The Chancellor and growth

Today in my lecture at 11 am at All Souls  College and on zoom I will set out a range of policies that could boost growth in the UK. I will not have time to discuss the current conflict within the UK government.   between the pro growth Ministers and the Net  Zero Secretary.

The Bank of England response to the Chancellor’s call for Regulators to help with growth was interesting. The said if the government removed  the need for them to promote green investment and promote anti climate change policies and  loans the economy would grow faster. Through the PRA they regulate commercial banks and need currently to worry about the balances of lending vis a vis decarbonisation.

The PM and Chancellor have promised to speed up planning permissions for investments in everything from grid pylons to datacentres. Quite often delays and even refusals result from the ability  of environmental campaigners to object on net zero, wildlife and landscape grounds. They are thinking of limiting this.

Several airport expansion plans have been delayed or shelved under an environmental imperative. The Chancellor is reported as wishing to override these. The UK needs more international travel capacity to boost trade and investment as well as to grow the holiday business.

Will the government make these changes and tell Mr Miliband to live with that reality? Will President  Trump’s priority for growth over net zero have any influence?

59 Comments

  1. Ian wragg
    January 24, 2025

    No matter what the PM or Chancellor say, any initiatives to speed up infrastructure projects will be subject to lawfare from the Climate Change blob
    The CCA and treacherous Mays legislation will ensure nothing worthwhile gets done and this will be enthusiastically cheered on by the left wing uniparty
    As they say, talk is cheap

    1. Lifelogic
      January 24, 2025

      Indeed English Nature and other such bodies plus the lefty legal establishment. The delays will cost more than building the runways. Look at the ÂŁ100 million HS2 bat tunnel. Though HS2 was a mad project that should have been killed.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 24, 2025

        ÂŁ100 million could have instead built about 1,000 three bed family homes for people rather than for a few rabies transmitting bats! Still it is all about government priorities! The houses might even have been built with bat friendly roof/attics perhaps.

    2. David Andrews
      January 24, 2025

      True. The superstructure of laws, regulations and the quangos set up to administer and enforce them are intended to stymie all attempts to promote growth. They will need to be dismantled to achieve growth. As both Labour and Conservative governments were responsible for their creation it needs a disruptor party and PM, like Reform and Farage, to get rid of them. This what Trump intends in the USA and Milei is doing in Argentina.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 24, 2025

        Indeed you need to kill parasitic jobs, get free and fair competition and and have cheap on demand energy. Must be about 50% of state sector jobs are essentially parasitic and perhaps 25% of private sector ones in compliance with daft red tape, OTT health and safely, employment red tap, DEI (do not employ on merit rules) so many in Law, HR, DEI Health and Safely, Net Zero lunancy, Tax planning and Taxing. These people not only produce nothing of real value they get in the way and inconvenience the productive workers – doctors, builders, engineers, nurses, farmers, transport workers…

        Also vast amount of time spend between arms of government arguing between themselves. Police with Social services and NHS with GP and Social Care – all trying to pass they buck not our budget but yours. Not a crime he is mentally ill…

    3. Donna
      January 24, 2025

      Precisely. A Judge recently awarded the judiciary the right to include possible future CO2 emissions resulting from a proposed development when he was considering the legality of a proposed scheme. Previously ‘only’ the emissions caused by the development were considered.

      That political/eco judgement-nutter can now be used to scupper pretty much any large-scale development.

      1. Lifelogic
        January 24, 2025

        +1 total insanity by activist judges. Who usually do not have a clue about business, energy engineering, physics, logic, climate


  2. agricola
    January 24, 2025

    You seem to suggest that government is in a state of confusion and chaos after their initial run out of mendacity. For sure a Chagosian silence has settled over foreign policy following the arrival of Donald. For sure their apologists on GBNews seem to have hunkered down to the idea that perhaps it is not working, and the people are thinking differently.

    By all means offer the All Souls solution, but I fear that government will opt for a slow destructive death rather than swallow the logical medecine. Question is, how many will they take with them in their road to hell in a handcart.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 24, 2025

      Logic and Labour’s Socialism are opposites. It is all about religious beliefs and irrational emotion. Same with the Con-Socialists. Still Reeves is backtracking a bit on the Non Dom insanity – alas too late the vast damage is largely done dear by Hunt and you.

    2. Peter
      January 24, 2025

      ‘ By all means offer the All Souls solution, but I fear that government will opt for a slow destructive death rather than swallow the logical medecine. Question is, how many will they take with them in their road to hell in a handcart.’

      There will always be debate. Whether it has an effect is another matter.

      The government may ignore it, but Labour is already held in low regard by most of the population. The question is will people put up with it for much longer? There will be pressure too from the new government in the USA. Mr. Starmer may seek refuge and support within the EU.

      More grumbling then perhaps – but no effective challenges.

      Alternatively protests may increase, maybe renewed rioting too. That frequently happens to nations in decline.

  3. Bloke
    January 24, 2025

    Yes. Trump’s likely fast and high achievement will show Rachel Reeves shrinking in value. She causes harm with no gain. Even if the UK massively cut its ‘contribution’ to green efforts around the world, no change would be perceptible vs the effects of what USA and China do.

  4. Lifelogic
    January 24, 2025

    Several airport expansion plans have been delayed or shelved due to deluded net zero, scientifically ignorant hypocrites like Miliband, St Greta and King Charlie. Schiphol airport has six runways Heathrow our largest just two. The result is any minor issue with weather or other causes loads of delays and aircraft flying round in circles or waiting at the end of runways wasting fuel. We need at least on more runway at both of these airports and a high speed shuttle between the two to give a 5 runway hub airport.

    For growth, fire all the people in the private sector doing nothing useful or often doing positive harm with net zero, diversity and enforcing over the top red tape. Release then to do something productive rather than anti-productive. Cut and simplify taxes, ditch IHT completely and thus encourage rather than deter investment, relax and speed up planning, drill baby drill, cheap reliable energy, high skilled immigration only, have real deterrents to real crimes


    1. Lifelogic
      January 24, 2025

      So anti-growth Reeves is doing a U turn. Plans to abolish non-dom status will be amended to allow a more generous phase out of tax benefits, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced. Too late dear many have left or will be leaving with their investments and jobs they create.

      The Con-socialists Sunak and daft as a brush, tax to death, Jeremy Hunt did it even before the idiotic anti-growth Reeves took over. All three lefty PPE Oxon economic vandals.

  5. DOM
    January 24, 2025

    Well done on your performance on GB News last night

    1. glen cullen
      January 24, 2025

      Agree

  6. Lifelogic
    January 24, 2025

    For growth we need freedom of choice, a state sector of about 20% of GDP (not heading for 50%) doing only the very few things governments need to do. Law and order, defence, border control
 things they fail to do even with a huge state sector currently. Stop injecting people with net harm ineffective Covid Vaccines too.

    Free and fair competition in education, energy, healthcare, housing
 between the private sector and the state sector. More people leaving school at 16 would be good too to learn practical skills on the job would rather than a worthless degree from the ex-poly of Bognor in media studies & human rights.

  7. Lifelogic
    January 24, 2025

    Freedom of choice and no market rigging in cars, vans, heating systems, building construction
 too.

  8. Donna
    January 24, 2025

    President Trump gave the WEF a very clear “Growth Lecture” yesterday.

    Unfortunately, I doubt if the left-wing economists who infest the Treasury, OBR, Bank of England and the Student Union Marxists in Government paid him any more attention than they’ll give you.

    I think they’re on a mission to comprehensively wreck the economy in order to strengthen their justification for dragging us back into alignment with the EU as an Associate Member. That would also explain their deliberate provocation of the President over the Chagos Islands and their nomination for UK Ambassador.

  9. Narrow Shoulders
    January 24, 2025

    As we are going into a (Labour led) recession, the need for business travel will reduce. I don’t think we will need more airport capacity.

    However I agree generally that green policies (particularly the cost of gas and electricity) prevents the economy growing faster. And for a spurious cause I may add.

  10. oldwulf
    January 24, 2025

    It seems to me that one of the main anti-growth decisions of the Chancellor is the high taxation of lower earners.

    We need paid work more to be more attractive than state benefits which would help reduce the benefits bill. I think it would therefore be good to increase the tax personal allowance and to reduce employee National Insurance for low earners. Also, maybe all state benefits should be taxable ?

    and

    Employer National Insurance is a tax on jobs – the percentage rate is currently too high and the starting point is too low. I think this needs to be looked at.

    As well as seeking to reduce the number of people on benefits the aim would, of course, be for economic growth so as to increase the tax take with lower tax rates.

  11. Roy Grainger
    January 24, 2025

    “The (BoE) said if the government removed the need for them to promote green investment and promote anti climate change policies ….”

    So even better how about stopping the anti-climate change policies themselves, not just the requirement for the BoE to promote them ?

    Even if the government scrapped all planning laws entirely no-one in their right minds would build a datacentre in the UK as they are very energy intensive and our electricity prices are the highest in the developed world.

  12. Dave Andrews
    January 24, 2025

    Labour have stated that economic growth and addressing climate change are complementary, so there’s no need to build more runways.
    It might be better to hold off on building data centres, until we have the nuclear power stations to generate the electricity required.

  13. Ed M
    January 24, 2025

    ‘Drill baby, drill’ is NOT something politicians (including Trump) have ultimate say in.
    It’s ultimately down to market forces (not forgetting how some methods of oil extraction are more expensive than others).
    All politicians can do is legislate to make certain types of oil extraction easier to happen. But they have no control over oil production overall. That’s down to the financial markets.
    In other words, capitalism, not politics, has last word on ‘drill, baby drill.’

  14. Mike Wilson
    January 24, 2025

    Expanding Heathrow is insane. It’s like a madhouse around there already. And, if it goes ahead, my parents’ bodies, currently in Cherry Lane Cemetery, will have to be dug up and moved. That will be over my dead body.

    1. glen cullen
      January 24, 2025

      Labour expanding heathrow is like the tories HS2 …..a deflection

      1. Ed M
        January 25, 2025

        Yup

    2. Ed M
      January 25, 2025

      Only 28% of Heathrow travellers are business. What’s the case for growth? Bearing in mind W. London really aeroplane noisy already and this kind of thing puts business people off coming to work and live in a city (like the Franfurt effect – Franfurt boring city that puts many off wanting to live there).

      How the sheep bleat: Heathrow + 3rd runway = growth.

    3. hefner
      January 25, 2025

      I looked on google map at various airports around Europe (with their number of runways): LHR (2), LGW (2), STN (1), LTN (1), (LCY (1)), but also Schipol (6), Frankfurt (3), Charles-de-Gaulle (4), Orly (3), Fuimicino (3), Stockholm (3), Vienna (2) 
 airports. Runways here are concrete or asphalt and at least 7,000 ft long (LCY is much shorter) (most of them are in excess of 10,000 ft long).

      Heathrow is the one airport with the least free space around for potential expansion. There are very good historical reasons why LHR is so cramped, in 1930 it was one of the first European ‘civil’ airports to be built (I didn’t know the history of Heathrow airport wrt to the battle between the RAF and the civil authorities, a battle that lasted for more than 20 years). The changing numbers of much shorter runways (up to 6) to only 2 longer ones is also quite interesting. The funny bit about the ‘secret Air Ministry plan’ of Balfour is ‘typically Monty Pythonesque’.

      If the Chancellor wants to increase the air access to London by having new runways built she might have more chance looking at LGW, LTN or even STN. But (and it is a big but) she will have to deal with Ivy Holdco Ltd aka US Global Infrastructure Partners (LGW), the Manchester Airports Holdings Ltd including the IFM Investors from Melbourne (STN) or 
 a rare exception, the Luton Borough Council (LTN).

  15. Ian B
    January 24, 2025

    It was announced in the media that the Chancellor stood up in Davos, the WEF conference and echoed President Trump – “Boosting the UK economy must trump Labour’s dash for net zero”, says Rachel Reeves.
    Is that true, a made up story or just more lies

  16. Original Richard
    January 24, 2025

    “Will President Trump’s priority for growth over net zero have any influence?”

    Real growth, not just growth of the Civil Service, institutions, quangos, regulators and our national debt, requires abundant, cheap, reliable energy. The Far Left aim to stop our access to abundant, cheap and reliable energy by arguing that burning hydrocarbon fuels causes extreme weather. So what is their solution? No, not reliable and affordable nuclear but weather dependent, chaotically intermittent renewables!

    Shula and Ott on their 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. hefner
      January 25, 2025

      I am a bit confused: if there is no effect of greenhouse gases (water vapour, CO2, O3, et al), how comes it is possible with various instruments (spectrometers in particular) to measure upward and downward radiative fluxes at all levels in the atmosphere (at the surface, below and above clouds, at the tropopause, and higher, up to a satellite’s level) and this for any wavelength/wave number in the infrared spectrum from roughly 4 to 100 micrometers.
      S&O say there is only upward radiative fluxes in the so-called window region, and above the tropopause.
      Also according to S&O all transfer outside the window is done by sensible and latent heat. But measurements of these turbulent fluxes are done routinely (by eddy covariance, energy balance, and Bowen ratio methods or by scintillometry or with LiDARs) and those are consistent with the existence of radiative fluxes.

      There have been plenty of experimental studies with in-situ measurements of radiation and turbulent heat fluxes using these methods with papers showing the results, in particular as part of the ARM Research programme (www.arm.gov).

      You should ask these questions from Shula and Ott, specially from Shula, he seems to be a smiling nice guy.

      And then if S&O are right, how is possible that weather forecast models, which use the ‘wrong’ representation of the atmosphere with upward and downward radiation fluxes and a treatment of sensible and latent heat fluxes inconsistent with S&O can have reasonable results.
      Also why have S&O not coded yet a model according to their theory and run it if not as a climate GCM (they say it would be too costly) but as a weather forecast model for just a few days?
      The proof of the pudding would be in the eating, isn’t it?

      Finally Shula pretends he cannot publish their (S&O) results except on Substack. There are now plenty of free internet ‘academic’ journals which I think would accept their findings (if they have any validity).
      I could recommend academia.edu, they already have a number of ®dissident’ papers.

      1. Sam
        January 26, 2025

        Dissident papers….that’s odd hefner…what’s happened to “the science is settled”

        1. hefner
          January 26, 2025

          There has always been evolution of science with new ideas, findings, measurements, methods, modelling, 


          S&O are saying ‘Because this is a convection-based model, a global circulation model based on the real mechanisms of heat transfer would likely require orders of magnitude more computing power than the current radiative transfer based GCM models. This further supports our belief that the attempt to model and predict global climate is an expensive and worthless pursuit.’

          So they will not even test their theory in actual modelling over a few days. Strange, isn’t it? Throwing in the towel before anybody could see whether they’re right or wrong?

  17. Bryan Harris
    January 24, 2025

    Expecting this leopard of a government to change it’s spots is akin to asking the EU to change it’s mind about the ECHR. Fundamentalism is a big part of who they are, and fundamentally this labour government, without any innovative original ideas of their own can only follow a path laid out for them. In this they are their own speeding train…..
    The Chancellor will of course scramble around looking for easy topics to get the critics off her back, but she has neither the will to significantly change anything from her destructive budget, nor the experience to be inventive.

    It seems that we are doomed to have a labour Chancellor, this one or the next, who is powerless to get in the way of economy ripping plans by Miliband. Netzero demands 100% compliance and that will be more like 200% when this rogue government pass the CAN bill.

    When are we all going to wake up to the horrors to come – a painful catastrophic budget was just the start!

  18. Mickey Taking
    January 24, 2025

    Off Topic a little.
    Mr Reynolds said: ‘There is a tweak… of course when you’re changing a tax regime… there will be some uncertainty. We welcome people coming to the UK.’
    Rachel Reeves was accused of trying to ‘undo her own damage’ as she watered down her planned crackdown on non-doms yesterday Labour veteran MP Diane Abbott accusing the Chancellor of listening ‘to the international billionaire class, but not to freezing British pensioners’
    On Labour’s workers’ rights plan, the Business Secretary said that while it would not be ‘watered down’ after consultations, the ‘vast majority’ of concerns about it would be addressed.
    Critics said the minor tweaks to the non-dom plan would do little to stop the exodus of millionaires fleeing Britain over the crackdown.
    And Tory business spokesman Andrew Griffith said: ‘Having trashed wealth creators and businesses, Rachel Reeves is now trying to undo her own damage.
    ‘Any U-turn is welcome but this one is like turning off the ice cube maker in the cocktail bar of the Titanic.’
    The current non-dom scheme allows individuals living in Britain but domiciled overseas to avoid paying tax on income from abroad for up to 15 years. That is being scrapped, in changes introduced by previous Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt, in favour of a scheme that allows new arrivals to the UK to avoid taxes on foreign income for their first four years of residency. After that they will pay tax at the same rate as everybody else.

  19. iain gill
    January 24, 2025

    you could grow the economy by reducing the amount of offshoring of work the big organisations do. it would be easy to move jobs back to the uk with a few incentives to do the right thing in the system.
    moving a few thousand support staff, IT staff, and so on, back per large organisation would do wonders for our economy, and drive up the quality of stuff the country produces which would attract more orders.

    1. dixie
      January 24, 2025

      It would help the IT industry certainly but we need to re-shore design, development and manufacturing across the board, we need a critical mass across a broad range of disciplines and technologies.

  20. Denis Cooper
    January 24, 2025

    I’m just listening to Sir Roger Gale bemoaning the changes since he was a boy. I’m waiting him for mention that when he was born in 1943 the population of the UK was 38 million while now it is officially over 68 million and quite likely closer to 80 million Oh, no, he’s forgotten to say anything about, although he has commented that we have to import half of our food.

  21. Original Richard
    January 24, 2025

    At the Energy Security & Net Zero Select Committee meeting 15/01/2025 the SoS for DESNZ said :

    “Every family and business in the country has paid the price for our dependence on fossil fuel markets that are controlled by petrostates and dictators.” Going on to say that the transition to renewables will bring down prices and give us energy security.

    Yes, the invasion of Ukraine led to a gas price spike but the price of electricity generated by gas is now back down to below the prices from renewables even when the carbon taxes are added to gas. The price spike in Europe was caused mainly by Germany who were importing very large quantities of gas from Russia which President Trump warmed them at a UN meeting was unwise. The German delegation just laughed at this advice.

    Around 50% of our gas (still) comes from the North Sea despite efforts to close down this supply even though the NESO “Clean Power by 2030” report says that we will need up to 35 GW of unabated gas by 2030 to avoid blackouts when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is not shining, even allowing for a 25% cut in demand.

    Of the remaining 50%, according to Statista, for 2023, 58% comes from Norway, 26% from the USA, and 6% from Quatar with the balance from a further 7 countries. So our gas supplies are not “controlled by petrostates and dictators”.

    Furthermore there is no energy security when we are heavily reliant on China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”, for our energy infrastructure and the metals and minerals for electrification. Electrification itself, when there Is no way to store electricity at grid-scale and when the low energy density of renewables and their connections makes them very vulnerable to attack by air and undersea drones, also will not give us energy security.

    PS : Not that we need to stop burning gas because CO2, the gas of life, has no influence on global temperature, as Shula & Ott have shown.

  22. Keith from Leeds
    January 24, 2025

    I love your optimism, Sir John, as you keep plugging away at what needs to be done to grow the UK economy.
    But if your own party and PMs would not listen, you have no chance of moving Labour.
    Plenty of people know what needs to be done to grow the UK economy, but why do we have PMs, Cabinets, and MPs who don’t have a clue?
    The frustrating thing is, how do we influence our governments? It seems once the government is installed, they can ignore the voters, and there is no penalty until the next GE. We need a recall system so MPs cannot ignore us!

    1. Peter Gardner
      January 25, 2025

      It is very simple. Socialist governments don’t want your influence and don’t want to be accountable to you. That is why they love the EU and other supra-national sources of authority, by which they are obliged to ignore you and are not accountable to you. Since you, I and others removed their EU protection they seek protection elsewhere. You may also have noticed that there is no mechanism in the UK by which the electors can force the government/parliament to hold a general election. The Rogue Remainer parliament hid from Brexit voters and refused to implement the result of the Brexit Referendum behind the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA), sensibly repealed by Boris’s government.
      Parliament dissolves automatically after five years but government continues, although incomplete legislative bills lapse. It would not be difficult with Labour’s massive majority for it to extend its term in office on the pretext of some emergency and unfinished business. After all this was the argument used by Cameron to get the FTPA passed by parliament. Voters are in a very weak position relative to ruling parties under FPTP voting and to parliament. If Labour decide there should not be a general election for 7 or 10 years then that is what will be.

  23. Michael Staples
    January 24, 2025

    Sir John, I enjoyed the lecture but it was a shame that you were beheaded by the video. Please tell All Souls to aim their camera higher.

  24. glen cullen
    January 24, 2025

    The windiest day on record and we’re still importing energy, via french interconnectors, at 15% as 16:00hrs today – https://grid.iamkate.com/

  25. Lynn Atkinson
    January 24, 2025

    I’m afraid we have been without energy, high winds and a lot of trees down. So I missed your lecture Sir John. I hope you will publish it or share a link to an online recording. I’m sorry this is off topic, but the hope of peace in Ukraine is one that we are all praying for and it will save us billions. This is what Putin has said – looks like a slam dunk for Trump! Note that Putin says that the 2020 election ‘was stolen from Trump’.

    Putin declares his readiness for negotiations on Ukraine, but requires that Kiev lift the ban on contacts with him.

    “We are ready for negotiations on the Ukrainian issue. There are issues here that require special attention. For example, as is known, Zelensky issued a decree banning negotiations. How can negotiations be resumed now if they are banned?” Putin said.

    He also said that he had “always had a businesslike, at the same time pragmatic and trusting” relationship with Trump, adding that if he had remained president, there would not have been a war in Ukraine.

    “I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen from him in 2020, then perhaps there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022,” Putin said.

    1. Mitchel
      January 25, 2025

      Last two exchanges of the dead:
      49 Russians for 757 Ukrainians
      43 Russians for 503 Ukrainians.

      “Ukraine is winning!”

      Moscow has made it clear that neither London nor Brussels will be involved in negotiating any settlement.

  26. hefner
    January 24, 2025

    As Sir John (and little me) had predicted the Climate and Nature Bill discussed this afternoon will not go further. The motion against was 120 to 7. So as previously said a storm in a teacup, just enough for the Paul Homewoods (and the contributors here) to get in a sweat. Really funny.

    Maybe it would help if some of the d@#£er contributors were to get a crash course on how the HoP works. But given that a non negligible number of them seems unable to do even a simple web search and only rely on predigested information I guess this blog still has ‘des beaux jours devant lui’.

    1. Sam
      January 25, 2025

      Pointing out the dangers and absurdity of this bill is is a very good thing to do.
      Perhaps the publicity helped a little to consign it to the bin.
      And it helps us peasants, less educated, than you obviously hefner, see just what is going on in the House of Commons.

    2. dixie
      January 25, 2025

      As you climb off your pedestal perhaps you might consider commentary from other quarters eg the Guardian yesterday ;
      “Ministers have seen off a bill that would have made the UK’s climate and environment targets legally binding, after promising Labour backbenchers that they would have input into environmental legislation.

      The deal avoids an internal row over the bill, which was introduced by the Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage but had support from dozens of Labour MPs.”

      Would have been useful to have had a free vote so the full set of climate idiots, instead of just 7, would have self identified for future electorial reference.

  27. dixie
    January 24, 2025

    I enjoyed your lecture, if I could ask a question here as this was not possible via the zoom session .. What about access to capital for startups and SMEs, isn’t this a key factor in growth and just how effective will the city be in this considering so many companies are moving from the LSE to New York?

    Reply Yes, access to capital is important. Do much liquidity has gone to the USA

  28. Original Richard
    January 24, 2025

    There’s not going to be any growth, not real growth that is.

    Parliaments for some time now have been giving away their governing and decision making away to the Civil Service, quangos, institutions, regulators etc. and they are not interested in anything else but growing their influence and powers.

    The OBR, the Treasury and the BoE make the budgets and decide on our taxation. Our energy policy is decided by the CCC, climate activists and High Court Judges.

    Parliament no longer makes our laws as these are now decided by the HRA and activist lawyers and judges. In fact the HRA was designed to end democracy (decisions made by the majority) and to give powers to minorities.

  29. K
    January 24, 2025

    They know that Net Zero doesn’t work and don’t care. It’s Marxism. Its purpose is to immiserate, freeze, starve and impoverish.

  30. hefner
    January 24, 2025

    O/T Looking at top500.org 11/2024 listing the 500 biggest computers (in the world) obviously dominated by the United States (first four positions and plenty of others later), I was however surprised to see that the first such machine for the UK appears in 62th position whereas Italy has two in 5th and 9th positions, Switzerland its first in 7th, Japan 6th, 16th, 17th, 28th, Finland 8th, Spain 11th, Germany 18th, Denmark 21st, France 22nd, 27th, 30th, Netherlands 29th, 


    And to realise the fuss that the supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh has created when the project started in Autumn 2023 then was paused in August 2024 then given a (possible) new life with the PM‘s AI announcement last week.

    Is there really a UK policy for infrastructure that parties can agree on and support whatever the party in power?

    1. Ian B is needed
      January 25, 2025

      @hefner – The UK’s Marxist ideology of only the State can provide is holding it back. The majority of the big boys are all private enterprise. As is the drive for nuclear energy to supply the high demand of AI – the UK at 4 times the price for energy, its is energy that drive AI (Its also energy that drives Crypto mining), means the UK by design is being left in everyone’s wake.

    2. Martin in Bristol
      January 25, 2025

      So size is important to you hefner
      What about impact or efficiency or effectiveness?

      1. hefner
        January 25, 2025

        MiB, In this table, the ‘size’ is linked to the number of processors (GPUs and CPUs), their speed, and the amount of internal and external memory the machine has.
        The results are sorted out using the maximum and the peak rates (in 10^15 floating operations per second).
        So I guess that should cover your concern for efficiency/effectiveness.
        The machine in 1st position has 15 times the number of processors, a Rmax 91 times and a Rpeak 109 faster than the those of the first UK machine.
        For the first Italian machine these figures are respectively 4.4, 25 and 24 times the UK machine.
        Always happy to help.

        1. Martin in Bristol
          January 26, 2025

          I was thinking more about the outcome of the work these machines do, rather than just the processing power of the machines.
          Size isn’t everything.

          1. hefner
            January 26, 2025

            Yes, you’re right, it all depends what work is given to a machine.
            One could think of a big machine treating all NHS administration and documents (eg, medical imagery) in a consistent way, or the present situation where computer systems vary between, sometimes, different parts of the same hospital and information can only been passed between services using memory sticks and rewritable CDs (I saw it done with MRI image results less than two years ago).

  31. Peter Gardner
    January 25, 2025

    The mysterious topic of public sector productivity, a notoriously difficult thing to measure. The answer relies very much on how it is measured. In the UK Treasury’s methodology the output of many public services is assumed to be equal to the input, which means, in effect, productivity is not measured and nobody knows what it is. Examples include social security administration, defence, and police.
    The Treasury reckoned (Apr 2024):
    “Between 1997 and 2019, measured public service productivity increased on average by 0.2% per year. In contrast, economy-wide productivity increased by 1.1% per year on average over that period. Among all the public services the ONS measures, only healthcare saw increases in productivity (of 0.9% per year on average), while all other services declined in productivity. Public order and safety (which includes prisons and courts) declined most rapidly, by 1.5% per year on average.
    “Measured productivity fell dramatically during 2020 as the pandemic changed how public services operated and led to a reduced quantity of ‘normal’ activity. This was most clear in health care, where almost all non-emergency procedures were put on hold and the activity of the service focused on dealing with the pandemic. However, it also happened in other services (for example, fewer court cases were heard). This led to a very large fall in measured productivity. In 2020, overall public service productivity fell by over 15%. It only recovered partially in 2021, remaining 9% below 2019 levels and 5% below 1997 levels.
    “How public service productivity has recovered since then is still uncertain, in part because the ONS’s official statistics, incorporating a full quality adjustment, are only published with a three-year lag.”
    The Treasury is certainly not the gold standard but it is clear there is a great deal of uncertainty on public sector productivity. Yet people have extraordinarily strong views. On what basis?
    Sir John cites no sources and I would be very interested to know what they are.
    Iin my own experience in the public sector one of the most egregious causes of lost productivity was ministers delaying decisons while their further questions were answered, which could take months, or ministers waiting for external events to unfold only then to return to Plan A – even if all the risks and impacts had been carefully foreseen and explained at the outset. One countermeasure was to divide things up so the expenditure would fall below the level requiring ministerial approval. The counter-countermeasure was to assess the threshold on total rather than partial spend. Those wanting delays would always win.

    Reply ONS

    1. Peter Gardner
      January 25, 2025

      PS. My bad, ONS, not Treasury, as reported the Institute for Government.

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