We have suffered from the dangerous doctrine of the independent body. Many MPS and the main parties have accepted the idea that politicians cannot be trusted to make good decisions. Crucial areas are given away to independent bodies. They appoint panels and Boards of experts. All too often their group think and abuse of patronage leads to disastrous decisions and big waste of money.
I have often criticised the biggest loss maker, the Bank of England. Apparently most MP s think it is just fine for them to be planning total losses of £240 bn (OBR forecast) all to be paid for by taxpayers. Much better they think to mug the pensioners and slap on a jobs tax instead. This was the same Bank responsible for keeping inflation to 2% who helped push it up to 11% before noticing its error.
This week Robert Jenrich highlighted the Sentencing Council’s guidance to judges to implement two tier justice. The Justice Secretary agreed and wrote them a letter asking them to think again . They told her to keep out of their decision and directions. Will she change their personnel? Will she legislate to direct them? Will she take back control of sentencing policy? Probably not.
Or take the Climate Change Committee. They not only churn out proposals to change all our lifestyles and to impose the biggest ever replacement investment programme costing hundreds of billions, but they do so with no one around their table disagreeing. They send policies to government who usually just accept them without asking if they are feasible, if they will undermine our industry or destroy our energy security. Their policies often entail more world CO 2 production as they force us to close industry and import instead.
These bodies are usually paid for by taxpayers, set up by Parliament and have bosses chosen by Ministers. They usually get whatever money they want to spend. They have every kind of staff diversity apart from diversity of thought.They often specialise in getting things wrong and refusing to change or apologise.
March 12, 2025
These bodies need scrapping. The sentencing committee should be immediately disbanded and the Home Office under the relevant minister put in charge.
Who selects these people for the CCC, having the power to bankrupt the country under some false premises with most of Westminster clapping them along.
It’s time politicians did what they’re paid for.
March 12, 2025
Like in Germany?David P Goldman of Asia Times tweets yesterday:
“World turned upside down.The AfD,an alleged threat to democracy,asks Germany’s Constitutional Court for an injunction against Friedrich Mertz’s attempt to convene the old parliament,voted out of office on Feb 23,instead of the new parliament chosen by the voters.This blatantly anti-democratic manoeuvre by the DDU is intended to pass a constitutional amendment allowing massive debt increases that the new parliament would reject.”
As Brecht wrote:”Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another.”
March 12, 2025
Mitchel:
Hasn’t a court in Romania just annulled the first round of their presidential elections because the polls indicated that the candidate they do not support is likely to win?
And aren’t the French courts looking to ban Marine Le Pen?
And I suppose also President Trump, as well as an attempted assassination?
March 13, 2025
Yes – and they have just banned the same frontrunner from standing in the re-run.
(DDU should read CDU in my original post)
March 12, 2025
What a shame we didn’t have a Conservative Government which was committed to lighting a bonfire of the Quangos.
March 12, 2025
MPs are elected to govern the country using the Civil Service to do the legwork. Responsibilities should never be handed to unelected quangos with their own agenda. It is just part of the systematic destruction of democracy.
March 12, 2025
“A civilization incapable of solving the problems posed by its own functioning is a decadent civilization.”
-Aime Cesaire
March 12, 2025
+1. We don’t live in a democracy if unelected bodies create regulations and impose their own interpretation of legislation, even when parliament tells them they’ve got it wrong.
March 12, 2025
I suggest an unoriginal slogan for MPs to adopt: “Take back control!”.
Dr David Starkey says this needs a Great Reform Act to undo the Blair/Brown legislation that created many of these bodies, as well as those created by other governments, that have relieved MPs of their responsibilities.
Quite who will take this on remains to be seen. It is a natural for Reform but the party seems more preoccupied with personalities rather than with policies. Robert Jenrick promoted the idea during his unsuccessful leadership bid. Liz Truss is promoting it on her speaking programme. Will Kemi Badenoch finally get around to the idea? Someone with the power to get a grip on policy making should be taking a lead.
March 12, 2025
The problem is that Ministers with leverage have no experience of running anything except narrow political campaigns. They expect to move on/up after 18 months before anything hits the fan. They hype the claims for their policies to con the public with completely unachievable short time scales. Equally poor MPs purely lobby fodder so no one held to account. Finally media trained to hilt to avoid questions, respond with bland sound bites.
Our only chance is to outsource to alleged professionals but then because said Ministers/support are so naive the people they employ are similarly not fit for purpose, see an opportunity to do their own thing because of lack of oversight.
Your fire should be directed at Politicians, the failures are the symptoms.
March 12, 2025
It is amusing that it is a Labour government being lectured to by the sentencing council. These independent bodies are overwhelmingly staffed by lefties and in the normal course of events you’d expect them to align with Labour policy. Of course the Conservatives were so frightened of upsetting the establishment that they’d never have dared overturn rulings from these bodies. Maybe it is like NHS and Welfare reform and it’s ONLY Labour who would even make an attempt to push back. Maybe eventually it will be Labour who addresses the ECHR issue too – you can’t underestimate Starmer’s ability to be entirely unprincipled and do the exact opposite of what he has previously promised if he sees a few votes in it.
March 12, 2025
RG: “Of course the Conservatives were so frightened of upsetting the establishment that they’d never have dared overturn rulings from these bodies.”
No, they were quite happy to accept these rulings. They just pretended to their voters that they thought the rulings were wrong. Just as they pretended to want to curb immigration to the “tens of thousands” and then allowed immigration to exceed 1m in a single year alone.
March 12, 2025
Those QUANGOs are independent of responsibility for their own stupidity. Government should abolish most of them and seek ideas and recommendations from people internally responsible to ministers. When it comes to action, a daft Government will normally favour bad recommendations over good ones anyway, maintaining mostly the worse and worst that tend to prevail today. We need a sensible government; not two tiers of idiocy.
March 12, 2025
As you say, MPs and the main parties, and indeed, a good proportion of the electorate accept the idea that politicians cannot be trusted to make good decisions. But this is not the only, or I suspect, the main reason for the proliferation of Quangos to act in their place; the other, and essential, factor is the keenness of ministers to avoid taking accountability for the actions of their departments. A supposedly independent body is an ideal thing for them to shelter behind, and they are delighted to do so. And when the supposedly independent body is criticised, it is equally keen to point out that the ultimate decision rests with the minister. No wonder we are in a bit of a mess!
At the moment the only political party that shows any sign of recognising that this must not go on, is Reform UK.
March 12, 2025
All totally true but it just points to a totally corrupt system from top to bottom as originally implemented by our wonderful Tony Blair who received the Royal Garter for doing so.
How do we now disengage ourselves from this anti democratic nonsense?
March 12, 2025
I recently had dealings with a supposedly independent body that saw it wretchedly fail to perform its stated task, acting out of step with its own professed standards, and with its chief exhibiting a lack of leadership.
I will soon write to the person (a very senior civil servant) with responsibility for that body encouraging him to dismiss its chief. If my recommendation is followed, I will let you know but I expect I am more likely to hear that the chief has been given an honours list bauble.
March 12, 2025
Sir John
The duty of MPs, Parliament and Government is to keep us safe and serve us with the powers we lend them. It might sound like ‘dream-land’, away with the ‘fairies’ or some such thing – but is their only purpose and it is purpose we pay for. Otherwise let’s get rid of them, the whole lot of them.
The Government of the day gets to take our money, its not their money and spend it so as to fulfill their job of serving us. As the ones that hand our money out, they and only they are responsible for what it achieves. Everywhere and everyone they hand our money too, has the Government of the day, and its Chancellor as their managers, they only ones responsible the spend and for outcomes.
Independent bodies are not independent, they need our democratic system to acquire the funds, the massive funds that feed them. It is the Chancellor that gets to choose who receives money on our behalf. These entities have to be answerable to the taxpayer in some way, sure they can advise but all their actions have political oversite (they have it already, but we have lazy MPs, to many ‘free-loading’ MPs) as such outcomes are political decisions.
March 12, 2025
Have you seen Kit Malthouse’s recent essays on https://capx.co/category/economics? If not, I regard them as an endorsement of a number of your views.
March 12, 2025
It is scandalous that the Bank of England can deliberately and unnecessarily plan to make total losses of £240 bn and outrageous that its antics are not questioned let alone curbed at all by the plitical class.
You are the only person of note to speak out on this matter: Ministers stay silent, the Bank fails to explain itself and my own M.P. stays aloof, citing Bank “independence” as justification for such egregious neglect.
March 12, 2025
It is important to realise that “independent” does not mean “neutral”. That is true of the virulently anti-Brexit Independent newspaper and it is also true of the various bodies set up for unaccountable administration.
March 12, 2025
+1 crucial point!
March 12, 2025
A very good point Denis!
March 12, 2025
The general rule is that any organisation that feels the need to claim it is “independent” never is.
March 12, 2025
That’s a good summary of the state of the quango world – once created they spawn their own agenda and proceed to grow their little empire while burning as much of our money as they can.
Worse still they are normally staffed by inferior left thinkers so that their effect on whatever they are supposed to be looking after becomes far worse than when administered by mere MPs.
It’s the fault of parliament for not imposing it’s authority!
How many times have we been promised a bonfire of quango? How many have we had?
Unless parliament rolls back time and takes full control of the situation with failing quangos and a failed civil service then you have to wonder the point of it — Ahh yes, it is apparent the only thing our parliament is good at is creating oppressive legislation to penalise us and make our lives far worse.
March 12, 2025
Almost invariably let us down. There main aim is to grow their power salaries, bonuses, power and pensions. What incentive to they have to deliver anything of value other than to keep the civil service & politicians feeding them more and more money. Even the politicians are hardly ever accountable to the voters in any real and meaningful sense. The NHS on of the worse examples pushing net harm covid vaccine into people who never even needed them.
“This week Robert Jenrich highlighted the Sentencing Council’s guidance to judges to implement two tier justice.” Pure racism and sexism etc. in sentencing.
I know of one QUANGO a while back that moved the head office at great expense mainly for the commuting convenience of the CEO.
March 12, 2025
“Independent Bodies.”
The only thing they’re really independent of is any kind of democratic accountability. They are all implementing Globalist policies on behalf of the UN, WEF, IMF and WHO.
Mandelson was quite clear on the matter several decades ago: “The Age of Democracy is over.”
March 12, 2025
‘ All too often their group think and abuse of patronage leads to disastrous decisions and big waste of money.’
A correct summary. I would also add their complete lack of accountability to the statement.
As with the EU, decisions that affect people are made by unelected committees and there is no redress when they get it wrong – still less a way to remove them and prevent further damage.
March 12, 2025
“Or take the Climate Change Committee. They not only churn out proposals to change all our lifestyles and to impose the biggest ever replacement investment programme costing hundreds of billions, but they do so with no one around their table disagreeing”
These people are totally mad the thinks they propose are insane. It is led by a classics graduate pleasant enough but not a clue!
Chris Stark “head of a new Mission Control centre for clean energy” (nothing dirty about CO2) is often described as a “climate expert” he has a law degree of sorts and not a clue about energy or energy engineering or climate .
Wiki says:-
“On leaving the Climate Change Committee, Stark was described by Professor Piers Forster as “a dedicated public servant.”The Guardian newspaper praised him for his management of the Committee at a time when the Conservative government was reportedly briefing against statutory watchdogs, and for “his steady insistence on telling the government truths it did not want to hear.”
In short talking B/S do we want some one diligently doing insane thinks? A less diligent one would be far better.
Also “The then Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho credited his leadership of the Committee with many advances, including helping the UK become “the first major economy to put our net zero commitments into law, with the UK becoming the first country in the G20 to halve its carbon emissions.”
Putting this into law as Miliband and May did supported by nearly all MPs was evil vandalism. Coutinho with sort of a decent half maths degree should know rather better.
£7500 grant for heat pumps so if we all get one we will have have to pay circa £15,000 more in taxes to get our £7500 back (after government admin. costs) plus the vast cost of the new heat pumps total insanity, Plus for the few very cost days we will need an electrical supply and grid of about 10 times current. The policy is patently idiotic!
March 12, 2025
But almost all our MP (almost none of them with any scientific education past A levels at best) voted to give us this appalling climate change committee. How are Gummer’s green businesses coming on?
These heat pumps which will cost about 10 times as much to fit and about 1.5 times more for electricity will not even save any CO2 as we have no spare low CO2 on demand electricity anyway. Not that a bit more CO2 plant food is a problem a net good infact. Please they will be manufactured using lots of fossil fuel mainly overseas and in China.
March 12, 2025
For the few very cold days (I meant) when heat pumps use most of their electricty. Then if we all have them we will 10 times as grid capacity and 10 X low carbon generating capacity and then back up for this – totally impractical and mad! Plus heat pumps are less convenient and slow to heat up a cold house so need to be left on all the time in practice. Mad or crooks on the make?
March 12, 2025
LL :
The reason that Emma Pinchbeck (classics) and Chris Stark (law) are the CEOs of the CCC and Mission Control is BECAUSE they have no clues about energy, engineering or climate. The same for the head Civil Servants at DESNZ and the MPs selected for the Energy Security & Net Zero Select Committee.
March 12, 2025
Indeed no respectable, competent and honest engineer or physicists would take the job surely!
March 12, 2025
Unnecessary £240Bn loss. What do the Bank executives say to justify it when you challenge them as you no doubt have done over the years? This is a life changing sum of money for any country.
Reply They do not bother to justify it as they have a complete Treasury guarantee to pay the bills.
March 12, 2025
So, same question to Treasury and Chancellor and how do they argue against your advice?
March 12, 2025
The purpose of “independent bodies” is to enable politicians to enact laws and policies that they dare not be seen enacting themselves for fear of losing their seats. It is used by the Left to subvert democracy.
The CCC and the Sentencing Council are perfect examples. There are many others.
March 12, 2025
“Their [the CCC’s] policies often entail more world CO 2 production as they force us to close industry and import instead.”
Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, said in his recent “Climate Cakeism” podcast: “Shifting pollution overseas is ineffective and dishonest as it avoids confronting the public with the real costs and lifestyle adjustments required.”
The fact that it is territorial but not consumption emissions which are measured is clear evidence that the purpose of the Left’s Net Zero policy has absolutely nothing to do with reducing atmospheric CO2 but is to de-industrialise and impoverish the UK.
The total global emissions are unimportant to the Left, as are of course emissions from China, India etc..
CO2 does not control temperature, it never has, and the increase in atmospheric CO2 is greening the planet and thus increasing crop yields. As is the mild warming of just 0.14 degrees C per decade.
Socialism depends upon people remaining poor.
March 12, 2025
The CCC should be abolished immediately. It is nothing other than a cosy group of climate alarmists chatting together while being funded by the tax payer. Their advice or more realistically instruction to government is so focused on their personal climate agenda, the members should be asked to appear in a committee room to explain exactly how their crazy policy instructions will work of change anything, other than the economic destruction of the UK?
March 12, 2025
RE:
Yes, perhaps the “economists” at the CCC should be moved to the OBR to improve their forecasting. The “economists” at the CCC apparently can predict (see the 7th Carbon Budget) the precise differential in cost between running an electric car or the price of green electricity and alternatives not just today but in a quarter of century from now (2050). Nw that’s really clever! I’m certain it’s not propaganda.
March 12, 2025
OR, you might want to write ‘as the globally averaged warming of 0.14 degC per decade’ can translate (ever heard of ‘standard deviation’ and/or of ‘polar amplification’?) in monthly sea surface temperatures at high latitudes in the Arctic 5-7 degC higher than fifty years ago.
Why do you think the Canadian-Alaskan North West passage is now open most NH summers?
Why do you think most cruise ship companies now offer NW Passage cruises?
Why do you think that Russia has been heavily investing on its North Coastline? (businessindexnorth.com 09/2024 ‘Overview of Russia’s Arctic Investments in 2017-2022’)
March 12, 2025
Interesting you said monthly sea surface temperatures and used 50 years ago as the data comparison date hefner.
March 12, 2025
Why do you think snowbound Greenland is called ‘Greenland’? Ever heard of ice-ages and their retreat?
March 12, 2025
hefner :
I don’t deny we have some slight warming as we exit the Little Ice Age and before that the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) just 11,000 year ago. Unlike the real climate deniers, such as our national broadcaster, who tell us that there was no climate change at all until the Industrial Revolution.
So we have some mild warming as you point out. But even since the LGM we’ve had temperatures higher than today as evidenced by receding glaciers in BC/Canada revealing 7000 year old tree stumps (3000 year old stumps in Iceland) or the Roman Warm Period when vines were grown up by Hadrian’s Wall or the Medieval Warm Period when Icelandic Norsemen colonised Greenland for several hundred years prior to the Little Ice Age requiring temperatures 5 degrees C higher than today. Or, indeed, the initial temperature rise out of the Little Ice Age. It certainly wasn’t anthropogenic CO2 emissions which caused the warming out of the LGM. Perhaps solar activity, varying distances from the Sun and the Milankovitch cycles are a better explanation?
This is in addition to the science of Happer & Wijngaarden and Shula & Ott who have shown that CO2 is not the major culprit for global warming.
March 13, 2025
Actually,the ArcticInstitute.org reports,11/12/24 :”shipping seasons in Canada’s NW passage are shrinking despite declining ice coverage.Between 2001 & 2021 mobile multi-year ice has created hazardous choke points,reducing route accessibility from 25 to 15 weeks annually in some areas.”
This further accentuates the importance of the more strategically important NE passage(Russia’s Northern Sea Route;the Polar Silk Road as the Chinese call it).A couple of useful youtube reports:
~What’s going on with Shipping,9/12/24:”Russia & China Arctic Shipping Sets New Records with 100 transit voyages(in 2024)”
~Megabuilds,23/12/24:”Russia’s $300bn Arctic Silk Road”
Barents Observer reports ,12/3/25,”Putin’s Dealmaker with Trump calls for joint action in the Arctic.”The ‘dealmaker’ is Kirill Dmitriev,Diector-General of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund who plays a key role in the ongoing Russia-US talks(he was there in Riyadh for the first round of talks which were mostly focussed on economic/commercial matters as I understand it).
Barents also reported last week that Rosatom is going to build a new shipyard at Murmansk specifically for the production of Floating Nuclear Power Plants,five of which will be operating off Russia’s north east coast by the early 2030s and a number of export orders are also expected this year ,negotiations are under way with Brazil,Indonesia,India,etc
March 12, 2025
Does today’s diatribe apply to The Policy Exchange, The Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs, Legatum Institute … and others less well-known.
How many of them have had the honour to regularly welcoming Sir John as a speaker?
March 12, 2025
Do the Policy Exchange, The Centre for Policy Studies, the IEA run a crucial branch of government? Which ones Hefner?
March 12, 2025
hefner,
IEA is not a quango. It does not undertake work on behalf of government, or make decisions instead of parliament.
It is more of a lobby group. So it does not have the powers of a quango.
March 12, 2025
Independent = unaccountable and it is where Marxists have burrowed in to change our society in the teeth of opposition from the vast majority.
March 12, 2025
RP :
Absolutely correct.
March 12, 2025
As I read this the image of a wealthy family came to mind. Spoilt children with all their wants never questioned and always fulfilled. The amount of money available to ministers surpasses by orers of mgnitude what the vast majority of MPs can even dream of having themselves. A hundred grand on the odd boondogle here soon becomes a milliion there and then hundreds of millions splattered on every passing fancy. Except there is an agenda, an idealist socialist agenda, which involves a great deal of judgment about who is deserving of these enormous sums and who is not. Many of those who are judged not worthy are also judged to be wealthy and so the ‘right’ thing to do is to strip them of their supposed wealth: pensioners, farmers (kulaks in Reeves’s Soviet collectivisation of farming), small business owners, SME employers. The large Corporates are relatively unharmed by such socialist spite and have the influence to resist it but they can be co-opted to use their vast wealth and power to follow much of the same agenda, DEI, gender madness, Green energy madness, etc.
So called independent bodies are often easily manipulated by cleverly written terms of reference and by being told what sort of conclusion ‘would be helpful to the Minister’ and what sort would be unwelcome, so if the members of the committee wish to be well rewarded (further such work, favourable publicity etc.) they need to provide what is ‘helpful’.
Having said that, most of civil servants I have worked with have been very good and displayed considerable integrity. I recall also that during the Iraq War enquiry, minister after minister all praised their civil servants.
So the buck stops with ministers, many of whom have no experience of running anything of complexity and challenge. Specifically managing experts is quite challenging One needs considerable knowledge oneself to do so. Few MPs have relevant expertise or experience. Most civil servants have little or no experience of working in industry so they often manage tenders and contracts badly. So they are not often in a position to ably assist a minister.
Why do we vote for them? We are fooled time and again by their promised agenda even though there is often little reason to believe in its feasibility or benefits. FPTP is defended as delivering strong government. That is true even if as at present the resulting government is going in the werong direction and thoroughly destructive. Starmer’s Gang cannot be stopped. They can even stop elections they think their party would lose. Postpone the general election? Why not? There is nothing to stop it.
March 12, 2025
But noting compensates for a full card of inferior candidates. You have to select the best, independed minded capable people. You know, people like Rupert Lowe, who accounts for 47.6% of Reform’s productivity.
March 12, 2025
Why on earth does Trump think he can beat Europe at trade war. When both economies are on par more-a-less so it’s essentially just WW1 trech economic warfare where everyone loses. Plus Trump is taking on China and Canada and more even weakening his economic war efforts against Europe. When he should be focused on helping people to the productivity, products and services of UK companies and taking on Putin economically. Trump has everything back to front.
March 12, 2025
Because Europe imposes huge Tariffs. The USA so far has not. What is your problem?
March 12, 2025
My problem: Trump clueless about economy.
It’s about getting people to work harder (improving productivity and products and services – become more competitive). And getting people to be more patriotic (so they don’t flood their investments out of the country).
Not easy to implement (I agree). But easy to answer.
And then use charm to establish win-win trade deals.
Trump doing opposite more-a-less.
March 13, 2025
Trump can’t force the EU to drop its massive tariff wall, he can only match it. Why do you think the EU, for example, should enjoy unfettered access to the US market and block us access to the EU market?
Why don’t you expect Europeans to work harder. Etc.
A charm offensive from Starmer would be welcome – better than bare-faced lies!
March 13, 2025
Why does the EU think it can operate a Customs Union with tariffs deliberately constructed “to keep out the competition” but the USA can’t reciprocate with levying tariffs to level the playing field?
March 12, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Do you think those MP’s who think it is fine for the BoE to be planning losses of £240bn to be paid by taxpayers have the slightest inclination at all of how or why these losses are being incurred? Do you think they understand this sale of bonds amassed under Quantitative Easing that the Bank does not need to sell? Do you think they have made any effort to understand? Do you think they are the slightest bit bothered? I certainly do not.
Time was when we had people with great experience of business, industry and commerce in Parliament. They could do a day’s work before going to the House in the afternoon and brought their knowledge with them. Today, there is not a single member of the cabinet who has ever run a business.
Independent bodies are letting us down but they owe their existence to, guess what, our MP’s, Ministers and Parliament who did it to rid themselves of responsibility for when things go wrong.
I see that the Prime Minister has told his cabinet that government and ministers must stop ‘outsourcing’ decisions to regulators and take more responsibility. He is to announce plans to ‘overhaul’ the British State on Thursday. It’s another ‘bonfire of the quangos!’
March 12, 2025
You are absolutely right again, Sir John. Quangos and their growth are a disgrace, they are money pits! But will Labour do anything about them? NO. They have so far created 27 new Quangos in less than a year in office.
Both the CCC and the Sentencing Council should be closed down immediately.
Do we have a single MP with the intelligence and independence of thought to challenge the government about the appalling Bank of England losses, all the Quangos and various independent bodies that swallow taxpayers’ money at an ever faster rate.
Does the UK have to go bankrupt before thay wake up? What an apalling low calibre bunch of MPs we have!
At least Robert Jenrick seems to be alert and fighting for voters, where are the others?
March 12, 2025
The sad reality is that all those independent bodies are replicated throughout the local government, NHS, universities and regional authorities ….everyone is building empires rather than doing the job they’re paid to do, and everyone (taxpayer funded) loves attending pointless networking groups (If politicians can go on a fact-finding tour of the caribbean; so can a local mayor, (also lets twin with a city so we can go on a jolly))
March 12, 2025
I remember a campaign from around the late 1970’s onwards for the UK to become more communist and more cosmopolitan.
I’m not sure what the roots were but I suspect it was from foreign influence initially funnelled through our top universities in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The students who were brainwashed in those days later found themselves in influential positions in the 1970’s and the extremist propaganda has perpetuated ever since.
U.S.A. saw the danger signs in the 50’s/60’s and fought against this infiltration (since then the BBC has mocked their efforts on several occasions, especially those of Sen McCarthy). The U.S.A. delayed the infiltration but by the 2000’s the extremists were taking control.
Surely, our best protection is democracy? No! The extremists simply side-stepped democracy by encouraging MPs to set up unelected independent bodies (“quangos”) so their extreme and weird ideas could be brought to life, regardless of who we voted for.
Only when we get a proper government will this be sorted out. They have finally taken a stand in the U.S.A.. It’s our turn next.
March 12, 2025
If you give anybody a vote then you give them the weapon to destroy ‘our defence’. No immigrant of non-British ethnicity should get a vote for five generations.
March 12, 2025
The civil service is a job creation scheme for Arts graduates who, having no expertise in anything useful, believe they should be in charge of people who have qualified in a useful subject involving science. Hence the department of the Environment exists to impede the work of farmers and fishermen in order to save the planet.
Let’s close the Environment department and let farmers have access to cheap fertiliser and to produce the food the public wants thereby saving imports instead of paying them to ‘rewild’ their land for the first time since the Neolithic age; let our fishermen have red diesel which they need as much as farmers and let them harvest all the the fish in our Exclusive Economic Zone instead of sucking up to the Brussels regime by allocating them our fishing grounds; thus when we buy cod, it is likely to have been caught in the Bering sea by Russian trawlers, sold to Norway, where it is rebadged as Norwegian at an extensive markup and becomes available in your local chippie. Our fishermen also used to fish in the Bering sea but Putin stopped them because of the British government’s meddling in Ukraine: just another example of the economic damage from following the US State department’s attempt to weaken Russia which has helped US exports and harmed all of Europe including us.
March 13, 2025
A lot of the Russian Barents Sea catch goes first to the Netherlands-Barents Observer,28/11/24:”Fishing for Putin”:
“The Netherlands is the most important trading post for Russian fish”.Some does get transferred to Norwegian ships as you say.
(I think you mean Barents,rather than Bering(which is at the other,far eastern end of Russia)Sea.
March 12, 2025
You have been asking this question about BoE losses for some considerable time . Have you ever received any explanation ? Why don’t you ask an MP to ask this question in the Commons ?
Robert Thomas.
Reply I did raise it in Commons. I have commented on their non defence of the sales on this site.
March 12, 2025
“Will she take back control of sentencing policy? Probably not.”
This new multi-tier sentencing policy is designed to 1) Sow division 2) Cook the crime & prison statistics and 3) Increase crime. It has all the hallmarks of Marxist Queer Theory.
March 12, 2025
Scenario of Government; with the force of the Law behind you can take from hardworking people their money and in later life their savings and just call it Tax.
Then you have chum’s that can’t find real jobs so you get to shower them with this money taken from the productive part of the community. These chum’s as I am calling them, only get this money if you hand it to them, in theory you own them, and as ‘the only legitimate’ manager of these people you call the shots, they (the chum’s) will do what you say in fear of these handouts being withdrawn. These entities in real life are never “Independent bodies”, they are Government managed bodies how else would they get supplied taxpayer money.
There is another element in the scenario Parliament and its MP’s as ‘the board’ of UK.plc they scrutinize and hold those dishing out the money to account. That doesn’t sound to hard, all those with productive jobs understand it, it’s what happens in real life. What appears to have happened is that Parliament has become stuffed with just ‘free-loaders’ bowing, getting down on their knee, to their gang leader ignoring their purpose and their electorate – they are the top level flaw.
March 12, 2025
Mr. Redwood, do you have a link to the OBR forecast of BoE losses of £240 billion. I would love to be able to quote this to the many doubting Thomases I know. Anyone I have mentioned these losses to thinks I am either making it up or don’t know what I am talking about.
Reply It is in the last budget OBR forecast. I do not invent such huge figures.
March 13, 2025
About £10,000 perhaps household!
March 13, 2025
The greatest mystery to me, and the greatest scandal, is that JR was virtually on his own in the HoC (and is almost alone among the country’s economists) in asking searching questions and making precise criticisms of the Bank of England’s unnecessary, ruinous selling of bonds at a stonking loss that just piles on our debt and gives any government an excuse to raise taxes. You would imagine there would be a revolt in the House of MPs alerted to the problem, demanding that Bailey either reverse his ludicrously wasteful policy or be sacked. But no, just tumbleweed. Do the MPs have straw in their brains when it comes to finances? Or do they simply not care?
March 13, 2025
Oh he is not, but the rest are ‘silenced’ – you know, like the scientists who disagreed with MRNA gene-altering therapy in response to the us created ‘cold’.
March 13, 2025
Meanwhile that other dire BoE Governor (appointed by the dire Osborne) Mark Carney has been elected Liberal leader in landslide win in Canada. They must me mad!
March 13, 2025
Not their money so what do they care! They still get their huge salaries, bonuses and pensions after all.