The Western powers want to broker a peace in the Middle East. They want to prolong the war in Ukraine. Why this difference?

The policy towards Ukraine is based on condemning Putin for his aggression. It does  not offer Ukraine enough military support to allow them to win the war, preferring to drag it out through withholding important weapons and understandably refusing to commit NATO forces.

President elect Trump has indicated a wish to bring about a negotiated peace. European governments are against this, claiming it means helping Russia. They do not complain about a negotiated peace in the Middle  East which  on the same logic would be helping Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.Meanwhile France provides very little financial or military help to Ukraine and Germany always offers les than Ukraine wants with delays in providing more effective weapons.

I remain against the idea of a NATO/Russia war so do think the U.K. should work with President Trump on what a peace agreement would look like. Central to it should be to give to all Ukrainians who want to live beyond Russian control a place to do so with better security guarantees. It seems unlikely that Crimea can be brought back into Ukraine.Of course the West should do all it can at any talks to support the Ukrainians seeking to restore peaceful authority over their lands and  who wish to live in a country independent of Russia. The EU needs to rethink its position to be more helpful to peace. Whilst the West sees this as a war against Russian invasion, Russia sees it as a war against EU expansion. .

The Bank of England has cut their base rate twice now. They have put their inflation forecast up after the budget and said this means fewer rate cuts and slower rate cutting from here. The budget was especially inflationary, pushing up public sector pay a lot with no productivity agreements and confirming higher managed energy prices. The whole disastrous energy policy means dearer energy going forwards.
The budget also pushed up longer term interest rates with knock on to mortgage rates. The ten year government bond borrowing rate surged to over 4,5%, a higher level than after the short lived Kwarteng budget when the Bank was hiking rates and announcing huge  bond sales. These market moves reflected justified concern about all the extra borrowing the government proposes after its rule change.

The bad budget according to Bank forecasts as well OBR forecasts will raise inflation and slow growth. Whilst both bodies are often wrong, on this occasion I agree with them that the budget measures are likely to slow growth from 2026 and push up prices sooner. These forecasters had to up 2024 growth forecasts because earlier this year they clearly under estimated and had to revise up recently because we enjoyed good growth in the first half.
The U.K. has a very bad public sector productivity problem and is wasting far too much money in the  public sector. The government should urgently cancel £19 bn of carbon capture spend, abandon ideas of an expensive HS  2 extension, control Bank of England losses and set out a productivity plan for public services.

Why do the left always want to personalise disagreements about what government should do? Why do they think they have a right to abuse anyone who disagrees with them? Why do they wish to be rude to powerful foreigners who may be popular in their own country? Why do they think they should involve themselves in foreign elections to save overseas voters from themselves?

In my years as an MP many leaders were elected to European countries that I thought were doing grave damage, including ones who were harming the U.K. I never said bad things about them as individuals and I never went to interfere in their elections. When President Biden was elected I was criticised on this site for congratulating him and stressing the need for the U.K. to find ways of working with him.

President Biden followed some very damaging policies. He pulled out of Afghanistan without consulting and supporting our troops left there. His unilateral action gave Afghanistan needlessly to the Taliban. He undermined all the work to keep them out, writing off the blood and treasure shed. He tried to cosy up to a dangerous Iran, letting them make more money from oil to build its big arsenal of fast missiles to target on Israel. He contributed to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and then led a western response which prolonged the war, giving Ukraine enough to extend hostilities but not enough to win. He sided with the EU and Ireland against us over the NI Protocol.

All these reasons persuaded me he was a poor President.It still didn’t make me put out nasty things about him, or believe that slanging him off would get him to improve.

Let me repeat the guidelines.

Please keep contributions short unless you have some well researched case to make. Do not send links to other people’s work, though links to official free sources are fine.Do not attack named individuals or institutions in a way that could be a libel. Do not use over the top language or swear words.

2 people who daily want to contribute will not be published. One wishes to make allegations about the influence of a couple of billionaires, refusing to see that the views they back are the consensus views of global institutions and governments which are much debated here. One uses over the top language to slang off named people and institutions. If you want free publication play by the rules.

Elon Musk is touted as a new Wastefinder General to go into the US government and cut back waste and excessive bureaucracy. He will doubtless find plenty of targets,  but will he be able to get control and force through change? Much of the excess takes the form of public bodies, regulators and overlapping Federal, state and local administration. They will be well protected by laws , lobbies and sometimes by Congress.

The U.K. has seen a similar rapid  expansion of external bodies and regulators. The first aim should be to stop the increase. It is a bad idea to set up a Football Regulator. Ministers and officials should not be judging the solvency and spending of football clubs. The Sport itself can establish rules for the major tournaments and leagues, with the clubs having a say and deciding which ones to join.

The second aim should be to raise the general productivity level. A recruitment freeze would allow say 6% a year reduction in headcount without redundancies, and give more scope for promotion to those with jobs as vacancies became available.

The third aim should be to reduce the amount of regulation being undertaken. The new government says there is too much planning, so bring on the simplifications. The delays for bat surveys and carbon checks could be pared back. Planning applications are far too long with too many associated consultant reports.

Whole  areas of government led activity like emissions trading should be ended. It’s needless extra  cost which boosts world CO 2 by forcing energy using industry out of the U.K., shifting to import dependence.

I have often argued that cheaper energy available in plentiful supply is crucial to any industrial strategy. Much of industry needs large quantities of energy to heat, cool, transform materials and power machine tools. Petrochemicals needs fossil fuels as feedstock. Many manufactures contain fractions of oil transformed into materials.

President Trump oversaw a major expansion of domestic oil and gas production in his  first term. This helped keep prices of energy, especially gas, lower in the US. It gave US industry a huge competitive boost compared to the U.K. and EU.

When Putin invaded Ukraine the EU was desperate to replace Russian gas and oil with imports from elsewhere. The Trump increased output saved them as the US made available more exports to them.

The U.K. has substantial potential resources both on and offshore but this government is determined to keep them in the ground. It means we import instead. All that tax revenue and  well paid jobs go abroad.World CO 2 goes up. It is a deeply damaging economic policy and a stupid environmental one. Will President Trump persuade  the U.K. government to copy his America First example?

The two lead issues of the economy and illegal migration were issues where President Trump and the Republicans were on the more popular side of the argument. I have not commented on their election during its progress but am not surprised by the likely results.

The mistakes of western governments over Covid lockdown reinforced by the big errors of the Fed, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank over inflation, money and interest rates were bound to lead to bad election results for them. We have seen the governments of France, Italy and the U.K. fall, to be followed by the US and probably  Germany next year. Electors hold governments responsible for inflation as they cannot throw Central Bankers out when they get it hopelessly wrong.

The surge in civil service numbers since 2016, up by a third has been coupled with plenty of grade creep. We have a much larger more top heavy civil service.

One of the reasons is departments always want new  people and new resource for any new policy or Ministerial initiative.There is  a reluctance to wind up old initiatives and transfer all the staff to the new. Another reason is people are kept in any given post for too short a time. They are regularly transferred and promoted, with their old roles being filled by  someone else caught in the  eternal reshuffling.

It means at any given time there are numerous people recently arrived in a new area needing to spend time trying to get up to speed, and others getting ready to move with diminishing interest in what they are still meant to be doing. There is a strong reliance on collective working entailing several personnel and layers of management being involved in framing advice to Ministers or making administrative decisions.

The danger of this system is no one ever feels responsible or can be blamed for an outcome. It means people with too little experience or  knowledge of the issues is involved in the work. It makes officials dependent on others often outside the civil service to be informed. It encourages duplication by hiring external consultants to do much of the task that an experienced official could do without outside help.

At the age of 21 I won two elections that changed my life. In the autumn I was elected to a fellowship of All Souls  College by examination. In the following spring I was elected as an Oxfordshire County Councillor in the newly enlarged  County incorporating Oxford City and a part of Berkshire.

At All Souls I met Sir Keith Joseph, a Distinguished fellow of the College and a Cabinet Minister. I predicted the Heath defeat, being an opponent of the Price and Incomes Policy he brought in and appreciating the difficulty of refusing the miners better pay when inflation and energy prices were surging. After the defeat Keith helped Margaret become leader  and suddenly became interested in my views, recognising I had been uncomfortable with the Heath u turn from a free enterprise Manifesto to  the intense failing detailed  interventions he made in the economy.

Keith was put in charge of the policy rethink. He made me adviser to the review on public spending and the economy. Margaret and Keith knew Labour was overspending badly and thought it would prove unsustainable.They did not have to wait long as 1976  saw the need for an IMF bail out and spending cuts. The  Shadow Cabinet and Policy review  had been running shadow budgets  just in case the  government collapsed. They told the public they would spend less but kept the detail private.

I advised them not to cut NHS and education but to save billions by changing management and targets of the nationalised industries and selling many of them. To be continued.

I will give a few thoughts on Parliamentary Opposition now there is a new Leader.

The task of His Majesty’s Opposition is to oppose when the government is doing harm, proposing bad laws, mismanaging the public sector or imposing bad taxes and charges. It is to support when the government is doing the right thing. The Opposition should not run down the country or damage relations  for the U.K. abroad out of narrow partisan interest.

Maybe four years before a new election the Official Opposition should not have a full set of detailed policies, budgets, tax proposals and  the like for a possible entry into government then . Many things will change in the next few years, and the Opposition needs time to think about what it did badly or what it failed to do last time in government, to ensure it does better when next given the opportunity.

It may, however, strengthen its opposition to current policy if it not only explains what is wrong,  voting against,  but also suggests a better course of action for now. So whilst it is right for it to oppose vigorously a set of tax increases that will hurt growth and damage jobs and incomes, it would help to set out offsetting reductions in public waste and needless spending to show the government it could have its spending rises for schools and the NHS without tax rises or extra borrowing.

I have regularly  set out several tens of billions of reductions, starting with the £19 bn of carbon capture and storage and over £10 bn a year of needless Bank of England losses on bond sales. There are several others.