for the Net Zero notion. Net Zero cripples all the good things in life, fast cheap cars, cheap electricity and gas, cheap food etc etc. But Net Zero may be the only way to hang on to life.

    The big question is whether Net Zero is a good idea. Some say a bit more CO2 will do no harm, others say it will make the planet uninhabitable. Net Zero looks like a tragedy-of-the-commons type problem. What we in the UK do makes no difference while the USA and China and India etc etc carry on pushing out lots of CO2. The bad effects may be slow coming on but they will be slow going away as well, they might even not reverse at all.

    Just suppose the world’s politicians did decide to cut back CO2 severely. Chop back oil and gas production, forget EVs and wind power but instead set about cutting the human population – the demand side. By about 3 to 4Bn over a period of say 20 years and plan to keep it that way. Not practical, politicians like to have population, it is their bling and their power. The religious will object and the people (of the global south ed)world will say ‘why us, we do no harm’.

    No action from the politicians then. Which means we are in the middle of a long and self resolving experiment. Which is very good policy, let the market decide – but you may not like the product very much and you in the UK will not get any choice in the matter.

  19. Denis Cooper
    January 13, 2025

    In general I think that people should be allowed to buy and sell goods and services across international frontiers as they choose and with minimum hassle. So I welcomed the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement:

    https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tradfa_e/tradfa_e.htm

    which the EU has ratified but then studiously ignored since it came into force in February 2017.

    However I can see that there are particular cases where some forms of restriction are necessary.

    At the same time I am also sceptical about the economic benefits of free trade, whether that is intracontinental or intercontinental. When we were in the EU Single Market it was worth maybe 1% of GDP to us, a one-off gain, which I classify as a “marginal” benefit, while on the government’s own projections the supposed great prize of an FTA with the US might be worth a “trivial” 0.07% of GDP to us, page 32 here:

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e5ce566d3bf7f06f6ece234/UK_US_FTA_negotiations.pdf

    The same with the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP which Cameron and other Tories represented as a kind of cornucopia, which led me to write in our local newspaper in August 2015:

    “… on the government’s own claims the benefits of this trade deal for the UK economy would actually be rather small, a one-off benefit equivalent to the natural growth of the UK economy over just three months. Of course any economic benefit is welcome in principle, but not if its achievement damages our national democracy.”

    There may be exceptions but so far I have not seen any special trade deal that would have a significant effect on our economic growth rate, and I believe the reason is that there has been so much liberalisation of global trade in general that we have reached the point of diminishing returns for special trade deals.

    As for Rachel Reeves and China, she must be able to divide 0.2 by 2535 and get 0.008% of GDP:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-marks-600m-of-secure-growth-for-uk-economy-in-beijing

    “worth £600 million to the UK economy over the next five years and sets course to deliver up to £1 billion.”

  20. Bryan Harris
    January 13, 2025

    ‘GROWTH’ is another piece of double-speak as far as this government is concerned. They know, sort of, what it means but it’s more elusive to them than a rational idea or a butterfly in mid-winter.
    They say they want growth but give us the opposite because they don’t understand what drives growth and productivity. If it were high taxation and industries closing down then we would all be very rich!

    If ever a viewpoint needed to move away from socialist dogma towards reality it is this government, this Chancellor.
    What would a renewed Chancellor do to put right the problems caused, should she ‘see the light’?
    Apart from reversing the last budget, she would reduce taxation by around 2% all round, just enough to give us some hope and investors some encouragement.
    Then she would take a chain saw to the tax bible and get every last tax law revised and cut back until we had a sensible and easily applied tax system. IF only we could do away with less personal taxation and switch it to Purchase tax (VAT) that would mean so many taxmen could retire early.

    We all have our dreams of course, but labour are in no mood to save the country. They know exactly what they are doing and what the end result will be. No doubt they will be well rewarded in Hell.

  21. Ukret123
    January 13, 2025

    I think Jon Moynihan has a laser like insight and razor sharp mind honed from 20+ years at the top of his game yet modest with it.
    He would make an excellent PM and Chancellor compared with what we have had to endure for decades. Just reading a free sample of the book on Amazon is therapeutic.
    Maybe Rachel Reeves only read that Growth was key but failed to read how this is achieved.

  22. Ukret123
    January 13, 2025

    It is obvious to anyone in business that Reeves, Bailey and fellow travellers going to China, perceived to be taking flight from a weak sinking economy rather than a robust one would be doomed from any negotiating viewpoint.
    Useful idiots come thinking they have ace cards were given short shrift and were treated as interiors playing away from home too, across an extra large table. Desperate when folks back home are already depressed with this virtue signalling gimmick (Rachel rubs shoulders with ….).
    When the country needs real leadership they disappear!

  23. Chris S
    January 13, 2025

    Today, we are to hear Starmer spout off about adopting AI across the public sector.
    With Labour this will just mean spending a lot of money on Chinese technology with no intention of cutting staffing levels. Any gains will simply be used to expand services, resulting in an overall increase in expenditure.

    It is absolutely necessary to cut the cost of running the state through reducing bloated staff costs which have increased dramatically since 2016.

    For every pound spent on AI we should be demanding a £5 cut in civil service manpower costs.

  24. Roy Grainger
    January 13, 2025

    Good ideas on growth but I’m afraid Truss had her chance and she blew it and those “low tax” ideas will be discredited for a generation with none of the political parties offering them.

    On the travails of Reeves it seems to me many of her problems have been caused by her inexperience of dealing with the Treasury blob. For example it seems they’ve been trying to tax family farms for a long time but successive chancellors pushed back but she didn’t and is facing the political consequences whilst they just sit back and face no consequences at all.

  25. glen cullen
    January 13, 2025

    While I agree with your analysis and the writing of Jon Moynihan, fixing the economy is only half of the issue, the other half is our history, tradition & culture
    We have some milestones that shaped the UK both mythical & real, including King George, the Magna Carta, the Spanish Armada, the Reformation, Freemen, the Industrial Revolution and Suffrage
    Most, if not all, have been excluded from our society over the past three decade by our politicians allowing the encroachment of international law, rule of foreign institutions, uncontrolled immigration, the acceptance of foreign religions, the removal & destructions of historic icons and statues, the teaching that all britons are racist
    I’d suggest that our culture and economy are hand in glove

    1. Mitchel
      January 14, 2025

      The Reformation came to us via Europe-Martin Luther and his defiance of the Catholic Church and the edicts of the Holy Roman Empire.

      1. glen cullen
        January 14, 2025

        which is a ‘moment’ in our history ….and shouldn’t be forgotten

  26. James 4
    January 13, 2025

    Any change about the way we do things ie. to remodel our economy for the longer term, can only be done with cross party agreement that’s if it is to succeed. The change you’re talking about will not work if the next government in four years time is going to stand everything on its head again.

  27. rose
    January 13, 2025

    On energy bills, I would remove the standing charge, the green levies, the social levies, and VAT. For the latter, HMG would need to complete Brexit, i.e. take back N Ireland from the clutches of the EU. This would be a start. What you suggest about restoring common sense to our energy sources and supplies is vital but would take a little longer.

    1. glen cullen
      January 13, 2025

      +1

  28. formula57
    January 13, 2025

    The Amazon advert states Moynihan’s book looks at “…the causes of our stagnation, reminding readers of the three ‘devils’ that affect our ability to achieve growth – high government spending, excessive tax and regulation and too much bureaucratic interference and waste…”.

    Those Thatcheristas amongst us will be saying “tell me something I do not know!”. Were these lessons not learned before around 1979?

    How long before this rotten government has its “Winter of Discontent” moment for it is heading that way? What hope though of a second Thatcher?

  29. Richard1
    January 13, 2025

    Is it necessary to buy both volumes or can the main messages be learnt just from volume 2?

  30. a-tracy
    January 13, 2025

    John, you say there is no uni-party but how does it work with the Bell family, Torsten Henricson-Bell FAcSS (born September 1982) is a Labour politician, economist, author, and newspaper columnist, serving as Member of Parliament (MP).
    His twin brother Olaf used to work closely with the Tory chancellors worked closely with Lord Hammond, Sir Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak
    18 Jul 2024 — EU Director @FCDOGovUK. Formerly @HMTreasury and @CabinetOfficeUK.

    Now, Labour Party no. 10’s policy unit director. It’s no wonder the treasury was like a leaky tap of rumour, photos and knives out.

  31. John
    January 13, 2025

    Great interview tonight John GB News with JRM

    Reply Thanks

    1. formula57
      January 13, 2025

      + 1

  32. Andrew Dykes
    January 13, 2025

    I find the WFA argument a bit baffling. I work in social care, and employ a large number of people on quite low incomes. I would pay them more if I could. Anyway, what is entirely clear is that understandably many of them find it difficult to budget from month to month. If the WFA is viewed as an integral part of the pension which helps pensioners to manage their finances it makes a lot of sense. Provision is being made for a known big expense, saving the pensioner the end of month worry about putting money aside for it. I make no comment on the adequacy or otherwise of the overall state pension, except to say I’d find it difficult to live on.

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