Readers of my blog may be interested to see my contribution to the debate on GB News – The Clash on Social Care Reform:

Published on www.conservativehome.com

 457 members of the UK military  were killed in Afghanistan this century. We have to ask Why did they die?

 

War is a continuation of diplomacy and politics by violent means. A decent nation only fights a war when talking has failed, when the cause is just and when force is the only language the wrong doers understand. Success lies in fighting fewer wars.  Having well resourced and respected armed services is a vital part of our nation’s security and diplomatic weight. Because we have fought victoriously in the past and show resolve in the present we have more chance of negotiating and preserving the peace.

 

The Falklands war is a perfect example of how a successful war is sometimes necessary and can right an obvious wrong. The unwarranted and illegal invasion of the islands against the wishes of practically every Falkland islander had to be reversed. International diplomacy failed. The Argentinians were unwilling to listen to peace proposals that required they respect the right and wish to the islanders to enjoy self government. A dangerous military campaign was brilliantly executed by UK forces. Peace was re established as soon as the last Argentinians surrendered and has endured ever since. The 258 UK deaths were not in vain. The nation took pride in their achievements. The world is a better place for us showing once again that violent annexation of a country and the termination of its freedoms is unacceptable conduct which will be reversed. We had to do it on our own, as there were  divided views amongst nations despite the abuse of force by Argentina.

 

383,000 of our military lost their lives in the second world war. The vast scale of the death and destruction acts as a warning to the generations that  follow to give diplomacy and politics every chance of success in disputes between the great powers. Today technology has delivered even more terrifying abilities to armed forces to kill huge numbers of people and destroy whole cities, making sensible politicians of the  best armed countries even more reluctant to resort to war with each other. The nation as a whole does think those who lost their lives between 1939 and 1945 did so for a just cause with an eventual good result. Individual deaths may have resulted from poor planning or bad decisions by the command. More may have died owing to  bad intelligence, inadequate force or even friendly fire. The pressures of total war and the ruthless ingenuity of the enemy set each of those difficult deaths into a wider and more understandable  context. There is virtual unanimity that there was no feasible negotiated peace available in 1939 that would have prevented the violent annexation of Europe  by Germany or would have prevented the genocides which followed.

 

The relatives and friends of the 457 fallen in Afghanistan need to be reassured that our nation is proud of them too. The immediate cause of NATO’s Afghan war was the unprovoked and shocking attack of terrorists on the United States, with mass civilian casualties. The USA had good intelligence that Afghanistan harboured evil men  and the Afghan government was unable to offer assurances that it would find and prosecute the guilty. The early NATO campaign was successful and the government was overthrown. NATO then sought to support the creation of a government for the country chosen in free elections and capable of giving a better life to the many. Economic recovery and better treatment of women and girls followed. As a result many Afghans enjoyed an improved  life over the last two decades. The deaths of our troops made that possible. Their achievements should not be forgotten.

 

The issue for NATO and the politicians is why did the politics fail this year? War is a means to a better end. It is the means to rebase politics which have gone wrong, and to change personnel where government has fallen into evil hands. It is a way of overthrowing dictatorial constitutions and tyrants. This was done in Afghanistan. Unfortunately the decision  of President Biden to remove US forces late one night without proper consultation let alone agreement from the Afghan government and allies led to the rapid collapse of democratic government in Afghanistan.The sad scenes of a scrambled exit for the rest of the allies and friends of  NATO  at Kabul airport led on to triumphant displays of Afghan gunmen showing off captured NATO uniforms and weapons. The return of the Taliban leaves the USA weakened and the NATO allies visibly sidelined. It plunges many in Afghanistan into despair.

 

Until the withdrawal in recent years NATO had been able to offer limited support and advice to the security forces of the Afghan state, and to keep its own military personnel in the country largely out of harms way. It was a relatively cheap way of defending democracy and basic freedoms in a troubled part of the world and was only undertaken because the elected government wanted NATO to help them keep order.  What followed a botched exit by the President was a needless disaster of his own  making. None of this should detract from the bravery and good intentions of our forces in the twenty years of supporting the elected Afghan government.

 

Since 1945 the UK has been involved in a lot of more  limited wars. In each case we need to ask why did we use lethal force against others and why did UK service personnel die? We might conclude that we have intervened too often. We should certainly conclude that there have been some bad political and diplomatic failures. War should only be a last resort and should only be used where there does need to be a decisive change which cannot be achieved by talking. There is plenty of collateral damage from warfare. That is elite talk for more people losing their lives and more property and livelihoods being demolished as others disagree violently. We need to get better at talking and persuading, if needs be with realistic threats that we would rather not carry out. People need to know we can and will use force as a last resort as we seek to show them that there are better ways for them as well as us.

The Chancellor behaves as if he believes the Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts. That way disaster lies. In November they forecast  a£394bn deficit for the year to March 2021. By March this year they had found an extra  £40 bn and said the deficit would be £354bn. The outturn for that year announced shortly after the  last forecast was £304 bn. So all their advice to put in  tax rises to raise say £10 bn was swamped by a £90 bn improvement thanks to growth and their poor model.

This year they forecast £234bn. In the year so far the deficit is £26 bn  less than their forecast, again a multiple of the amount in extra  tax revenue they tell the Chancellor to raise.

On this  bogus pessimistic prospectus it would  be most unwise to put up tax rates . The way  to speed a welcome reduction in the deficit is to speed growth by lower tax rates.That is the best way to more revenue  and more jobs. A tax on jobs when you want to promote more and better paid employment is particularly stupid.

The world trading system is not functioning as well as it used to. What began as a result of shut downs of factories and shops from anti covid policies pursued in many countries has morphed into a more complex set of problems getting in the way of smooth continuous supply.

There are too many container ships sitting off California. China from time to time shuts down significant capacity at one or more of its major container ports to tackle another covid outbreak. There is a shortage of empty containers returning to the big exporting countries like China and Germany in time to be filled promptly with new orders.

There is a surprising shortage of people willing to take jobs in many places, despite the shock to employment brought on by covid lockdowns. We have discussed recently the shortage of truck drivers in many countries, where pay and conditions of employment have not proved attractive enough to recruit a new generation of enough people to do the job.

Individual materials and components have been forced into shortages by large expansions of demand. Microprocessors are the most obvious.The  surge in demand for all things digital combined with the wish of the motor industry to turn a car into a kind of smartphone on wheels to induce a big shortage of chips . Timber was suddenly very scarce as housebuilding took off in several places. Oil went dearer as OPEC restrained the supply whilst demand picked up.

Central Banks assure us this will all be temporary and inflation will soon subside. The danger is if Banks keep on printing too many yen dollars and euros they will keep price pressures on. There is also some signs that lockdowns have lost us some capacity amongst the self employed and small businesses that serve us so well. Governments need to be more attentive to the ease of setting up or re opening small businesses so we tackle  more of the shortages.

Let me begin by stating clearly I am not advocating any new taxes and certainly not lobbying for any. There are, however, many worried that if electric cars take off and significant  numbers of petrol and diesel cars are pensioned off there will be a collapse in fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty revenues that will need replacing. They think it is a good idea to ask how this hole in public revenues might be filled. Before buying an electric car some people want to know what the future tax regime might be for them.

Some think the electric car user should have to pay a tax just as the diesel and petrol car owners do today to keep the revenues up. Electricity for charging car batteries could be taxed at a higher rate than domestic electricity, with the charger point incorporating suitable smart meter identification of use. After all electric cars use the roads as much as the ICE cars they replace, will add to the wear and tear and will need road maintenance and improvement programmes.

It is true that the tax raised on the  motorist greatly exceeds the costs of providing and servicing the roads. There has been cross party agreement to a permanent transfer of income from car users to public services and benefit programmes. There is no reason some argue why this choice should change, or why electric vehicles should be exempt if that transfer remains multi party government policy.

Others think the advent of more electric vehicles should be used for a more comprehensive change in travel and vehicle taxation. Why not , they say, introduce road pricing? The state could sweep away fuel duty and VED and replace it by a comprehensive system of charging cars who use  roads. Some would want to charge electric vehicles less per mile than petrol or diesel as a further incentive to adoption. Some want to just charge for congested roads, flexing the charge by time and traffic conditions. Some think just charge for the trunk roads and motorways which account for so much of the miles travelled and which tend to  be more used by business and people on better incomes. That way people using cars to get children to school or themselves to nearby work would not be taxed.

Road pricing has been looked at before and so far always rejected. Many motorists/taxpayers fear it would become an extra tax. They fear the government would extort too much out of their monopoly control of the roads. Many MPs think of it as a poll tax on wheels and would not wish to support it. So I ask you all in a genuine spirit of enquiry how should the government handle revenue loss from electric cars? I do not have a good answer to offer as someone who has not been telling everyone to get an electric vehicle.

There is no such thing as an independent Central Bank, owned as they are by governments on behalf of states or the EU. It is possible for Central Banks to call the shots on interest rates, credit,  banking and money supply for periods without government interference, but in the end these are all issues that may come to matter to politicians and  the public. When they do governments replace Governors, change the remits, change the legislation or the rules which control them. Under Mr Brown as Chancellor then PM the Bank of England accepted a change of  inflation target, and during the banking crash was effectively rightly overridden by the government to cut interest rates at the height of the troubles. Substantial changes were made after the 2008 banking crash by the incoming Coalition government . Even during periods of apparent independence there is usually behind the scenes agreement.  Chancellor Mr Osborne in  the UK chose a new Governor of the Bank of England who shared many of his views. The Bank obligingly saw independently the Remain campaign in the EU referendum that followed as the right answer and produced inaccurate pessimistic forecasts of what would happen if Leave won. The current Fed Chairman is at one with Treasury Secretary Yellen over running the US economy hot. The Fed has a dual mandate on employment as well as inflation and is always expected to work with the Administration of the day.

The doctrine of independence is most advanced in the case of the European Central Bank. It should be much easier there, as no single state or national government can bend it to its will or appoint a new Governor. In practice the ECB works closely with the EU Commission and is understandably an advocate and enforcer of more EU integration. They came to see they needed to take extraordinary action that German opinion would not like to head off Euro crises and allow the continued financing of the deficit countries.

Nonetheless most establishment figures and mainstream political parties claim Central Banks are independent. This means the politicians in office or seeking government positions  have to refuse to comment on a wide range of economic instruments from interest rates through cash and liquidity levels to credit policies and bank regulations, leaving these to a so called independent Bank. It is a shock to the system if a senior government figure does venture any public criticism of a Central Bank. Their efforts at behind the scenes influence have to be  done invisibly.

That is what makes the decision of Germany’s CDU party, the party of Mrs Merkel that claims to welcome EU integration, all the more remarkable. Mr Merz, runner up candidate to lead the CDU and the new Leader’s chosen expert on economic matters has been critical of ECB policy. He thinks the ECB is allowing too much inflation. He shares the Bundesbank Chairman’s fears that German inflation is heading for 5%, an unacceptably high figure to them. He thinks the ECB should stop buying so many bonds, facilitating yet more borrowing  by the deficit states of the Union at low rates of interest. Like it or not ECB policy has become an important tension in the German election.

The government is keen to introduce plant based material into petrol for our vans and cars. They see this as a green option, and claim that moving to a ten per cent content in petrol is the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road.

Given their strong wish to limit the number of cars this is another good argument to limit the number of additional people we invite into our country each year to live here, as many of them will naturally want a car.

I have other important  questions for the government about its belief in the power of ethanol. Which crops does it recommend for the production of this material?  Is the aim to grow more corn or wheat, or to take it from willow and other trees, or some other plants? Is the intention to grow our needs in the UK or does the government wish to add to our import bill? If the aim is to grow more at home, what crops will it displace or can it be an extension to the useful growing areas?

I would want the government to facilitate home production of the ethanol feedstock and the home processing of the crops. I would wish to see these fuel crops as an addition to what we are already growing for food. My concern rests with the current policy from the agriculture section of the  Environment Department, which seems keener on wilding, taking land out of useful production.

We cannot afford to simply add ethanol to a long list of things we import, transferring the jobs and incomes out of the UK and reducing the taxable capacity of our economy as a result. We do  not want another Drax on our hands, where we import timber across the Atlantic to burn in the power station, with considerable environmental costs for long distance transport, and a net loss to the UK economy of the work and incomes timber growing and logging  produces.

It has become a popular question to ask those who recommend welcoming more migrants to the UK for whatever good reason if they will open up one of their spare rooms at home to provide accommodation. I guess it can make good tv to see the responder hunt for some plausible reason why they themselves would not take such action.

It is however a diversion from the big issues that underlie the problem. It is  no  solution to a refugee family to find cramped accommodation in someone else’s home. It is  not even a good long term answer for a single economic migrant, as they too need some independence and opportunity to cease to be single if they wish. The British dream is to own your own home with your own front door and with reasonable freedom over how you organise it and what you do in it. The British reality for most  with no capital and lower incomes is to rent a property which also affords the independence of your own front door, independent kitchen and bathroom facilities and sufficient sleeping accommodation.

We are  not looking to downgrade expectations, or to seek to place more families  in permanent accommodation where they need to share kitchens and bathrooms or lack the space they need to sleep and live in their homes.

Given this we need also to accept there are limits to how much accommodation we can provide and therefore to how many migrants it is possible to accept in any given year. Whilst housing is the main constraint, we also need to think about the provision of other public services. There are limits in the shorter term to how many school places are available, how much NHS capacity there is, how much roadspace and how much water and electricity can be delivered from the existing wires and pipes. When Wokingham was experiencing really fast growth some years ago there were problems getting the water and power system to catch up with rocketing demand. It was one of the arguments I was able to use to move us down then  from a fast growth area.

In order to get housing  supply and demand into better balance we do need to consider the pace of increases in demand as well as supply. Government tends to look at net migration figures, but in any individual place it may be the gross figure that matters, as people leaving the country do not necessarily free up both the number and location of properties needed for the new people arriving.

The weakness  President Biden demonstrated in the Middle East over Afghanistan was unfortunate. It should not be repeated elsewhere.  The President wanted to be closer to allies  but has instead upset them by his unilateral and unwise decision. That is all the more reason for him now to draw closer in other places where alliances are important.

In Korea the USA still maintains a substantial military presence to support the South Korean forces. North Korea with its erratic autocrat in charge needs to know that the USA continues with her long term commitment to support the South. So  does China need to understand that trying to control her wayward neighbouring state.

President Biden has in the past made clear he will support Taiwan. He will need to do so again, and be ready to respond to any further tests of resolve from Chinese naval vessels and planes coming close to the island. NATO as a whole is engaged, with naval vessels from other NATO countries assisting the USA in keeping open international waters in the South China Sea.

In eastern Europe NATO has forces in the Baltic Republics as a reminder to Russia that they have chosen to be allies of the West. US rapid reaction forces are an important part of the NATO support.

The world has just got even more dangerous with the collapse of the Afghan government and the release of prisoners from Afghan jails. Counter terrorism is a daily task for many years, not something democratic countries can get bored with or pretend the need  has gone away. There are regular challenges to western defences by conventional weapons and  by many cyber probes and assaults. Some come from rogue states or from terrorist groups. Some are tolerated if not directed  by large states that the West has to do business with. This requires clear leadership, defining lines of conduct and imposing sanctions or responding as needed where lines are crossed. After Afghanistan President Biden will have to be tougher and clearer to avoid more disasters elsewhere. UK diplomacy could help rebuild trust between the USA and the allies, assuming President Biden recognises the need to reassert US leadership against violent and unacceptable conduct.

I have written a piece requested by  Conservative Home which they published  today on the shortage of truck drivers.

 

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