The Lib Dems tell us Trump tariffs will damage the world economy and harm  our trade. They then tell us to join the EU Customs Union to put a whole load of tariffs on trade coming from outside the EU. They say this would supercharge our growth. This stupid contradiction skewers their argument and reminds us how absurd the idea is that joining the Customs Union would make us richer.

We did try all this over a period of 48 years.During the first 20 years in the EEC our average annual growth rate slowed compared to the 20 years prior to entry. For the  two decades after 1992 when we were in the “ completed” single market as well as the Custom Union, our annual growth rate slowed even further. There is no sign in any of the numbers of any boost to growth or living standards from joining.Indeed, in the run up to 1992 the EU policy of belonging to their Exchange Rate Mechanism gave us first  a rapid inflation to be followed by a deep recession.

The UK is benefitting from Brexit  by the removal of all tariffs on imports of things we cannot make or grow for ourselves, and from materials and components needed to add value through our manufacture. Why re  impose all these tariffs driving up prices for UK consumers and making manufacturing even more uncompetitive.?

This  government has completed the negotiations on the India Free Trade Agreement  and inherited the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. We would have to tear these  up if we joined the EU Custom Union. Why antagonise so many countries in the fastest growing part of the world?

The UK has negotiated a less penal tariff settlement with the USA than the EU. Why throw that away?

The Lib Dems rely on the National Bureau of Economic Research study which says the UK has lost 6-8% of potential GDP. If they had read it they would see the last thing to do to speed our growth rate would be to join the EU. The loss of potential comes from comparing us to the US and other faster growing economies. The study leaves out slower growing Germany, France and other EU countries as they  are embarrassingly  worse than sluggish  UK. We needed to leave the EU to try to narrow the gap with the US growth rate. EU taxes and regulations have put  the EU into a dreadful slow lane compared to the US.

Imposing a whole load of tariffs and paying the EU a shed load of money did not  boost our growth when  in the EU. It would be an unaffordable folly to try to do it  again.

1. Public sector monopoly provided free at point of use by public sector   e.g. Roadspace
2. Public sector provision free at the point of use with some competition between public sector providers – hospitals, schools
3. Public sector monopolies provided free at point of use by private sector contractors  e.g. domestic rubbish collection
4. Private sector monopolies provided free at the point of use  e.g. free local newspapers, certain types of internet service, ITV
5. Monopoly activities provided by the public sector but paid for by users – e.g. Planning and Building Regulation services, passport issue
6. Competitive services provided by the  private sector but paid for by the state e.g. care homes for people without capital
7. Competitive services provided by the state but paid for by users – municipal or state trading – e.g. public leisure facilities
8. Competitive services paid for by users and provided by private sector – this is most public service in a free enterprise economy – everything from food to most  professional services

I set out these eight  hybrids to organise the provision of services in Third Way Which Way when the Blair government was seeking a third way between competitive private sector activities and monopoly state activities. They are relevant again. The government, short of cash, needs to explore more private finance  for state services where people already  pay user charges for the service, as with rail, Council leisure services, forestry, media, energy. Where performance is bad it needs to look at ways competition can provide a stimulus to higher quality and better value for money.

It used to be a strong requirement that no-one in the know leaked anything about the budget. When I was Margaret Thatcher’s adviser I read  draft budget papers in controlled conditions in No 10 to protect me and the budget from any leaks. I usually gave my advice to the PM one to one in person.  Like the few others who did see the budget papers we never spoke to the press about any of these   matters.

This latest budget farago shows why secrecy  is a good way to deal with highly market sensitive matters covered by a budget. It is an offence to disclose inside information that can move share prices. When papers picked up the idea that the budget might introduce a higher gambling tax, gambling shares reacted. When someone proposed a  bank tax, bank shares fell. When the later leak or comment confirmed no bank tax they rose.

Of course in the run up to any budget many people not seeing the budget papers or helping with the decisions make public comments on likely tax changes and other matters. Share prices may gyrate around these speculations, depending on who said them. This however needs investigation because  many people who deal in shares woke up morning after morning to what looked like authentic steers or briefings from inside the advisory and ministerial tent handling the budget data and decisions. When several leading papers and the media all have the same story about likely tax changes there needs to be an enquiry to see if the rumours came from those in the know. It would be unusual  if all backed the same  hunch of someone on the outside at the same time.

Part of the process was on the record. The Chancellor herself gave a strong steer in her emergency statement from Downing Street about the need for higher taxes, with the implication being she was looking at Income tax.

I do hope the Chancellor reviews the disaster brought about by misleading statements over debts and deficits and over the need for tax rises. Far from pinning the blame for tax rises on past governments she has succeeded in highlighting how the extra tax was needed to meet her extra spending plans, particularly on the ballooning welfare bill.

The government is having a go at removing juries from most trials, demolishing a fundamental right of all freeborn English people to a trial judged by representatives of the public. It sits easily with their wish to put us under international, EU and code law, to marginalise the flexibility and commonsense of common law, and to put a class of technocratic governors and spies over us.

Tony Blair tried the jury trick but was resisted by the Lords. The UK is not short of jurors. Trials are not delayed owing to a shortage of jury members, but to rationed court time and a shortage of judges and criminal law barristers. Court hours are short and case waiting times unacceptably long. The government needs to use more buildings as courts and hire more lawyers to conduct cases.

A better reform to free court time would be to decriminalise not paying the BBC licence fee. Make that a debt  like any normal contract for services.  Reduce the number of thought control offences by allowing more free speech whilst taking seriously incitement to violence and terrorist plans.

This government seems to despise our history and wants to submit our democratic and legal freedoms to control by international lawyers and judges in their own  woke  mode.

Since 2010 Scotland has grown consistently more slowly than the UK as a whole. This is thanks to its distinctive policies. It spends more per head on the public sector than England. It borrows more per head ( via the UK) as it spends more than  the UK as a whole  per head. It believes in green growth and has subsidised and given permissions for substantial renewable energy. It taxes more and believes growth comes from more public sector spending.

At the same time as promoting public sector led and green growth it has actively supported closing down oil and gas, Scotland’s most productive  highly paid industry. Despite spending more than England, school standards  are lower and NHS waiting lists are still long.

The Uk government now wishes to follow similar high tax, high spend public sector led growth. Both the SNP and Labour governments supervise poor public sector projects, with Scotland losing control of orders for new ferries and the UK under four different governments experiencing massive cost overrun of HS2.

The problem with taking higher taxes off the private sector to pay  for less productive public sector activity is it is bound to damage growth. In Scotland deliberately running down the oil and gas industry damages both Scottish and UK productivity and reduces tax revenue.

The UK government is going the Scottish way in the mistaken belief they might win more votes in Scotland if they became more like the SNP. Instead it will help drag the UK growth down closer to Scottish levels.

The Chancellor looked both ways on battery cars. Under pressure no doubt from Mr Miliband she put

The budget was meant to be a boost to growth. Instead it was another big transfer of money from a struggling and burdened private sector to pay for a bloated and inefficient state.£30 bn for Mauritius and Chagos. £20 bn a year for Bank of England losses. A welcome for many thousands of illegal migrants with their big hotel bills. Endorsement for putting many more people onto benefits. Giving many more a sick note for life with no requirement to look for work. Recruiting more public sector administrators to lower productivity more.

Instead of tackling over spending the Chancellor added to it by ending the two child cap and ploughing on with steel and rail nationalisation and with renewable investment. This all needs serious taxpayer cash.

The long list of extra taxes and the predicted hike in Income tax to penalise  success, hard work and enterprise is more of the same. It will do more harm to a sluggish economy. Industry will continue to  be demolished by net zero and high energy prices, and retail and hospitality  hit by high taxes. Pity the young who will find it increasingly difficult to get a  first job, and later to buy a first home.

In the last budget the government said it wanted more jobs. It put up tax on employing people. Vacancies fell, Unemployment shot  up.

The government wanted more food grown. It increased tax on family farms. Farmers gave up farming or looked for ways to switch out of food growing.

The government wanted to back UK industry but intensified bans and dear energy  to decarbonise.There has been a tsunami of big industrial closures.

The government wanted to tax the rich more. 16,000 millionaires left the country to escape all UK tax

If tomorrow the government taxes people’s homes more that will do more damage to the housing market. It will be another obstacle to their lie  in the sky dream of building 1.5 m homes

If they persist with their new tariffs or carbon border tax that will upend their wish to grow faster via more trade.

If they impose a user tax on battery cars that will slow their wish to see more sales of these vehicles

If they continue  with current bans and windfall taxes on UK oil and gas they will speed the developing collapse of that industry and our whole petro chemical industry.

If they add to the bank tax that will  slow down loans and credit needed to power growth

If they tax pension saving more, people will invest less

The President of the EU Commission has just set out four main conclusions about Ukraine.

She says “Borders cannot be changed by force”.  It’s a great principle which many of us would like to be observed by all. Instead  Putin has just changed the borders de facto by force. The original borders can only be restored by applying much more force to countering and evicting the Russian army. As the EU has no wish to join the fight, fails to provide enough money and weapons to Ukraine to ensure ejection of  the Russian army, and helps finance Russia by buying Russian oil and gas it is difficult to see what she means by this first statement. France in particular has been unwilling to provide much by way of weapons and cash to help Ukraine evict the invader.

She says she wishes to establish that  “the centrality of the EU in securing peace for Ukraine must be fully protected”. The EU only has a role in the peace talks if both Russia and Ukraine wish them to do so, and if they have some leverage over the two combatants. The EU also needs to be conscious of the US involvement, given the large amount of money and weapons the US has been supplying and the US efforts to talk to both sides. She says Ukraine must join the EU single market and the “EU defence industrial base”. How would that work? Would the EU then give a security guarantee to the Ukraine for its borders, backed up by EU military forces?  Would the EU fund for rearmament give weapons to Ukraine? There has been no sign of that from the EU so far.

She says the Ukrainian children sent to Russia have to be returned. That is another great idea, but what will the EU do to bring that about? How can they now persuade Russia to do this, after months of diplomacy with no results?

The EU makes clear they want Ukraine to become an integrated part of their Union in due course.  Meanwhile they are unwilling to pay what it costs to win the war, and grandstand without committing any force to the conflict to try to enforce the rules they wish Russia to observe. The UK should tell the EU that if they want a better outcome and want Ukraine to join their Union they need to offer much more assistance to Ukrainian forces.