Sector strategies

The government is going to launch sector strategies as part of its Industrial plan.

We can write some of them easily. The oil and gas one will say close the whole industry down more quickly. So will the petrol and diesel car one. The net zero mandate requires the closure of many high energy using factories and activities to be replaced by imports. None of these will help growth.

The government claims it will expand housebuilding by 50%. How? They have put mortgage rates up  by losing the confidence of markets. They are driving private landlords out of the market with extra taxes and regulations. They do not have the money for a major expansion of social housing. They think more planning permissions will do the job,  mindless that there are a million plots with permissions sitting there.

The government could set out a bold strategy to boost   industry. It would need major changes of energy and tax policy. We need much more energy from home sources at much lower prices. Getting more of our own gas out of the ground is the easiest way to do this. Adding more renewables needs to be done at lower prices for their power and with a cheap solution to the problem of intermittency which is not obvious.

Corporation tax should be taken down to 15%, where revenues would go up. The Treasury ia likely to stay wedded to the idea that higher rates are necessary. It will continue to look at Ireland, awash with  business tax revenue and digital company investment thanks to a lower tax rate and do the opposite.

I will look at the prospects for some of individual sectors in future blogs.

 

 

78 Comments

  1. Ian wragg
    January 16, 2025

    But the whole strategy will ha Net Zero at front and centre.
    Already Milibrains dream of carpeting the country with windmills and mirrors is falling apart as there are no provisions for grid connections.
    Housing developments can’t get their transformers connected and streets don’t have the capacity for heat pumps and charging EVs.
    Shutting down the remainder of industry and agriculture IS the strategy. Where the money to buy these goods from abroad no one knows.
    As the country declines, borrowing costs will rise causing a government induced doom loop which is all part of Agendac30 and 50
    Thanks Treacherous May and Milibrain cheered on by the idiots in Parliament.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 16, 2025

      Indeed cheered on by about 96% of the MPs in parliament and even Kemi and Coutinho are still pro Net Zero but slightly more slowly. Even AI which Starmer keeps shouting about need far cheaper energy than we have.

      See the recent Dr John Campbell Video on efficacy of the MRNA Covid Vaccine study in Japan. Average 85% higher chance of catching Covid if you have had the “vaccines” and higher the more jabs you have had. So not remotely safe and not even remotely effective! Yet still they are pushing them as safe and effective!

      Let us hope Trump exposes this appalling crime as he seems determined to and does not back track.

      1. Ian B
        January 16, 2025

        @Lifelogic – yup, we cant get away from it Parliament is the impediment to not only growth but survival. They all want Laws, rules, regulations and taxes that stall the UK while all the UK’s competing Nations get to flourish.
        That forces the question who are they working for? It isn’t UK.plc, it appears to be its competitors

        1. Lifelogic
          January 16, 2025

          Indeed voted in by an electorate to do one things but they then just kick them in the teeth.

          Just like the last 14 years of the Con-Socialists.

    2. Mark
      January 17, 2025

      It was good to see that Kemi Badenoch has admitted that enacting Net Zero without any idea of the consequences was a folly, and that the party would henceforth not blindly pursue Net Zero policies. Claire Coutinho, Shadow Minister opposite Miliband has been publicly questioning his policies with some sharp criticism.

      It was clearly upsetting to Miliband that both Farage and Liz Truss attended the opening of the London branch of the Heartland Institute, who are claiming to have been influential in persuading Hungarian MEPs to vote down tougher Net Zero laws for the EU which are now not going ahead. He will no longer get a free pass for what he wants to do.

      The fact we had a close run thing on January 8th may also be a bit more of a Waterloo for Miliband. NESO appear to be trying to cover up just how close they came to having to impose power cuts, but I have the data that shows it. Kathryn Porter reckons they did not have a proper spare margin against a major power trip on an interconnector. Her investigation has been getting wide press coverage.

      Reply Yes I saw them both at the meeting at Heartland where net zero was discussed.

  2. Mark B
    January 16, 2025

    Good morning.

    I think, Sir John you need to stop listening to what they say as these people are following a different agenda to one that you would follow. Whereas you would be intent on making peoples lives better through their own efforts or those of others, these people are seeking to change both the society (people) and the means by which we are governed. This is the continuation of the Blairite Project and the plan is to smash everything. You once supported it yourself ! Remember the, “Build back better” slogan, Alexander Johnson used ? Some here, including myself, did try and warn you.

    I think Peter Hitchens is one of the very few to get this right. He understands these people. They are of a different mindset because they are set with some sort of revolutionary zeal to turn this country and the world into a better place. A place were they are always in charge. Hence all those Mayors the Conservative Party created in England.

    No matter what words of advice you offer. No matter what questions you raise. No matter how many endless words you use to describe this or that about this government, it does not matter to them. For they do not care, and people like you and I do not matter.

    1. Donna
      January 16, 2025

      Correct.

    2. Peter Wood
      January 16, 2025

      Your analysis has real evidence, WEF, the EU politburo.. there is certainly sufficient indication in Europe of a ‘Patrician’ class of politician; and how many offspring of MP’s are there now in the HoC? This is why our present government finds the democratic system rather bothersome exercise, preferring to control it and limit criticism, and manage by secret committee. If we cannot get rid of Starmer and his motley crew, we will find ever decreasing democratic freedom.

      1. Mark
        January 17, 2025

        You could go back in history to William Pitt the Elder, and William Pitt the Younger, who was PM aged 24. But they were better politicians than any on the Labour benches, and perhaps in Parliament more generally.

    3. MPC
      January 16, 2025

      Agreed. I’ve been saying for some time that the vast majority of elected MPs are out to destroy our way of life. That the majority remain wedded to Net Zero is the most obvious proof of that. That almost all of the current government’s policies are a development/worsening of those of the previous Tory government, is another. Once you’ve come to terms with this at least life becomes more bearable as you have no expectations and it’s then easier to get used to our accelerating national decline.

      1. Clough
        January 16, 2025

        I was encouraged to see Kemi Badenoch admitting just recently that Conservative support for Agenda 2030 was a mistake. Let’s hope her shadow ministers and MPs colleagues agree with her.

    4. Ian B
      January 16, 2025

      @Mark B – agreed

    5. Iago
      January 16, 2025

      Correct, our destruction is their aim.

    6. Sharon
      January 16, 2025

      Alistair Heath summed it all up rather well in the Telegraph. Labour are working globally, the nation state is unimportant, the rest of the world is more important that their nation, even if it’s to their detriment!

      Certainly looks that way, if our eyes and ears are to be believed….

    7. R.Grange
      January 16, 2025

      I agree, Mark. I can only say, perhaps Sir John’s target audience is people who continue to believe that the government has the country’s best interests at heart, and if things turn out badly and there’s chaos, it’s just a ‘mistake’. They’re not yet ready to realise what you do (and I and others here do). As somebody said, you need to temper the wind to the shorn lambs.

  3. formula57
    January 16, 2025

    And for the railways and electricity generation is the sector strategy going to be wring hands and throw money?

    Strategic thought combined with action to see material improvement would be welcome but what do the clowns in government suppose the businesses operating in the various sectors do continually?

    1. formula57
      January 16, 2025

      To add, industrial strategy is, clearly, bound up with growth, itself described as you have referenced by Lord Moynihan in his recent books. I recall when you mentioned Moynihan’s first book I observed that we needed a second Ludwig Erhard at the BEIS whereas, at that time, we had Kemi (!). The situtation is even more pressing now and yet we still are lumbered with a clueless, myopic, timid government intent upon foolish misdirection (I anticipate Starmer’s sector strategies, suredly at little risk of error).

  4. agricola
    January 16, 2025

    This Labour party have a plan for the systematic destruction of the UK as we know it, and when destroyed its absorbtion back into the EU to be bled further.

    Your and our thoughts on sectors are irrelevant as long as they are in power. Once out we will require a revolution of thinking and action. Any idea that we can revert to anything of old is for the birds. The political system and the CS are not fit for purpose and have to suffer radical change. Fortunately the daily insanities of Labour ensure that we should be able to achieve necessary change democratically, though there is every indication that, via local elections, they are intent on running a pilot on how to subvert democracy. Strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride.

    1. Bloke
      January 16, 2025

      A Strategy is the means of achieving an outcome. It needs an Objective first. This government is all over the wrong places, doing things backward. They are forecast to go ever more wrong. Our people can see that, and repeatedly tell them, but Labour just don’t get it until it hits them in the face as a dead-end wall.

    2. MFD
      January 16, 2025

      And Sir, One globalist who quietly watches from the side, saying nothing as the far left Labour destroy our lives with the lies of global warming ( WEF ) plan of which he approves – our so called king!
      I used to be loyal in the uniformed services- no longer.

    3. Donna
      January 17, 2025

      The backbencher Climate and Nature Bill currently going through Parliament, which will ensure the absolute destruction of our economy, in section 3 contains the creation of “a citizen assembly to consider relevant expert advice and publish recommendations ….”

      This is so they can pretend there is “democratic” support for the policies the approved “experts” and the “relevant expert advice” they have given. The power is, of course, transferred to the Committee for Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.

      It’s SHAMOCRACY in action. But I’m sure “our” MPs will vote to have their power transferred to the unaccountable …. as they have in the past.

      https://www.zerohour.uk/downloads/climate-and-nature-bill.pdf

      1. Mark
        January 17, 2025

        There was a dry run of this a few years ago. It was thoroughly rigged by ensuring that participants were lectured only by climate policy cheerleaders with enormous peer pressure applied to vote in favour of their nostrums. The selection of delegates was non transparent too. Perhaps like a QT audience.

  5. Peter Gardner
    January 16, 2025

    “.. mindless that there are a million plots with permissions sitting there.”

    For Heaven’s sake don’t tell them. They’d commandeer them for illegal migrant housing.

  6. Roy Grainger
    January 16, 2025

    Many of Labour’s policies will have exactly the opposite effect to intended. For example the new law brought in this week that private sector landlords can’t ask for more than one month’s rent in advance. This will mean that would-be renters with poor credit records or a patchy work record and no references will not be offered rental properties as landlords will now only rent to low-risk renters with guarantors. Other landlords will simply sell up due to this increase in risk loaded onto them leading to a further shortage of rental properties and higher rents. So a measure meant to protect the lower tier of renters will in fact harm them. Same as the Conservatives of course whose “no fault eviction” (ie. banning of fixed-term tenancies) policy is even more damaging to renters.

    In the same way that Labour/Conservative net zero policies will increase CO2 emissions and their growth policies will reduce growth.

    1. Bloke
      January 16, 2025

      A free market would allow landlords to offer premises at whatever price and terms they like. Potential tenants could accept what attracts and suits them, or turn away toward whichever place is better.
      All markets need competition to function efficiently fairly, but government snags both landlords and tenants with restrictive penalties and lack of choice, clogging the system with nuisance and expensive waste.

  7. Donna
    January 16, 2025

    A Socialist Government picking “winners” eh? Worked out so well in the ’60s and ’70s.

    The WEF’s Deconstruction Phase-UK is obviously moving into its next stage.

  8. Narrow Shoulders
    January 16, 2025

    I am from the government and I am here to help.

    Government governs best when it governs least.

    Law and order, defence, limited regulation, limited targeted welfare. The rest we do not need them for.

    1. Bloke
      January 16, 2025

      In the 1970s a team of government employees in the Dept of Energy approached businesses: offering generous grants, and substantive help in reducing their energy costs by replicating efficiencies that others in their industrial sector had achieved.
      That team managed to reach many decision takers, who agreed to meet, learn and promptly save such high values. The team operated highly professionally, yet remarked that often the first hour of discussion was riven with suspicion of whether anyone from government would lead to anything but loss.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        January 16, 2025

        these days that is called networking and doesn’t need government interference let alone grants of taxpayers’ money

  9. Sir Joe Soap
    January 16, 2025

    I think the cardinal point is that these people only got into their positions because there was no better established alternative last time. It’s no good trying to persuade people like these or the Mays of this world to rewrite their crazed ideas. There’s now a clear alternative. Help them.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 16, 2025

      I can’t see the alternative yet.

  10. Dave Andrews
    January 16, 2025

    “The government could set out a bold strategy to boost industry.” Will the leopard change its spots?
    Rather than reduce corporation tax, can we eliminate employer’s NI, which is a drain on a company’s resources whether they make a profit or not? Furthermore it’s a tax that prefers imports at the expense of British goods and stifles British industry in the global market.
    If corporation tax can’t be reduced as well, shift it onto dividend tax and put on a withholding tax on dividends paid abroad. Identify royalty payments that British subsidiaries pay to global multi-nationals as disguised profits to be taxed as corporation tax and dividend tax as well.

    1. Mark B
      January 16, 2025

      I and our kind host have long argued that Employers NIC is a tax on jobs. I was watching a podcast recently where the same thing was said. Hence why the job market is falling.

      If you really want growth the best way to do it is through real job and business creation in the Private Sector.

      Grow the pie, not slice it into smaller and smaller pieces in the desperate attempt to give everyone an equal slice !

  11. Bryan Harris
    January 16, 2025

    We should know by now that the government does the opposite to the sweet things they promise. It’s not just that they are working against their own dogma – they are seriously incapable of breaking away from their socialist concepts now so engrained in netzero.

    The government could set out a bold strategy to boost industry

    Yes they could, but they won’t, and we all know that. They don’t believe in tax cuts!
    We watch on a daily basis as the economy suffers, our town centres continue to become ghost towns, and local councils take us ever closer to 15 minute villages.

    Nothing is as it should be but let’s not expect, nor even hope that salvation will be triggered by THIS government. Unless they are kicked out soon there will be nothing to save, and no amount of sector strategies will make any difference.

  12. Bryan Harris
    January 16, 2025

    Local government / councils continues to amaze – following their united approach to avoiding democracy and suspending elections indefinitely, they now show how wedded to netzero they are and how we cannot trust their judgement at all.

    Councils are now telling us to stop drinking milk and use oat drinks instead. They simply quote some misbegotten ideas that this will save a massive quantity of methane produced by cows. They quote no real data – this is all based on supposition and lies.

    Oat milk lacks many of the nutritional ingredients of milk, so that’s another attack on our health.

    Never mind just suspending local elections, it is time to suspend councils before we all end up locked down in 15 minute villages with very limited prospects.

    1. hefner
      January 16, 2025

      bbc.co.uk ‘Mike Berners-Lee’s UK carbon data charts’.

      And most oat milks available in the UK are fortified with calcium, vitamins D and B12.

      1. Bryan Harris
        January 16, 2025

        Real milk doesn’t need to have vitamins added.

      2. MFD
        January 16, 2025

        and Hefner they are total rubbish unfit for any bodies health. Shovem!

  13. Bryan Harris
    January 16, 2025

    The government has responded to the call for a referendum on leaving the ECHR.

    The first sentence tells us how petitions are now a waste of time – they will continue to ignore what the people want and do whatever suits their rogue agenda!

    This Government is fully committed to the European Convention on Human Rights and upholding the international human rights framework.
    The Government is proud that the United Kingdom was one of the first States to ratify the ECHR.

    So they won’t even consider the idea no matter how much being a member of the ECHR continues to push an undemocratic 2 tier justice system on us, with all the inherent wokism.

    1. hefner
      January 16, 2025

      ‘The people’? 11,519 individuals had signed at 11:45 this morning. How are your ankles going? Not too swollen?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        January 16, 2025

        Very important 11,519 because it has been clarified that Starmer is supporting ‘human rights’ over the British (who are not human as we know from reading certain books.)
        Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
        And I know you will want an example, because you are like that: BREXIT.

      2. Bill B.
        January 16, 2025

        11, 519 (now 11,611) – Out of how many who’ve even heard of the ECHR?

        Perhaps you could try it in the area where you live.

  14. Ian B
    January 16, 2025

    Closing things before viable, resilient and self-reliant alternatives are found is just suicide. Closing established income streams to fund a future is just suicide. They are closing out the UK’s future

    The HoC, our MP’s, the Government either they don’t know how to think things through or the are working and representing nefarious actors.

    UK.plc is working in a competitive World, its board members(our elected representatives), if that was understood, would be focused on their investors (the electorate) and ensuring their and the Countries future. Instead that have personal political agendas that are tantamount to treason.

    Never forget those that are profiting from the UK’s lonely UK only Laws, i.e. all the UK’s main competitors for business, wealth are pursuing an agenda to make their Countries flourish and improve life for their people – they are not deliberately and maliciously cancelling their furture

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 16, 2025

      Oh the Chinese are putting in bids for the closed VW factories in Germany. They will build their EVs in Germany. Baerbok confirmed that Leopard tanks designed and built in Germany become ‘Ukrainian tanks’ once the cross the border. So I assume the Chinese EV will be German EVs.
      Baerbok get her own way!
      Wonder who will buy them – might expose them to China do you thinkđŸ˜‚đŸ€Ł?

      1. Mark
        January 17, 2025

        You have to wonder just what Reeves agreed in China. Something to justify a big embassy in .London for one thing.

  15. Ian B
    January 16, 2025

    The UK Tax Policy is about how to find more and more ways to Tax – successive governments seem to believe tax is their earned income. The don’t see it as money removed from the economy which in a competitive World is becoming harder to replace. Unfortunately, they also don’t seem have to endure the counter balancing or devote the same energy of how to spend for a tangible and identifiable return. So, tax becomes money down the drain

  16. Original Richard
    January 16, 2025

    There is only one strategy and that is the Net Zero Strategy which has been set in UK law to be 100% by 2050 (PM May) and in international law by 81% by 2035 (PM Starmer at COP29). To achieve our policymakers’ decarbonisation goals will mean de-industriaisation, de-growth, reduced agricultural production, reduced imports and the reduced consumption of electricity, energy, food, heating and transport through smart meter rationing.

    Shula and Ott on the Tom Nelson YT “Missing Link” video show both theoretically and experimentally that there is no greenhouse effect from the greenhouse gases, such as water vapour (the largest) and CO2, at the planet’s surface because of a phenomenon known as thermalisation making the IPCC’s radiative model and hence that CO2 controls the temperature completely invalid. In fact at the top of the atmosphere the greenhouse gases cool the planet.

    1. Original Richard
      January 16, 2025

      PS :
      Excellent UnHerd video with energy expert Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic describing how the electricity system works, how we came close to a blackout on 08/01 and the likely future if we continue with the Net Zero Strategy.

      https://youtu.be/Kjl_HjEL3Sc

      1. Donna
        January 17, 2025

        But …. Minibrain assured us yesterday that there won’t be any blackouts, it’s just scaremongering.

        What he failed to mention is that during the current extended dunkelflaute the Government has been paying anything up to 10 x the usual price for electricity, in order to (just about) keep the lights on.

        1. Mark
          January 17, 2025

          He simply doesn’t understand how close we came, and now that he controls NESO they aren’t going to tell him. He has yet to appreciate that asking for effectively less capacity in the next Capacity Market auctions than the previous ones will only make the problems more acute.

  17. Ukret123
    January 16, 2025

    Good summary John. It sounds like Labour’s aims were written on the proverbial “back of a fag-packet”, unprofessional and totally unhinged to anyone in business.
    Any plan should have one main aim. However this government’s “plan” can never be declared upfront and made public knowledge because of their too secret socialist hidden agenda for obvious reasons.
    The flip side of this nonsense is it is bound to fail in its aims but no one benefits.It also reminds me the a simplistic saying “There are 3 types of people:-
    1. Those who make things happen.
    2. Those who sit and watch them.
    3. Those who wondered what happened.
    So don’t be in the 3rd category”.
    I soon added a 4th category
    4. Those who put a spanner in the works (Luddites).
    Today we have another one :-
    5. Promoters of information and disinformation.
    All this depends however on excellent well proven key assumptions written down well before anything and thrashed out. We used to have assumptions stress tested by the “Devils advocates” before any money was committed or project committed to.
    This has escaped the present so called “Government” .

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 16, 2025

      I’m all for putting grit on Starmer’s slide! Does that make me a Luddite? I don’t think so, I’m sick of Regression as a political aim.

      1. MFD
        January 16, 2025

        agreed Lynn!

      2. Ukret123
        January 16, 2025

        Why put grit on Starmer’s (downhill) slide?
        Businesses usually aim to generate positive improvements but this government does exactly the perverse opposite.

  18. Michael Staples
    January 16, 2025

    When I recall the criticisms that were levied against the last Conservative government, they pale into insignificance besides the manifold irrational policies of this Labour government, as highlighted by Sir John. It’s almost as if they hate this country and wish to do us harm. Alister Heath in today’s Telegraph provides an insight, which describes as “suicidal empathy” to international human rights interests rather than the interests of British people and the United Kingdom.

  19. Ian B
    January 16, 2025

    Sir John
    The only strategy required is to put the Country and its People first, listen to them work with them. Stop funding our Foreign Competitors with enforced malicious anti UK Laws and policies.
    The Country could earn what would be required for everyone’s future (even including MPs) if only they were released from the shackles of hypocrisy and personal political ideology.

  20. paul
    January 16, 2025

    The whole of westminster and its cable are living in la la land, after the crash, well I no need to tell you what happens after that, but to say they are all talk and no brain. The same would of happen under the Tories.

  21. Keith from Leeds
    January 16, 2025

    The problem is that the Conservatives had 14 years to change things and did nothing. Labour should have inherited a thriving, low-tax economy, low-cost, reliable energy system, a dynamic private sector and an electorate instilled with conservative values throughout the UK. But the Conservatives did not govern on conservative values and principles and so far show no sign of analysing their defeat with humility and honesty.
    The result is what we have now. A second-rate PM, Chancellor and Cabinet with no clue as to how to grow the UK economy, only how to damage it. Why not ask wealthy conservative supporters to sponsor a national referendum on Net Zero? Yes, it will be unofficial, but a huge No vote may actually force the government and all MPs to use their brains, do some research and realise it is absolute nonsense. Give us a voice because this government will not!

    1. Donna
      January 17, 2025

      It’s not fair to say that the Not-a-Conservative-Party “did nothing.” They did a great deal …. just nothing Conservative and nothing that we voted for, which is why they’re no longer trusted and only have around 125 MPs. And they wouldn’t have that many if Nigel had taken over Reform Leadership a couple of weeks earlier.

  22. Ian B
    January 16, 2025

    Sir John
    The not thinking things through or it could be the malicious punishment and destruction of society. That is the problem that Parliament is forcing on the Country. They need tons, and tons of money to solve situations of their own making while denying the Country and its People the opportunity to generate money.

    Reported in the MsM today “The Energy Secretary snuck a boiler tax through Parliament with minimal scrutiny on Wednesday, despite warnings the move will push up prices.” It will do more than push up prices.
    They are trying to impose Heat-Pumps into unsuitable situations, on based on Laws no other competitive country or its people have to endure.

    It is clear that Heat-Pumps work in properties designed for them, however that is not many. The Energy Secretary and parliament either know that or they haven’t looked at what their suggestion means. Yet the facts are sitting in front of them, they created them. UK Homes when sold require a ‘Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), homes performing below the ‘D’ rate will struggle to be habitable with ‘Heat-Pumps’. Typically, a Home of 200M2 and a performance rating of D or less will require more than £30,000 spent on updating them plus the price of the ‘pump’ itself just to make it useable.

    Then you are forced to ask how many MP’s even Government Ministers have moved to ‘heat pumps’ at their own personal expense? Why is Downing Street not using them, why does the Palace of Westminster not have them? – simples they wont work in those situations.

    So again, is who are our Politicos, our MPs our government working for, it is certainly not the Country or its People

  23. G
    January 16, 2025

    The assumption that import supply chains will always resemble in the future how they are at present is not only irrational but also dangerous.

    The potential vulnerability being built into the country is truly disturbing…

  24. Original Richard
    January 16, 2025

    Ed Miliband, the SoS for DESNZ, giving evidence to the Energy Security & Net Zero Zero Committee yesterday said that his Clean Power by 2030 Net Zero Strategy would save the planet and reduce our electricity bills. If will do neither of course. In fact Table 3 on P49 of NESO’s “Clean Power 2030” report shows a “system price” for electricity in 2030 of £133/MWhr. This is already double today’s price.

  25. Iago
    January 16, 2025

    This economic destruction should not be seen in isolation. The politicians here have just injected the greater part of the population, even pregnant women, with an extraordinarily dangerous concoction. In the last day, American and prostrate Israeli politicians have made a catastrophic surrender to the jihad, a jihad which western politicians will not acknowledge, even when directed against their own populations.

  26. Stred
    January 16, 2025

    SJR.
    Could you perhaps write on the Prime Minister appointing a human rights lawyer with no history of being an elected representative, as Attorney General and his decision to repeal an act which allows Gerry Adams to claim compensation. The same lawyer had represented Adams.
    Also, I’m a separate case another of the PM”s human rights chums, who had supported his leadership campaign, represented the Mauritius government in their claims and now the PM is rushing to give them ÂŁ9 billion to take over a British and American vital military base.
    Are we being governed by human rights lawyers who are representing foreign countries instead of their own ?

    Re Guido

  27. Stred
    January 16, 2025

    In not I’m

  28. Alan Paul Joyce
    January 16, 2025

    Dear Mr. Redwood,

    A well-thought out industrial plan would always try to avoid over-reliance on a single thing and minimise external shocks to the system. It would be flexible and able to adapt to changing circumstances.

    An energy policy would be comprised of a mixture of oil and gas, wind, solar, tidal and nuclear with an emphasis on home-grown production, wherever possible. Putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good idea. We could be in danger of spending countless hundreds of billions of pounds to reach net-zero by 2050 and then along comes clean, green, limitless fusion power!

    Much more research and development into alternative sources of power, heating and locomotion should be encouraged and these would replace traditional methods on a phased basis when the technology works well and is affordable for the people who matter. i.e. us.

    Housebuilding must be linked to population growth and migration which in turn needs to be linked to the wider economy. To aim to build 300,000 houses a year and then let a million people in to the country each year without jobs to go to is just insanity.

    There needs to be a realisation in government that we are in competition with other countries such as Ireland and signing up to all these international commitments while others pay lip-service to them is doing great harm to our competitiveness.

    If I may be so bold as to say this Sir John; you may be in danger of beginning to sound like some of us! You put forward solutions to these problems and then dismiss them in the very same sentence because you know the present government will never, ever implement them! It is very hard not to be critical of politicians in the current political set-up when common sense and sound-reasoning has gone out of the window and replaced by ideology and dogma.

  29. iain gill
    January 16, 2025

    But we have not even got the over arching strategy for how the county pays its way in the world sorted.
    Some things are clear, we are high tax, high wage, high cost of power, high cost of safety & anti-pollution regs, country, so we cannot compete at the cheap as chips commodity end of the spectrum.
    We have got to compete at the end of the spectrum which is hard to do, either genuinely better quality than most else in the world can do, genuinely innovative, or has some cultural or artistic significance, and so on. In other words, we have to compete with leading intellectual property, and we have to protect that intellectual property fanatically.
    Our leaders have opted us out of commodity manufacturing, by making it far more economical to import from India & China etc. Do we want to modify that position? If so, we need to balance out against the political manipulation which has caused this situation.
    Our leaders have opted us out of software, by failing to put in place the innovative environment found in the US, and actively manipulating society so that much software work is outsourced to India, or given to Indian nationals here (including those that have been here so long we have handed them a British passport and include them in the stats as British, which significantly changes the reality of the picture).
    Our leaders have tried to make us world leaders in Financial Services, and many times done deals around the world where we do things like open up our borders for immigration in return to the other country supposedly opening their markets to our financial services. This strategy has not worked. Guess what the populations of places like Indian & China are pretty patriotic, and even with open markers they prefer to buy FS products from local companies. This whole approach of the UK giving away big concessions to supposedly enable FS sales is a failure, we need to balance up how we handle all our businesses in international deals, and not just assume we can only sell FS, and that immigration burdens etc are worth a few insurance policy sales.
    Music & Entertainment are big earners for the UK, pretty much despite our ruling classes not because of them. The state throws money at arts which will never make money, but treats like lepers Rock Stars etc that genuinely do make this country lots of money. It is another business which needs far more attention to intellectual property for the UK to be able to continue to prosper.
    I have been the most senior Brit on a foreign site, which was the UK’s biggest sale to that country, when the UK prime minister came to visit. Guess what they couldn’t sort out doing security checks on us Brits, so they sent us all to the beach for the day, while the prime minister met only locals (and hangers on from the UK). Such is the bubble UK politics surrounds itself with, it doesn’t even expose itself to the actual Brits really earning the country big bucks.
    We have got to significantly improve our nations approach to intellectual property (including work to stop it leaking via the outsourcing movement etc), work to reduce the cost of power and other regulations (aim to be in the best quartile not an outlier with extreme costs), support our workforce with training etc, balance our approach and not just assume we are going to be a cost little island that just sells financial services to the rest of the world.
    We also need to become much more strategically self-reliant, in a crisis we should be able to make our own steel, make our own PPE, and so on


  30. a-tracy
    January 16, 2025

    John, you couldn’t persuade the Tories that dropping corporation tax to 15% would work. Sunak and Hunt went the other way and put it up from 19% after ÂŁ50k to 25%! Wasn’t this to meet their G7 leader demands? Aren’t we just marching in lockstep with others whilst turning a blind eye to Ireland’s commercial advantage on our doorstep?

    Corporation tax (CT) raised ÂŁ79.7 billion in 2022/23. HoC library
    Yet Statista said the UK CT amounted to ÂŁ88.3bn 2022/23! Odd.
    It is the fourth largest contributor to government tax revenues after income tax, National Insurance contributions (NICs) and VAT.29 May 2024

    In 2023/24 ÂŁ103 bn was raised including ÂŁ3 billion through the Energy Profits Levy. Uk parliament. However, it will be interesting to work out what the ‘real-time’ increase that represents and whether it continues or businesses take alternative action like BP have announced with job and contractor losses.

  31. Roy Grainger
    January 16, 2025

    Amused to see Starmer’s plan to consult on disability benefits changes (with a view to reducing them) has been ruled illegal by the High Court. Oh dear, the human rights lawyer hoist by his own petard, the activist lawfare judges no respecters of governments of any persuasion.

  32. glen cullen
    January 16, 2025

    215 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday; from the safe country of France 


  33. john waugh
    January 16, 2025

    For a change looked at some JFK quotes –
    “Let us not despair but act . Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past – let us accept our own responsibility for the future .”
    And the historic words –
    ” Ask not what your Country can do for you – ask what you can do for your Country .”

    1. Ukret123
      January 17, 2025

      Great JFK quote, turning despair into determination and actions.

  34. Richard II
    January 16, 2025

    I see in the Telegraph that the government has ordered cabinet ministers to be “ruthless” in identifying public spending cuts. Yet the BBC tells me the agreement concluded by Starmer with Ukraine yesterday includes Britain providing economic aid and support for healthcare in that country (cost to the taxpayer unspecified). So:- we’re short of money, or… we’re not short of money? Can anyone help me to understand how these reports can both be true?

  35. Iago
    January 16, 2025

    Where in the West can we get a principled leader? Mrs Braverman seems a possibility.

  36. Will in Hampshire
    January 16, 2025

    Our host’s remark about Ireland’s business taxation policy is spot-on. Why we don’t match them is beyond me. Ask an executive in Silicon Valley about preferred destinations for business travel and London beats Dublin hands down. They’d come in their droves.

  37. JayCee
    January 18, 2025

    You are absolutely correct. I would add fracking as a specific objective as well. The financial structure of the wholesale electricity market needs to change to make the cost of each source more transparent on a level playing field.

  38. CdB
    January 19, 2025

    Coming to this very late. Reduced energy prices are a must as a key way to boost industry. Extracting additional gas in the North Sea (and other UK waters) is an obvious place to start.
    The counter argument to this (ignoring the CO2 benefots vs imported LNG and the additional tax take) is linked to energy prices and that, gas prices are set on the international market, and thus whilst UK needs to import, or can export additional production through interconnectors, the whole price of the gas will be set by the highest cost of either purchase or sales opportunity. As an amateur follower of free market economic this makes sense (and fits how a former employer very much on the libertarian end of the political spectrum would view things) and thus is a bit difficult to dispute.

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