The government which gained a majority by uniting pro Brexit voters with Remain voters who wished to accept the referendum and go with some Brexit wins, needs to be aware that some forces that cannot accept Brexit are out to push back on policy.

1. They are trying to oust the Home Secretary as they fear she will take action to stop the flow of illegal migrants across the Channel. Anti Brexit lawyers and some Home Office officials are out to prevent policies that could work, as they dislike the wish of many Brexit voters to take back control of our borders..
2. They want to sell out the Unionists in Northern Ireland who are resisting the EU’s unreasonable misinterpretation of the Protocol to stop the free flow of GB to NI trade, to stop NI benefitting from any VAT cuts, and to keep NI under EU laws. They wish to block a moderate UK legislative solution to restore UK trade and taxes in NI which is necessary to reinstate the Good Friday power sharing arrangements.
3. They want prevent  gas exploration and development where communities want the revenue and the jobs it could bring, and where companies are willing to produce more from the North Sea,  to keep the UK import dependent
4. They continue to block VAT cuts on energy despite the advantage this would bring by lowering the inflation index and helping people’s personal budgets
5. They wish to impose an austerity budget to  deepen and lengthen the downturn and worsen the UK’s economic performance
6. They want to abandon the Bill to reduce the volume of inherited laws from the EU and to establish the full supremacy of UK courts.

The persistent use of right and left as ways of analysing politics much favoured by the BBC and other commentators is way out of date. I heard yesterday morning the BBC describe Bolsonaro as extreme right and Lula as left in Brazil. Both are different kinds of populists who worry the global elites, though they currently think Lula will conform more with their wishes if he gets another period in office than he did the first time so they do not call him extreme.

The populist against the internationalist  is the best shorthand or generalisation to capture modern politics. In Europe we see globalist parties like the old Social Democrats and Christian Democrats can no longer win majorities and need to form difficult coalitions with other parties willing to trim to the establishment line to get Ministerial office. We see waves of challenger parties seek to assemble a popular army against the elite. In Greece Syria’s mounted a strong but ultimately unsuccessful challenge. In Italy first Lega, now Fratelli, try to moderate EU internationalist policies. In Spain Vox has dented traditional parties. In the UK the Conservatives could only win a convincing majority by embracing populist Brexit.

In the USA the Republicans could only win the Presidency by embracing populist Trump who railed against the internationalist establishment Democrats.

I myself find myself in agreement with the populists in some of their challenges to damaging elite theories and policies, but not in agreement with their more extreme views and actions. The internationalists are not always wrong and do include many talented people with good ideas and the capacity to improve the lot of the people. I do not like the arrogance and thuggish dismissal of any alternative view that the elite at their worst display. Nor do I like rioting Trump supporters loose in the Capitol.

I think the PM was right to say he needs to stay in the UK to work with the Chancellor on a good budget rather than flying to Egypt. It would be better if these conferences to urge us all to travel less  and to burn less fuel were more often conducted on line to set an example on the issue of jet travel and to make their own contribution to reducing CO2 .

COP 27 faces the same big problem COP 26 faced. China generating 30% of the world’s CO 2 intends to  carry on increasing its output for most of this decade. President Xi will not be in Egypt for others to lobby him  to do what western countries are doing to cut their output. Current policy of us closing down energy intensive activities and fossil fuel mines and wells in order to import goods  from China does nothing to cut world CO 2. In many cases it  boosts it as we spend more on transport and on less environmentally friendly production in China. India, Russia and Brazil also are large producers of CO 2.

COP 27 does face a new problem from COP 26. As a result of the war in Ukraine and the need for the EU to cut its use of Russian gas, countries like Germany and Poland will be using more coal. China, facing shortages of power from hydro and renewables has also turned to more coal dependence. This is against the main conclusion of COP 26 that  countries should make rapid progress to eliminate coal, treating gas as a transition fuel whilst renewable electricity was expanded and technologies developed to store it for times when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

It will be interesting to see what solutions they propose to tackle this difficulty.

Please see below my recent interview with Julia Hartley Brewer, Talk TV:

It is hard work persuading government to cut out waste and remove marginal or undesirable programmes.

There is a vocal group of MPs who want the rest of HS2 cancelled. The business case was always poor, relying on diverting a lot of passengers from the existing network. The sharp fall in commuting and business travel thanks to lockdowns followed by more home  working further undermines the case. The government does not seem to want to save £100 bn.

This week saw the foolish decision to bankroll the Bank of England to lose £11 bn this year to let them take losses on bonds they do not need to sell.I was  the only MP to say this  was wrong.

There is substantial agreement we should not be adding perhaps £3bn more this year to bills for hotel accommodation for illegal migrants, but still the system resists any Minister and proposals to end the dangerous trade in people.

We continue to spend more than £1 bn a year on free smart meters and their promotion when anyone who wants one now presumably has one.

We spend large sums on maintaining, heating and lighting huge office blocks in expensive city centres when many civil servants now work from home. The estate should be streamlined.

Councils build large commercial property portfolios in their areas on borrowed money in time to lose a lot in a falling property market. Why let them borrow this money?

We spend large sums on benefits for people born and legally settled here whilst inviting in hundreds of thousands of migrants to take the jobs. The state incurs large bills to provide the new arrivals with homes, school places, health facilities etc Let’s get people already here into work.

We still send overseas aid to thug states and countries with expensive weapons programmes.We should confine aid to humanitarian relief in crises and the very poor countries. Trade is often better than aid.

We are now subsidising well off people to burn more energy by price capping power for their heated swimming pools, garden lighting, saunas and the rest instead of limiting the amount of  price capped power each can have to the needs of an average family. Let’s rejig the energy scheme.

There was more uncertainty yesterday about the Financial Statement scheduled for 31 October. We had been told it was crucial to the markets to see early sight of the spending and tax proposals of the new team and to accompany it with Office of Budget responsibility forecasts. I was never that happy about holding it on Halloween, thinking of some of the obvious headlines and journalistic jokes that would invite. It is better it is done in a considered way with full buy in by the new Prime Minister as well as the fairly new Chancellor.  They are saying that they want the latest forecasts, and with the recent fall in gas prices there will be at least temporarily better news on the costs of the Energy package and inflation.

We are told this will be a Financial Statement, not a budget, yet it will have many of the characteristics of a budget. It will presumably have a set of tax proposals, full spending plans, and forecasts of budget outturns with borrowing figures for the next few years. It will be accompanied by OBR forecasts. The difference between a Statement and budget will not it seems be a matter of substance, but a matter of Parliamentary treatment. A budget is presented to the House by the Chancellor often in an hour long speech,  responded to immediately by the Leader of the Opposition with a speech and followed by  a five day debate on wide ranging economic , taxation and public spending matters. A Statement will be a much shorter  speech by the Chancellor followed by maybe two hours where many MPs can ask just one question each of the Chancellor, with the Shadow Chancellor able to ask several things in a short response.  The idea of announcing substantial spending plans by Statement was developed by Rishi during the pandemic to reflect the need for quick action, often agreed on a cross party basis.

The Financial Statement is clearly dominated by whatever figure the Office of Budget responsibility comes up with for the possible deficit or amount of borrowing in 2025. The government has allowed itself against my advice to have as its main economic control the need for state debt as a percentage of GDP to be falling in  three years time. The problem with this is twofold. The OBR has been wildly wrong on its next year forecasts at all three recent annual  budgets. No-one can come up with a realistic forecast of state borrowing three years out given all the likely  big changes to inflation, the costs of the energy package, interest rates and government policy. The second is the figure could send the wrong signal for policy changes now. Today inflation is near its peak and is widely expected by independent forecasters as well as by the Bank of England to fall away rapidly over the next two years. The new threat is to trigger a longer and deeper downturn to the economy as the higher interest rates and restricted credit have their impact. Tightening further into a downturn is usually a bad policy but a negative guess about borrowing levels in three years time could force just such an action.

The cruel paradox is this. Tightening too much now, whether by hiking taxes or cutting public services could create a recession. In a recession deficits rise and the state has to borrow more, not less. Tax revenues fall as people lose jobs, consumers spend less  and companies make less profit. State spending goes up as more people need benefits. It would not be a good idea to follow the wrong response to current economic conditions in pursuit of a lower number for three years time which no-one can accurately predict or deliver .

I offer the new Prime Minister the same loyalty I showed to his two recent predecessors, and the same economic advice designed to see off inflation whilst avoiding a deep and prolonged recession. The first task Rishi needs to address is to bring together more of the MPs and members of the party behind the common endeavour  of greater prosperity and a better economic policy to avoid the inflationary money printing of the last year. The voluntary party that knocks on doors, delivers leaflets, finds Council candidates and helps pay the bills of party officials must be wooed and thanked. It is a pity they did not get a vote on another change of leader. It is a shame the very truncated timetable did not allow Rishi to set out in general terms how he plans to tackle the budget issues, balance necessary spending with affordable tax rates, and create a productivity revolution in industry and services. We need all these to go right if we are to see off recession, level up communities around the country, grow and produce  more of our own needs and bring the deficit down through the extra tax that comes from economic success.

Many members feel let down that their two choices for leader in recent leadership elections both fell prey to MP disagreements and to infighting within the Parliamentary party and government.  One of the main attractions of becoming a member is to play a role in selecting candidates for Councils, Police Commissioners, and MPs, with the best prize being a say in who should be leader and Prime Minister when we have a majority.  Each elected official is more accountable to party members because they have that say, requiring us all to listen to the grassroots as well as to our wider constituencies in our official capacities. I hope Rishi will reach out to the members and tell them how he plans to bring them into the big task of fulfilling our 2019 promises and seeing us through the inflation, energy crisis and the need to reverse the decline in many people’s spending power. He needs to speak to them to get their buy in to the project he now needs to set out.

The dilemma he faces is the same as his immediate predecessors in office. The problems to be overcome are the same. Whilst in some ways everything has changed because there is a new leader who will bring a new team to the tasks, in another way today  nothing has changed. It is the same party to lead, the same inflation to finally quell, the same recession to see off. We saw from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng proposals to make the UK more competitive with some modest tax rate reductions, and a huge spending programme of support to tackle surging fuel bills. It was a pity they did  not frame these with the rest of the  spending plans, and allow us forecasts of the short term and longer term borrowing that might result. Of course they needed to be affordable ,but they also needed to avoid plunging us into deep recession.  When adjusting and developing these plans for growth the new team needs to avoid lurching to too restrictive a policy which could deepen and lengthen the downturn. This would increase overall borrowing rather than reduce it, as borrowing is very sensitive to the rate of growth. The extra pound of income earned from growth is taxed more highly and helps save on benefit bills as more people get work to meet the increased demand for goods and services.

The new team needs to ask why the Bank is keen to sell bonds it bought at high prices at large losses today. If they do so the Treasury has to send them money to pay the losses. There is no need to sell these bonds  now, and making losses on bonds  is not a good priority for spending. It needs to build on past government work to find ways for more of the people on  benefits to take some of the many jobs still available. It must always be worthwhile working. Those in work paying taxes expect people who can work  to do so  where there are jobs available rather than  being on  benefits.

The members responded well  to Liz Truss this summer because she was upbeat, promising us growth with lower tax rates. Her aim was to generate more revenue from the growth to pay for the healthcare and education we want. In his first speech as Prime Minister elect Rishi said he too wanted growth and lower taxes. That will warm more of the members to him. That requires delivery. He will get more unity from a bruised party if he shares its members aspirations and then manages to implement them. He also needs to tell them more of this vision and win their confidence.

The consultation of members of the Wokingham Conservative Association put Boris Johnson in first place, a little ahead of Rishi Sunak. Penny Mordaunt came a poor third. Boris has many strong supporters whilst more Rishi enthusiasts support their man because he is not Boris.

Amongst constituents there was also much more interest in Boris and Rishi than Penny. Both men attracted strong support and evoked strong antipathy from others. Amongst constituents a few  more favoured Rishi, but this seems to be particularly true of people who do not express Conservative values and outlooks and are unlikely to given the attitudes they do express.

Boris and Penny answered my questions about the economic issues but Rishi did not. I look forward to an early statement from him on how he will fight recession whilst continuing the work the Bank and Treasury have done to bring inflation down.

As you now know MPs did not get a vote between the candidates, nor will members. All now rests on Rishi making good judgements of how to pilot the economy and how to build support with the party and the public for what he wants to do.

The new Chancellor says he is looking for ways to cut spending to bring the borrowing down. I have sent him a list of ideas familiar to readers of this blog where they have been published before.

Today there are some easy ways to make an impact.

1 Reverse his decision with the  Bank of England to sell some of the bonds they own at a loss. Not selling would save in excess of £10 bn in the year ahead.

2 Work with DWP to improve incentives and support to help 500,000 people on benefits to get jobs. Saving around £5bn from less benefit and more tax.

3.implement Braverman plan to stop small boats illegal migration. Save £3bn in annual additional hotel costs.

4. Cancel HS2 and resell land acquired. Save many billions starting this year.

5. Adjust energy package  to limit subsidised energy for households to the average usage, requiring those who use more to pay full price for the extra.

6 Substitute more UK gas and oil for imports by pressing on with extra N Sea production. This will cut the import bill and boost UK tax revenues substantially.