Ā Ā Ā Ā With Brexit behind us and Covid calmed by a comprehensive vaccination programme Ā which most people welcomed, the U.K. economy is set to grow quickly from here. The U.K. is forecast by international bodies to grow faster this year than the EU. Sterling has risen against the dollar, the Euro and the yen following our exit from the EU.
Ā Ā Ā Ā The U.K. authorities have provided a much smaller monetary and fiscal stimulus than the USA relative to the size of the economy. Money growth has been running at half the US level. The Treasury in the U.K. is planning big cuts in the deficit in future years whilst the US President is planning two more $2trillion packages of extra Ā spending. The Congress may water that down, as some are becoming alarmed by the scale and duration of the planned debt build up and by the inflationary forces unleashed by Ā the twin stimuli.
In the U.K. the Bank of England needs to avoid premature tightening before recovery is well set. The Treasury needs to speed up ending the special expenditures on companies to cushion the blows of anti pandemic policy, whilst getting us back to work promptly from June 21. Furlough needs to end. Many of the jobs will be there again. Where jobs are lost there will be plenty of new job opportunities as the whole economy opens up and employers seek people to get things done and the orders dispatched.
There are already too many shortages needing more recruitment and more investment. We are short of cement and semiconductors, of HGV drivers and of chefs, of electricity capacity and of home grown fruit and vegetables. I have been asking Ministers to work with business to tackle these shortages urgently, to cut inflationary pressures and create more better paid jobs.
There are plenty of opportunities for business creation and expansion as the U.K. embarks on its most rapid and substantial recovery ever recorded. Government needs to make sure the public sector responds by cutting tax rates, granting necessary permissions, negotiating good trade deals and spending its budgets wisely using U.K. suppliers wherever possible.
June 9, 2021
Recovery is underway?
Yet the thorny issue of the Northern Ireland protocol is unresolved, despite strong words and much posturing from both sides.
I note Sir John Redwood recommends, in the the press, that we ignore the EU over this matter.
Unfortunately that seems unlikely to happen.
Despite the clamour for a move to WTO arrangements from much of the general public, we know from experience that Boris Johnson is completely unwilling to do so. Consequently there will continue to be trouble ahead.
June 9, 2021
If by “exit from the EU” John means the final signing of the agreement negotiated by Frost et al, then yes, Sterling has risen since then for the simple reason that the UK did not leave under his vehemently-advocated No Deal circumstances, which the markets had rightly priced in up until then.
A euro will cost wholesalers around 86p just now. They could buy one for seventy-odd before the referendum.
Reply What nonsense.
June 9, 2021
Why’s that then, John?
June 9, 2021
Ā£/ā¬ annual average 2015: 1.3777, first half 2016: 1.29, second half 2016: 1.15, annual average 2020: 1.12, first five months 2021: 1.16
The long forecasts up to 2024 (for what theyāre worth) do not go over 1.246 in March 2025 (longforecast.com)
June 9, 2021
FX there are always two sides to the story….
Imports are more expensive vs. Exports cheaper in destination country
In July 2015 the Ā£ to Euro was at 1.44 making UK exports expensive, currently at 1.16 is possibly a good balance.
June 9, 2021
Martin, You seem baffled by the fact that floating currencies – well – float. That means the Ā£ will go up and down in comparison to the $ and other less important currencies. When I was selling into the EU before 2016 I used 84p as a quick rule of thumb for the Euro, so not much different to 86p. And we still haven’t left the EU – witness the EU’s continued control over Northern Ireland and our fish.
June 9, 2021
A Euro cost 90 pence on Christmas Eve prior to the deal, it has strengthened to only need 86 pence to buy a Euro today. Remember at the 2015 election, prior to the referendum, you could buy a Euro with just 71 pence.
Meanwhile, UK assets are looking cheap and foreigners are using their Pounds Stirling, both stashed and borrowed; to buy up the UK; and push-up the Stirling FX rate at the same time. Stirling denominated assets currently have one of the lowest Price/Earnings ratios around the developed world at 13.1. (The Euro area 17.0, Emerging Markets 13.8, US 21.4, Japan 16.1, with All Country World at 18.4.)
Yesterday, the comment “I think tax competition has a lot to recommend it” is to misunderstand the job that taxation is meant to do in a fiat currency economy. But if you want to understand how global conglomerates supranationally abuse each sovereign country’s tax economy, have a read of how they do it courtesy of the IMF. Google = The Rise of Phantom Investments Empty corporate shells in tax havens undermine tax collection in advanced, emerging market, and developing economies.
June 10, 2021
It’s Sterling, Acorn, not stirling (you used the wrong spelling 3 times so it’s not just a typo). It’s too early to make comments about the long term effects of the partial Brexit. For obvious reasons. We need to fully Leave then see after a couple of decades. And it is you who misunderstands what taxation is for, by your unthinking pursuit of the MMT ideology. Here’s a hint: there’s hysteresis present whilst money printing.
June 9, 2021
As a Remainer (I supported Brexit for ideological reasons but didn’t support it for practical reasons – didn’t think we were ready, had a plan, or a leader), can I just say how relatively angry I feel at being duped by Remainer political leaders and their exaggerations. Not letting Brexit leaders off the hook either, but they won the referendum – and for people to keep questioning it is madness. We should just UNITE, get on and implement Brexit, and take things from there.
June 10, 2021
It IS implemented.
Rubbish, isn’t it?
June 10, 2021
It’s not that ‘rubbish’ – you’re just exaggerating. I hope Brexit works but the politicians can’t be complacent – they have to work as hard as possible (and not just blame the EU – that’s just juvenile – you don’t win victories, ultimately, by blaming others).
June 9, 2021
This is what’s called selective interpretation. MiC wants us to believe the markets feared “no deal” and then were relieved.
“No deal” was going to affect some trade with the EU, that’s all. It was going to affect some proportion of a small proportion of the total GDP.
What’s really going on here is that MiC and Co *enormously* over-hyped the economic affects of Brexit, no deal or otherwise. None o f which happened.
We re not recovering from Brexit, but from an expertly organized and totally dishonest set of predictions around Brexit. Sterling is rising because Remainers have been found out as total fools.
June 10, 2021
Jon L, Just so.
June 9, 2021
Sausage wars! Could it get any more reduculous. From the EU’s point of view, it’s worth the fight because they might just extend/confirm the writ of the EU in the UK, and it highlights the rubbish deal Boris told us was so great thereby confirming Bunter’s incompetence. From the UK’s position, it brings into stark clarity the intransigence and petty-mindedness of the EU bureaucracy. The UK must stand firm, the EU WILL backdown because they don’t know what ‘National Pride’ means.
June 9, 2021
The EU is not a country
June 9, 2021
Peter
“Sausage wars”
One could say we are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire given the way the so called negotiations are going. This unfortunately is what happens when you agree to do the Eu bidding on separating and splitting up the UK into different zones with different control measures.
Madness to agree to such a scheme in the first place, many of us said so at the time, unfortunately we look like being proved correct.
Re instate the border back on the land between north and southern Ireland, allow free trade between the two, and let the EU put in their own controls on their side of the border for a few months if that is what they want to protect, and see how it works out.
June 9, 2021
There is no clamour for WTO – aside from the ranting of a small extremist minority.
And the Northern Ireland Protocol is resolved. You Brexitists negotiated it. You agreed it. You voted for it. You approved it. And now you own it.
Sausage anyone?
June 9, 2021
Fool
“You Brexitists negotiated it. You agreed it. You voted for it. You approved it.”
No we did not, and you know it. Kindly refrain from lying.
June 10, 2021
Who did then, Steve?
Lord Adonis?
June 9, 2021
WTO works for over 90% of world trade.
Yet you call it the ranting of a small extremist minority.
Ever considered you might be part of that extremist minority yourself andy?
June 9, 2021
That’s another lie, Andy. As I pointed out yesterday, the NIP actually commits both sides to find practical methods of ensuring NI imports fro GB, including chilled meat, but including many other things. The NIP does not impose the EU solution. It explicitly does not do that.
The fundamental dishonesty here, which was just reiterated by Sefcovic, is actually very simple and obvious. The EU signs an agreement to find a good faith solution, then after a short delay they produce *their* detailed solution and immediately start insisting that the UK has not done what it signed up to do. In effect they claim that if we agree to find a solution, we then become bound by their preferred solution.
The NIP as written leaves the details of imports to NI open pending further negotiations, yet the EU insists that their list of requirements, which they have produced *since* signing, is “the agreement’.
If you can remember this far back, they pulled the same trick with the “level playing field”. They signed the UK up to the principle of finding a level playing field and then produced their own detailed definition of it and claimed that it was what we had signed up to.
June 10, 2021
Nicely put.
June 10, 2021
Andy, None of your predictions about the effects of Leave have come true. So why should we listen to you? Especially as the ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’ would have applied to the entire UK consequent on the machinations of Theresa May, the Remain Parliaments 2016 – 2019, and the EU. Remain caused the NIP. Own it.
June 9, 2021
Meanwhile I note the removal of the portrait of the queen from a common room in Magdalen College, Oxford as part of ācancel cultureā.
I await reports from this siteās education correspondent to discover whether or not it was the PPE students wot done it.
June 9, 2021
How can the Northern Ireland situation be “unresolved” when Boris Johnson was telling everyone in 2019 that he had an “oven-ready deal” which would “get Brexit done”, a platform which John Redwood stood for election on.
I struggle to see how adding tariffs and quotas (which is what WTO would mean) to trading arrangements which have already been made more difficult thanks to Brexit (the only trade deal in history which has been about putting up barriers to trade rather than removing them) will improve anything.
The UK needs to honour agreements freely negotiated and signed up to.
Reply I did not support or vote for the deal
June 9, 2021
Yes Peter, it does seem Boris was duped. However, the UK public donāt have to honour any rubbish agreement, if the Eu continue with this sausage war then that is the last pork product I buy unless it is British meat and a Sausage made from local meat only. I wonāt be the only one people are getting sick of this now. We need to get some pigs over to Northern Ireland quickly and they need to get rear their own pigs until this pathetic action stops.
June 10, 2021
Go to your local butcher and buy his stuff, which will be from UK abbatoirs, not the prepacked rubbish the supermarkets put out. There is an old saying that you don’t want to see how sausages are made. Well, I see my butcher do it and it is perfectly wholesome and though he wears a hat he does not wear a hair net and welly boots as his equipment and floor are clean.
June 10, 2021
It is up to you what you choose to buy and not to. We all have that choice.
If Johnson and Frost were duped, what does that say about the competence at the top of the current UK government? However, what if they were not duped? What if they knew exactly what they were agreeing to?
June 10, 2021
Peter, I agree with you it is quite odd. They were either idiots which seems unlikely or supplicants who knew what they were up to and have deceived people that put them in a position of trust.
June 9, 2021
We are honouring the agreement. The agreement was to negotiate detailed measures to ensure imports from GB to NI,not to allow the EU to arbitrarily exclude those imports.
June 10, 2021
The UK is not honouring the agreement if the UK fails to implement the checks that the UK committed to implement by the dates the UK committed to implement them when the UK willingly signed the agreement.
June 10, 2021
Peter, why on earth do you think that British politicians and civil servants agreed to implement these checks from Jan 1st 2020 but allow the EU to import freely the same products with no checks or costs on paperwork production? They just donāt have to do the same and they should. Then Boris extended by a further six months which puts our exporters at a disadvantage. Now the question to you Mr Redwood is why are you and the other backbenchers supporting this Extension? The only way to get the Eu to relax the rules is to apply the same rules to their exports into the UK a taste if you like of their own medicine.
June 9, 2021
Word on the street is that Boris us going to tear up the NI protocol as soon as Air Force One leaves the tarmac – it would be a big mistake
June 9, 2021
I doubt he has the guts.
June 9, 2021
Blake
You jest, surely ? Everyone knows Johson has’nt got he guts.
June 10, 2021
Blake, what ‘street’ is it that you speak of?
You seem to think yourself well informed yet you ask “Question ā according to the WA and the NI Protocol ā is NI part of the EU single market or not? I need to know as I am getting terribly confused”
June 9, 2021
Good morning.
Whilst I can confirm that the UK economy is indeed growing, for those that were not prepared against such draconian measures imposed there is no good news. Too many small business have been closed down and many offices remain empty. Perhaps the government could put all those illegal migrants into them instead. Just make sure that they have internet, tv, a gym and other amenities as it will undoubtedly will result in government being taken to court.
June 9, 2021
Of course the UK should grow more rapidly than the European Union.
Its disastrous handling of the covid19 epidemic has meant that the UK has suffered a deeper dip in its economy than did the average of countries on the Mainland, from which to recover.
June 10, 2021
Always ready with an excuse for the EU empire, aren’t you, Martin?
June 9, 2021
The illegal immigrants court case was about moving out of army barracks and into four*star hotels and not office spaceā¦.their friends are in these four*hotels and they just want the same ?
June 9, 2021
Who would take the UK to court Mark? Why don’t they take France to court? France is always in the Human Rights Watch for violently dismantling shelter camps, UN urges France to act on ‘dire’ living conditions of refugees 12 Apr 2019.
Where are we allowed to house asylum seekers, are they allowed to be put up in hostels? Sharing rooms? How much would it cost to do up these Barracks? Why not pay the migrants to do that work and then charge them for their lodgings as British people are charged to live here?
June 10, 2021
Agreed.
June 9, 2021
It is great news that recovery is underway, tempered with the knowledge that it will make the EU even more hostile. I wish the EU would put their time and effort into helping EU countries, instead of trying to handicap the UK, as they did with the vaccine acquisition and rollout.
There is still much to do in the UK, one priority must be to stop the flow of illegal immigrants with all the costs and demands it places upon us. I get very annoyed when people describe them as refugees. Refugees are escaping danger, not deliberately undertaking an unnecessary and dangerous dinghy trip.
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
The government has ni intention of stopping the boat people. Nor have they any plans to sort out the NIP.
Just watch them capitulate to the EU by following their res.
June 9, 2021
Rules
June 9, 2021
Shirley M
One priority? In a lot of peoples mind it is the only priority. What we are not doing with all these dingy travellers Is sending out the complete wrong messages to home and abroad.
A neighbours son as a ” joke ” said to his father, if it’s good enough for them to be so well treated it good enough for me.
For all those queuing Up to travel the message going back is come on down it’s a doddle.
When is someone with an ounce of guts going to knock all this nonsense on the head once and for all. Enough is enough.
.
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
Agreed
June 9, 2021
Dead right. I don’t suppose we are the only ones that notice that the EU is at its most hostile when the week’s news indicate that post-Brexit UK is doing well.
June 10, 2021
I get very annoyed when people describe Leave voters as “patriots”, Shirley.
June 10, 2021
I would agree with you MiC
Although misguided and wrong even remain voters can be patriots.
June 9, 2021
Indeed imagine how much better the recovery would be if the government did some sensible things for a change. Cull the net zero lunacy, reverse the many tax increases, go for easy hire and fire, cut the size of government in half (most do nothing of value and many positive harm), cull duff university degrees 75% or so by killing most loans and have a bonfire of red tape for example.
No sign at all of this fake āConservativeā government cutting taxes or spending money wisely. The complete opposite is clearly their agenda. This disaster further crowned with damaging lockdowns and their insane expensive unreliable energy agenda.
Now they want to ban halogen light bulbs, but not all fitting will take LED versions so yet another back door tax bill for people. LED ones do at least work well generally, unlike the nasty compact fluorescent ones they moronically forced onto the nation a few years back.
I thought the gov. loons wanted electrical heating of homes? So what do these scientific illiterates in parliament think happens to all the energy that halogen bulbs give out not as light? It just heats the house up saving natural gas heating in most cases.
June 9, 2021
+1 agree.
How can any non fake cons put up with all this?
June 9, 2021
Isnāt the halogen thing exactly what they are doing to everything?
And leaving us with no choice in the matter?
You WILL swap gas for whatever crazy cr*p idea we come up with….cos weāre capping off the gas ( or whatever is done to deprive a nation of its right to keep warm!)
June 9, 2021
Indeed it is idiotic communist rule from the top down and worse still the people at the top are totally deluded and know nothing about conditions at the coal face. They got it very wrong on diesel vehicles, compact fluorescents, HIP packs and countless other things, they are now getting it wrong on heat pumps, wind, PV, hydrogen, EVs, climate alarmism, the NHS structure, schools, universities …
Leave it to customers who know their personal circumstances to decide what suits them best – when the tech. works and is economic they will buy it without being forces to. Let them have choices in healthcare, schools and universities too.
June 9, 2021
Freedom of choice is dead with this government – ban coal, ban wood burning, ban fuel, ban gas, ban nuclear….but you have the freedom to go electric but only electric
June 9, 2021
Electricity that they will not even have available without more nuclear or gas or coal and that the current grid cannot carry and distribute anyway. They even banned the sale of damp wood. Even if you only wanted to buy it so as to dry it ready for the winter.
June 9, 2021
This government believes in Magic Electricity
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
+1 What happened to choice?
I want my incandescent bulbs back. LED lights are good if you need to do close work, but the light is horribly clinical, bit like operating theatres.
June 10, 2021
I find LED Filament type lights are good when you want a bit more “cosy” atmosphere.
June 10, 2021
Halogen light is the best most natural light I find but LEDs are not to bad now way better than compact fluorescents. The āwastedā heat only heats the building anyway this saving gas if you use gas central heating.
June 9, 2021
Lifelogic
Well said the areas you highlight can all be encapsulated under the heading Obscene Waste.
But situation normal nobody is listening at the top .
June 9, 2021
“cull university degrees” – if you read the Guardian they are concerned this is happening. “Ucas data suggests number of undergraduate courses on offer could be slashed by two-thirds in space of a year” 25 May 2021. “It is the latest in a cull of courses and department closures ā often affecting humanities and social sciences ā at institutions across England as universities try to pre-empt a long-feared crackdown on what the government views as ālow-valueā courses which do not lead to increased earnings.”
June 9, 2021
@Lifelogic,
You are so right about university degrees.
Only the brightest should go to university (which excludes me as I didn’t go to a top tier university, plus I studied an arts subject! How I wish I had studied coding / digital marketing / business – and for just a year in some special college – would have been far more useful and interesting than my university course (waste of time although I enjoyed university life hugely. But now students have big costs and so going into the workplace with big debt – and that’s before starting the topic of how they can afford to buy a house).
And on top of not going to university, I wish I’d been given the option to do national service (say 3 to 6 months). Not just for the discipline of – but also the fun and camaraderie of being with other young men. And the sense of patriotism too, serving one’s country.
June 10, 2021
Indeed let people pay for their own hobby subjects or study them part time. Gov. soft Loans only for Stem, Medicine, vocational skills and similar …
June 10, 2021
Well said
I do think though be great for government to sponsor more coding education at school and beyond. Not that expensive but it could produce the great entrepreneurs in High Tech of the future (so many well-know High Tech entrepreneurs starting off by the knowledge and love of coding.
June 9, 2021
Agreed
June 9, 2021
Douglas Murray today in the Telegraph today:- Cambridge is a case study in how to save free speech.
Let us hope it can be saved and that Toope is no longer paid nearly Ā£ half a million PA to attempt to Etc ed
June 9, 2021
Nothing succeeds like success.
Whilst lamenting that the U.K. economy suffered from Covid worse than most let us rejoice that a not-fit-for-purpose Defra and an invisible BEIS will not thwart the strong recovery.
June 9, 2021
I don’t know anyone who welcomed the vaccination program. To assert otherwise is typical of the contemporary political mindset. Most see it as a tool of social control and a precursor to the construction of a system of monitoring and recording of all human activity
I couldn’t give a monkey’s about economic growth. My concern is the destruction of our freedoms, our soul and our very being by your government working with groups and the Labour opposition to expose us to a form of politics that is ripping this country apart
Even the Queen can’t escape from this FASCISM unleashed by slime and carefully unopposed by your government and your party for fear of becoming a target of these crazed maniacs
This PM can destroy our freedoms and force us into stasis for 14 months but yet he can’t pass laws to destroy woke fascism.
June 9, 2021
“There are already too many shortages needing more recruitment”
With respect, if this is a reference to a shortage of applications for jobs vacancies and you are relying on the ‘gov-find-a-job website for the data, don’t bother, it is seriously flawed. Plus a substantial percentage of the jobs are public sector, just how and in what way is that going to get economy kickstarted?
In between contracts, I have used this database, it is full of duplications (the same job is advertised daily, or multiple agencies advertise the same job, so it looks multiple new vacancies, but is is in fact one), incorrect locations and jobs that don’t exist. One example I saw was in Dalston, just south of Carlisle. When I searched for its location, I couldn’t find it, but did manage to find the Companies phone number, it appeared to be a head office number. The vacancy was in Dalston, East London and a tad outside the required hour and a half commute!
This government has destroyed nearly million jobs and has these poor job seekers chasing jobs that don’t exist in order to meet an impossible target, so they can claim their “Ā£59.20 if you’re 18 to 24. Ā£74.70 if you’re 25 or over” allowance.
The website referred to above is like the governments MSM virus adverts – propaganda.
June 9, 2021
Oh good!
And I am successfully sticking back together my Ming vase that I purposely smashed on the kitchen floor. Iām using flour and water paste.
June 9, 2021
Everhopeful. I’m not sure what allegorical means but your post brought it to mind.
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
‘We are short of … electricity capacity.’ So why did I see the cooling towers of a coal-fired power station destroyed last week?
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
Because the Rugeley Power Station had been stopped on 8 June 2016. Could it have been because of the impending Brexit referendum? One should ask.
June 9, 2021
Upon instruction from Carrie
June 9, 2021
Dungeness nuclear power station is closing earlier than expected. Another decrease in base load and non carbon to be replaced by unreliables.
June 9, 2021
“With Brexit behind us”
Well, for one abandoned part of the UK it is really only BRINO, isn’t it.
Here is the latest lunacy from the EU. Bear in mind that so far all products moving from GB to NI still conform to EU rules, as the UK has not yet started the process of regulatory divergence, so there would be zero risk to the EU single market even if some GB goods sent to NI did enter NI unchecked and then leaked across the land border into RI. There would certainly be nothing that possibly qualified as an “emergency”.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-diplomats-emergency-brexit-plan-ireland-uk-single-market-access/
“EU diplomats float emergency Brexit plan to restrict Irelandās single market access”
“The contingency plan would mean carrying out checks on Irish goods flowing to other EU countries.”
June 9, 2021
Further evidence, if it was needed, that the EU has no respect for The Republic of Ireland. Having used them as a weapon to create The Northern Ireland Protocol, they now wish to isolate them from the EU.
I advise them to reconsider their membership, after all they only joined because we did and then they could be part of The UK’s single market again. It would be just like old times.
June 9, 2021
What Boris also hasn’t told us, and isn’t highlighted in the media is that we’ve paid the EU everything they’ve asked for
June 9, 2021
True, Glen. What a weak and vulnerable position Brexit has put the UK in. You must be regretting it
June 9, 2021
I regret this Brino and voting for this government
June 9, 2021
glen cullen
Yes, and what doesn’t seem to sink in with the conservatives is that not only has every patriot in this country written Johnson off, but also we’re equally as disgusted with the entire party.
June 9, 2021
Question – according to the WA and the NI Protocol – is NI part of the EU single market or not? I need to know as I am getting terribly confused
June 9, 2021
Yes.
June 9, 2021
Let’s not forget that the ROI joined the EU on the same day as the UK, and they joined because the UK was joining, not because they like straight bannanas.
June 10, 2021
Or to put it another way – In 1973 Ireland joined the European Economic Community (the EU didn’t exist then)…
June 9, 2021
Is recovery from suicide possible?
Especially when the nay sayers who have our Dear Leader in their thrall keep threatening to scupper resuscitation.
June 9, 2021
Or maybe soothsayers would be a better word than nay sayers. Dante mentions soothsayers as being greater sinners than most because they rob people of choice.
June 9, 2021
Who are the soothsayers ? the lobby groups, carrie, cabinet members or the men in grey suits ?…..or the red shirts ?
June 9, 2021
@EH; Our economy is certainly in better shape than it was in 1945 yet the UK survived and grew back better than ever, and if we were being told the truth about the need for the drastic economic policies of the early 1980s, that the UK being all but bankrupt (remember the need for that massive IMF loan in the mid ’70s), the current economy is still in far better shape than 40 years ago. Yes some ‘service’ sector jobs and businesses (hospitality for example) will not recover but the sectors were already running unsustainably hot anyway in the same way as some industrial sectors were back in 1980. CV19 has pruned the economic tree, not felled it, and as we all know, trees grow back better after a pruning…
If you think factories would have continued to operate had CV19 simply been allowed to let-rip you are living in some other universe. With lean staffing, jobs that often require specific on the job training, if not highly qualified people, many businesses would not have been able to keep production, even offices open, as the ad-hock absentee rates increased due to infections or people simply chose to walk off the job and self shield.
One of the biggest problems for the Chinese, and worlds, economies comes after each CNY, when high absentee rates often exist as a percentage of workers choose not to return to their old factory jobs, each year certain sectors suffer massive falls in output and/or quality as new staff are recruited & trained, sometimes entire product lines cease for a period of time, factories have even been known to close completely – unmitigated CV19 would have been that scenario on steroids here in the UK and elsewhere..
June 9, 2021
I have similar opptimism. Our customers need to recover too, but thanks to the efforts of Ms. TRUSS the new market place is falling into place. The EU is I feel too sclerotic to respond positively, bitter resentment being their driving force, which in turn will hasten its gradual demise as individual countries get the message.
I hope Rishi realises that the current tax book is not fit for purpose. Too many, including the trolls of this diary, believe that change reduces our ability to pay for the social aspects of our society. They live on the vision of dying children. I think that simplification reduces the administrative burden on the wealth creators and population to the extent that money turns over faster producing a bigger pot for social needs. It could vastly reduce the burden on the economy of a vast array of accountants and lawyers who create wealth only for themselves. Ridding ourselves of the theft taxes of CGT and IHT are moral imperatives, reducing CT to 15 % is a commercial positive move indicating to business worldwide that we are serious.
The Quakers demonstrated a great concern for society, but would have been a bunch of pot half empty agitators of no ultimate consequence without the wealth they created. At the time wealth creation was permitted without the need for offshore trusts or overseas incorporation. Wealth was permitted to remain where it was created, employing ever increasing numbers. History demonstrated its fault in failing to move on technically but that is behind us. A Conservative government must rediscover its mojo and in so doing realise that wealth must be created before if is spent and that individuals comprising free enterprise are better at doing it than government. If free enterprise had seen a virtue and profit in building HS2 it would have been completed long ago.
June 9, 2021
Just when you think you’re having a nice day someone has to mention HS2
June 9, 2021
Well its still there Glen, gobbling up all your tax payments. Head in sand solves nothing except not knowing who is kicking you in the backside.
June 9, 2021
You set out a desirable wishlist. Yet the chances of the Johnson government responding to it positively must be low. It’s track record is poor (vaccine roll out excepted), it’s attitudes to private enterprise seem negative but it is ever ready to swamp the state sector with billions from its magic money tree. Bluff and bluster rules.
June 9, 2021
The first step to recovery must be the removal of all Covid restrictions on June 21st. Are you confident this will happen Sir John? I’m not.
June 9, 2021
Surely there isn’t anyone in the country who thinks this will happen. Looks at how SAGE organise and brief the media to bounce Boris into compliance – it is a well-worn tactic that always works.
June 9, 2021
Of course it wonāt happen. Restrictions will be eased further but they canāt go completely.
The reality is that we need to wait for the vaccination programme to be complete before we can get back to normalise. Most young people have still had no jabs. Most people below 50 have had just one jab. You oldies may all be pretty safe now but you can still kill all of us.
Most people in hospital and in intensive care are my sort of age. They may not die from Covid in the same numbers pensioners do – but they get seriously ill and Long COVID is a major problem in this age group.
Your generation now needs to do what it has spectacularly failed to do throughout its existence – put other people first.
June 10, 2021
Andy, You should be more sceptical of the vaccines. There are serious side-effects, particularly for the under 40s (your “young”); not so much for your “oldies” (50+). And I did what I could for you middle aged people by pointing out that the untargeted national lockdowns did not work (see ONS death graphs, then add in the 4 week time from infection to death). But it was you who wanted harsher, longer lockdowns, not me.
June 10, 2021
Perhaps if many young weren’t mixing and ignoring Covid rules they wouldn’t be contracting it so easily.
June 9, 2021
The UK economy has generally outperformed its neighbours since joining the EU and prior to joining it under performed . Coincidence no doubt. I am unable to think of any single tangible gain from Brexit in terms of opportunity .
In my business ( Insurance) the loss of the single market in services ( which we were repeatedly told did not exist by the Brexidiots ! ) has been endlessly costly and disruptive. Lloyds , for example has been obliged to set up a new insurance company in Brussels requiring 19 branches throughout Europe so it is licensed to write risks across all EEA countries. Its regulated by the National Bank of Belgium with which it has already had considerable problems. Licensing EEA security into the Uk has also been a problem sucking up time and money . These costs are all passed on to UK business .
Of course these problems get solved , in the short term at least ,but oh my god the money .We are running the Red Queens race
“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Thanks for that .
reply Our growth was faster before we joined and was slower in the EU single market. Will be a lot faster this year.
June 9, 2021
You might more plausibly have argued that the reforms and economic agenda set by the Thatcher and Major Governments after joining were responsible for the improved UK performance after joining ( relative to our neighbours).All of Europe grew quickly after the war , the UK least quickly.
June 10, 2021
Newmania, Thatcher was in power whilst we were in the EU, so JR’s observation that “our growth was faster *before* we joined” takes account of any improved performance due to Thatcher’s reforms.
June 9, 2021
@Newmania
But the benefits to your business came at the cost of having to be part of an organisation that thinks it is a supra government. Look at its rules on immigration to the EU and movement of people within the EU. Look at its response to the virus. The EU believes it is simply in charge and that all member countries must do as it says. All new members must adopt the EUās currency, giving the EU massive control over the financial performance of economies. The Euro has been a disaster for many countries yet politicians in those countries will not allow their people a say in whether to stay or leave. Even Macron said a while ago that he believed the French people would our to leave, given the chance. A chance he, as an autocrat, will never give them.
The way the Greeks were treated was disgusting.
It is unfortunate that your business is now a bit more complicated than it was. Blame the EU. If the EU was just a ācommon marketā, (which is what we were told it was before we joined), it would be great. But it has evolved into an unaccountable, undemocratic, autocratic supra-government that cannot be got rid of by the voters in any particular country. Apart from us. I am proud that we broke the mould and other count will follow in due course.
If it makes life a bit tougher for the small number of businesses that want to trade in multiple countries, that is a price worth paying. Why be greedy? Why not offer insurance to people in this country- with the same language, currency and laws.
June 9, 2021
Funny that, according to socialeurope.eu the EU6 growth over the period 1950-1973 was 4.6%, the UK over the same period was 2.4%. But it is true that once the UK had joined the EEC the growth rate went down (1.6% over 1979-2015). Was it because of the UK? obviously not: a couple of international events have played a role (Yom Kippur, end of Bretton Woods system, ā¦)
So most of the time Sir John does not provide figures, and when he does he usually puts them in a heavily biased context. Is that the way you were taught history in Oxford, I wonder?
June 9, 2021
You love percentages hefty.
Let’s compare UK growth versus European nations in terms of cash increases
June 9, 2021
Newmania, so are you saying Lloyds are passing all the costs of its EU business arm to UK businesses? How, Through increased premiums? Or through loss of corporation tax? If the latter how much less corporation tax are you predicting? If the former what % increase are you saying they’re putting on British Businesses?
June 9, 2021
What transformed the UK economy and prospects were the Thatcher govt reforms. Check the stats again, the good times were post-1979.
That stands to reason – after all there are lots of prosperous countries amongst the 165 or so non-members of the EU, whereas some of its members exhibit unending sclerosis. How does that fit into your narrative?
June 9, 2021
Newmania your first sentence has it the wrong way round. Joining the Common Market slowed growth.
June 9, 2021
With Brexit behind us…
I am worried that it is not really behind us yet with Boris’ ridiculous WA and the way that the EU is trying to use it against us. That and any other, as yet hidden, ties to the EU must be scrapped. Unless they are then the Remainers will use them as ammunition in their plot to take us back in.
June 9, 2021
That was intended as a reply to the article itself…
June 9, 2021
I always chuckle when people attribute UK growth to EU membership. They are saying that the EU 27 could make the UK grow faster than them, but could not make their own economies grow faster than the UK.
June 9, 2021
The big question is; are ministers doing everything they can to ensure we have adequate supplies of raw materials and food? With everything so wrapped up in CV restrictions I fear not a lot is being done, other than a trust by all concerned that the UK will eventually get out of the financial hole and get really productive, but we have to make that happen!
At this time, the potential for the UK is enormous, but will not be achieved if we restrict ourselves through irrational green policies and other failings:
Sorry but this is an overstatement and hype. BREXIT is still going on with NI and fishing unsettled, to say the least, and the EU gets nastier by the day. Few people surely believe that the vaccines were responsible for calming covid, rather than the warm weather.
Above all else, we need to get more rational, bring back common sense, and stop the excessive conditioning we get day in and day out.
June 9, 2021
So called uk recovery has a high price
Itās reported that almost 5 million children are living in poverty.
The Gov needs to level up wealth across the country by reinstating top level of tax to 60% and lowering tax at bottom end
Allow safe passage for controlled migration that will prevent a childās body being washed up.
Shortages caused by brexit in components
There are cost increases starting to feed into the economy and inflation will rise putting pressure on increasing wage demands
There are many underlying factors that can blow economic growth off course and these need to be monitored
June 9, 2021
There are no children living in poverty in this country. If there were any, even one, the government would not be sending borrowed money abroad. They would obviously, and morally, be spending it to end poverty here.
June 10, 2021
If they are living in poverty even on benefits its because the parents are spending their benefits on our things beside their children. I have seen this first hand
June 10, 2021
Other things.
June 9, 2021
Do you think the recovery will continue when the lockdown is extended beyond June 21st ? This is the best time of year for hospitality venues, partcularly for pubs given the Euro football, and they will be crushed even further. I mean it is clear SAGE will do whatever they can to extend lockdown until end-August when they can reimpose a full lockdown with school closures for the Autumn flu season. The relevant act lasts until March 2022 I think ? Furlough till September ? June 21st NO CHANCE.
June 9, 2021
The public sector must play its part also.
Perhaps I’ve been unlucky but the bits of the public sector I have been “working” with are useless and have wasted a great deal of time and money.
The overwhelming impression is a culture that is all about getting time off and avoiding anything complicated or anything that looks like work.
June 9, 2021
The news that the U.K. is following changes to EU law affecting halogen lightbulbs is deeply disturbing. If the U.K. thought this a good idea it could have done it earlier. If it thought it a bad idea it should be able to go a different way. It is simply intolerable that this country is blindly following the EU now that we have left it. We will not put up with Brexit in name only.
June 9, 2021
And banning fluorescent tubes too from 2023. I despair.
June 9, 2021
Oh yes you will. And are.
June 9, 2021
The biggest threat to the economy is the pursuit of net zero policies. The idea that we can sit within a protectionist carbon order tax barrier when we have just voted to leave protectionism behind is folly. It simply makes exports uncompetitive, and with no export market there are fewer jobs, and some industries will simply close altogether. Meanwhile, it increases costs domestically, lowering our standard of living. Spending in value destroying ways e.g. on insulation that never pays for itself will further damage the economy. Call a halt to this madness.
June 9, 2021
Patrick O’Flynn in The Spectator estimates that there are now 42,000 immigrants in the country who arrived claiming asylum, were not successful in their application for it and yet have not been returned whence they came. Given the current number of illegal crossings in the English Channel each day during this period of good weather it seems likely that the figure will be closer to 50,000 by the end of the year. When is the Home Secretary actually going to do something about this?
June 10, 2021
Nowhere to send them, now weāve left the excellent EU system on this
June 10, 2021
Leisa, Sure, the problem only started when we (partly) left the EU. And there’s a bridge in London which I could sell you . . . .
June 9, 2021
I am surprised that the monarchists amongst you are not spitting feathers about a photograph of the queen (touches forelock) being taken down. I donāt know what this country is coming to.
Where I live (West Dorset) I am informed, straight from the horsesā mouths, that business owners are struggling to get staff. Which seems weird given what we have been up to for the last year and a half.
June 10, 2021
Why do you think it’s “weird”? Millions of people voted Leave to cut immigration so of course owners are struggling to find workers. That’s why every serious economist in the land said Brexit would badly harm our economy – as it is doing. It’s what you voted for, don’t act surprised
June 10, 2021
Garland, As against the huge unemployment in your dream EU empire?
June 10, 2021
Shows how well the economy is doing after brexit with more jobs available than people looking for jobs in certain areas.
Maybe wages will rise to attract more applicants
Something I presume you favour?
Remainers used Project Fear and none of your predictions have come true.
June 9, 2021
Returning from a visit to Family on Sunday evening, I saw a notice outside a Pub and Restaurant, “We are Hiring”. Cheered me up and sharpened my anticipation for the arrival of 21st June.
June 9, 2021
NOTA
Don’t get too excited, you’ll still have to wear a face nappy after 21st. It’s to do with the latest variant, you know the one that Johnson let in.
June 9, 2021
I will not, whatever Boris says!
June 9, 2021
I donāt want your governments recovery, if it involves ābanningā everything and becoming a communist state via the backdoor of climate changeā¦.petrol cars, gas boilers, halogen & fluorescent lights and the Queens pictures, historic & military statues by inaction and allowing further mass illegal immigration
I want a recovery that allows and encourages free speech, market forces, consumer choice and total independence from the EU
June 9, 2021
I am afraid that as usual, it is in your final paragraph, where you suggest what HM Government should do to make the recovery flourish, that the your post parts company with likely reality: this is not by any stretch of the imagination a tax cutting Government, so I do not think that bit of the solution is likely to happen, and ‘Spening budgets wisely’: forget it! Trade deals is a bit different so long as Ms Truss is allowed to get on with it.
One thing though, the much hyped Global Corporate Tax deal: I now read that Mr Sunak is trying to get the City exempted from it, so perhaps he agrees with you after all!
June 9, 2021
Leopards don’t change their spots and the EU is still as angry as hell over Brexit. You don’t have to look very far to understand why they have chosen the NI protocol. They failed to stop Brexit so now they are trying to destroy and disrupt the lives of those living in Northern Ireland in the hope they will capitulate and join Southern Ireland. They have been encouraged by the SNP and their leader wanting to break up the UK and join the EU
They don’t understand the mind-set of the British people and it seems likely they never well, but in time they will get used to the idea that we want to be separate nation and can be a useful good friend to have.
If only all you ”half-glass-empty merchants” would come to understand this, instead of blaming Boris. We would have been in one heck of a mess with Covid-19 if he hadn’t got us out from under the clutches of the EU.
June 9, 2021
P M Q T
When will the Prime Minister ever learn? It’s not what you throw the taxpayers money at, numbers are in material. It’s what is done with it?
It’s only words and words is all he has.
June 9, 2021
Much more could and should be done to make the U.K. super competitive, as we need to do to make a success of a Brexit. Nevertheless itās heartening that every week brings more evidence of the falsehood, and in some cases mendacity, of project fear.
The govt should not cave in on the NI sausage war. It will fail as all previous attempts to blockade the U.K. have done up to the recent EU commission attempted vaccine blockade.
June 9, 2021
The NI protocol is a mess of this governments own making, its like dĆ©jĆ vu in 2018 with the article 50 extension after extension ā¦and no-one has the bottle to go WTO
June 9, 2021
Unfortunately playing fast and loose with the NI Protocol is not going to win the day.. Boris and Lord Frost worked this agreement only six months ago and now want to change it. They think the coming marching season in NI is going to be a decider in fact the new leader of the DUP Poots has said as much in a veiled threat but alas for Poots uncle Joe Biden will soon be on the scene
June 9, 2021
I really like your approach to the economy.
June 9, 2021
Sir John Redwood,
This is much higher quality thank you , than your increasingly emotional EU biased twitter contributions.
June 9, 2021
Is that you again bill?
June 9, 2021
Priti’s words yesterday – what a joke – “They’re demoralised? ” – I woder why??? Could it be to do with yet ANOTHER pack of lies while our country is flooded and destroyed? 1000 a week – and families to follow??
Homeless English people bribed with a hot drink and a free breakfast for taking the jab – – illegals put in hotels costing us hundreds of millions – says EVERYTHING.
June 9, 2021
+1
June 9, 2021
All your points and suggestions for the direction of policy make a lot of sense and I’d like to see these matters more openly discussed by the government. My main concern would be the “back to work promptly on June 21st” comment. It is now widely rumoured that this will be pushed back at huge cost to the economy and even if/when restrictions are eased they won’t be fully lifted but just be renamed as “safeguards”. Mask wearing for instance does not work in the live music industry or much of the night time economy.
Whilst you don’t exactly tie the hopes of recovery to Brexit, the comments about the EU comparisons are made to sound that way and as a point of fact, the FX rate v EUR was 1.23 the day before the referendum and 1.19 on 31/1/20 when we left the EU. It is 1.16 today. That said, I don’t want to be cast in the same light as other remain supporters who post here. Brexit is done. I am so far only aware of extra cost and bureaucracy but fervently hope that we get to see some benefits. Unlike some, I am not hoping our country fails. The nation chose Brexit and when parliament couldn’t agree on the form of Brexit, the nation gave Boris an 80 seat majority for his exact version. The ball is in the Conservative Party’s court. This was a democratic choice and I hope fellow remainers can also stop looking backwards now.
June 9, 2021
Staff shortages require training and higher wages to overcome. Is their any manufacturing capacity of semiconductors under UK ownership; surely the City spivs have successfully flogged them off? We can still make a tank that can travel at 20mph and makes its crew sick with the noise and vibration if driven faster so we are still a technologically advanced country.
June 9, 2021
Off topic but topical:
https://www.politico.eu/article/no-eu-uk-agreement-on-way-forward-for-northern-ireland-checks-brexit/
“Boris Johnson told reporters Wednesday evening he remained āvery, very optimisticā about a solution to the ongoing row.
āI think that’s easily doable,ā the U.K. prime minister said, as he urged āa solution that guarantees the peace process, protects the peace process, but also guarantees the economic and territorial integrity of the whole United Kingdom.ā”
It would indeed be “easily doable” if:
1) Attention was focused where it should be focused, that is on the goods that are moved from Northern Ireland across the land border into the Irish Republic, not those that are moved into Northern Ireland.
2) The UK government drew up a system of export controls for the movement of goods across the land border and told the EU and the Irish government “This is what we are planning to do, feel free to comment on our plans but understand that we will do what we think is best whether or not you agree with it.”
June 9, 2021
JR
“With Brexit behind us and Covid calmed”
Apologies for picking up on your first line Mr Redwood, but in my opinion what you say is not as accurate as I would have expected.
1) Brexit is not behind us, we are still waiting for Johnson & May’s BRINO to be superceded by it. As we are also waiting for Johnson to show some British guts and teach the EU & RoI a lesson for trying to starve NI into submission, and to stand up to sympathiser Biden by warning him to keep his nose out of our sovereign affairs.
2) Covid is not calmed, thanks to Johnson not closing the travel routes from India. A fact which will become even more evident when he announces that we still have to wear face masks after 21st June. Keep in mind Johnson’s track record of keeping to promised dates – you think we should trust him now ?
June 9, 2021
Correct – this brino/brexit needs to be resolved before we start a sustainable recovery….you just know that the EU will be quoting clause after clause of the T&CA and NIP and forever using the term ‘level playing field’
June 10, 2021
John, you knew Boris and Frost were screwing up over this protocol. You told them, they didn’t listen. So we are stuck with it. Just like the public was stuck with all the other agreements Prime Ministers have signed up to behind closed doors on advice from the civil servants we employ to look after the UK’s interests, a group of people seriously failed us here.
If Boris hadn’t signed this agreement and gone with Mays the whole of the UK would be under this same cosh. Unable to sign global agreements. N. Ireland wants to remain connected with EU passports this is a consequence for them unless they vote and choose to have a border themselves with Southern Ireland. The common travel area should only be on the Island of Ireland.
Please give us a list of the products we are struggling to export and the specific reasons why. The evidence of home grown meat shouldn’t be difficult to provide certification for the exporters in the UK and this would then allow them to export their products to the whole of the EU. The government now need to facilitate this.
June 10, 2021
One more note John, When the government signed up to the WTD, many businesses that used workers over 48 hours per week just started using self-employed subbies. Those businesses that kept to an employee model had to put up prices with a combination of rules and regulations, extra holidays, average overtime during holidays, more overnight accommodation costs, reduced productivity, fine those are the rules. However, because others, often foreign-owned enterprises that corporation tax goes out of our Country with, use the opt-outs they kept their prices down, legitimate British business turnover and staff numbers dropped, the government lost out through lost Employer’s NI, a proportion of Employee’s NI but it didn’t stop your government using those organisations to do the work for them!
Get more farms active in Northern Ireland it will boost their economy. Get more free licencing for our suppliers and the government should hire extra checkers to facilitate checks faster as they will need to now having dithered for six months.
June 10, 2021
“We are short of cement and semiconductors, of HGV drivers and of chefs, of electricity capacity and of home grown fruit and vegetables. I have been asking Ministers to work with business to tackle these shortages urgently”
And the government has ignored you and done nothing …. while our rivals in the US and EU are powering ahead.
In the last few days alone the US has passed a Bill to boost their technology industry, with massive, $250 billion investment in semi-conductors and AI. The EU is also pouring money into becoming a global leader and Bosch have just announced they will be building a new microchip factory in Saxony, Germany. This is now creating a cluster of such firms and is becoming known as Silicon Saxony.
And the UK? NOTHING. Boris is asleep at the wheel. What a shameful betrayal of Britain.
June 10, 2021
Yes, brexit really is a mess, isn’t it?