This article was published yesterday on ConservativeHome and I am reproducing it here:

The BBC’s decision to encourage and allow a journalist to use illegitimate means to gain an interview with the Princess of Wales was bound to damage her marriage more, and harm the family and monarchy that stood behind it. It was not just wrong in itself, but symptomatic of the BBC as an institution, which wanted to use its special place in our nation to disrupt our constitution.

The untruths encouraged more mistrust between close family members. It was cruel on the children of the marriage with the interview and its questions, and wounding to the monarchists in the wider nation. This is why this dispute about journalistic techniques has such resonance. It sums up a characteristic of BBC journalism in recent years that wants to go beyond acting as a faithful mirror to the varying views within our nation to being a player seeking to make news.

BBC journalists often go beyond their welcome task of reporting accurately and in a balanced way what people are saying, to adopting a tabloid opinionated approach seeking to put words into people’s mouths. They attempt to get people to do ill-advised interviews in which they can try and make them say something disruptive, or can create a new division or split where it scarce existed before, or where the plan is to make one worse. All that may make sense for papers and campaigning websites with attitude if done with edge and not with lies – but is not what a public service broadcaster of record should be doing.

The BBC is meant to be a United Kingdom-wide institution. It should help create a sense of common culture and shared democratic conversation for citizens anywhere in our Union who want that. Instead, in recent years the BBC has fanned division. It has helped nationalist movements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland gain more voice for protest and grievance. It has stood for the continuing submission of our country to government from Brussels against the pro-Brexit majority. It has belittled and ignored England, perhaps with a view to building an English backlash to nationalisms elsewhere in our Union, as the SNP and others want. By highlighting the differences and the better deal Scotland has over funding per head, access to higher education and social care, the BBC has done the SNP’s work for them in trying to create English grievance.

The U.K. is a complex country. Many cannot describe the subtle differences between U.K and Great Britain, or explain the relative powers of the UK and Scottish Parliaments, or even remember the different voting system used in devolved elections. There is no adjective to describe U.K-ness. Pro-Union citizens of the U.K.

in Northern Ireland are happy to be called British even though, technically, our country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The BBC seems less keen to be called British, using Scottish and Welsh branding in those parts of the Union whilst trying to break up England with regional branding that fails to resonate with most English people. The BBC often seems better disposed towards the EU/Republic of Ireland approach to Northern Ireland than to the view of the majority community in Northern Ireland it is meant to serve.

The BBC’s treatment of England is a disgrace. It is as if our country did not exist. We are treated in England to a regular diet of commentary on the words and deeds of the SNP government in Scotland. The BBC gives Scotland its own Scottish news, and then muddles the national newscast with English news, because it cannot bring itself to have an English news to match the Scottish news. We are told much more about rules and decisions in Scotland. By contrast, large English mayoralties and county governments covering as many people as Scotland are largely ignored unless they are seeking to become part of the national opposition on things they do not decide.

The BBC is respectful of Scottish and Welsh culture and identity, but stumbles over UK and English identity. It loves pictures with plenty of Scottish saltires and Welsh dragon flags, but some of its presenters make a joke of the Union flag, and it repress the English flag most of the time. Most national broadcasters would be happy with their flag over their websites and close to their newsreaders, but you could not see the BBC ever wanting to do that.

The BBC website is largely devoid of symbols, colours and familiar favourite history of the UK, and carefully screened to remove anything that could reflect well on England. The choice of topics and references to our history seems keener to reveal the flaws of the past which the UK usually shared with many other nations, rather than the exceptions where England and the UK made unique contributions to the advancement of freedom and prosperity through bold moves and radical movements.

It is a great irony that an institution that is so keen to encourage and help many people to come as migrants to our country can never think of all the good things about the UK which means so many of them want to come.

We await new fiscal rules to guide the economy. According to the IFS we have had 12 fiscal rules from 1997 until 2017 and have broken or ditched ten of them. Labour’s aim to keep state debt below 40% of GDP was blown away by their Great Recession and the idea that they would balance the current budget over the cycle with it. Osborne’s aim to get state debt falling as percentage of GDP every year so that actual debt fell from 2014-15 was relaxed when he did not hit target.The 2019 aim of getting the current budget in balance within three years was binned by the pandemic.

All the fiscal rules have been variants of the Maastricht requirements that the deficit should be under 3% and state debt should be under 60% of GDP or declining as a percentage of GDP to get closer to that target. The formal rules are currently in suspension pending new rules. However the Spring 2021 OBR and Red Book was based around getting the budget deficit down to slightly under 3% by 2024-5 and getting state debt falling as a percentage of GDP by the end of the period. It is  all very familiar.

The government is still reporting our progress against the Maastricht rules as if we were still under the EU reporting system and in their semester control. The OBR assures us there are still guides and it still clearly likes the state debt and deficit controls. The rules that the current budget should on average across the cycle be in balance, and capital spending should be no more than 3% of GDP is just another way of expressing the EU  budget deficit ceiling. The way spending growth is constrained in the later years of this Parliament and taxes planned to go up shows just what a grip on policy the state debt controls have.

I am urging a new approach. The  government should stop monitoring the U.K. economy  against the EU debt and deficit rules, and stop budgeting as if they ruled the future. Instead it is a good idea to have a limit on debt interest as a percentage of revenues. The  current limit of 6% is generous and could be brought down to 5%.

There then could be targets for growth and inflation . We  already have  a 2% long term inflation  target which is fine. To produce a balanced policy where there is scope to invest and grow we should set a stretching but achievable growth target. This  should be above 2% for the long term average and should be much higher for this year and next given the need to recover from the pandemic recession.

 

 

The BBC is meant to be a U.K. institution. It should help create a sense of common culture and shared democratic conversation for citizens anywhere in our Union who want that. Instead in recent years the BBC has fanned division. It has helped nationalist movements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland gain more voice for protest and grievance. It has stood for the continuing  submission of our country to government from Brussels against the pro Brexit majority. It has belittled and ignored England, perhaps with a view to building an English backlash to nationalisms elsewhere in our Union as the SNP and others want. BY highlighting the differences and the better deal Scotland has over funding per head, access to higher education and social care the BBC has done the SNP’s work for them in trying to create English grievance.

The U.K. is a complex country. Many  cannot describe the subtle differences between UK and  GB, or explain the relative powers of the UK and Scottish Parliaments or even remember the different voting system used in devolved elections. There is no adjective  to describe U.K. ness. Pro Union citizens of the U.K. in Northern Ireland are happy to be called British even though technically our country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The BBC seems less keen to be called British, using Scottish and Welsh branding in those parts of the Union whilst trying to break up England with regional branding that fails to resonate with most English people. The BBC often seems better disposed towards the EU/Republic of Ireland approach to Northern Ireland than to the view of the majority community in Northern Ireland it is meant to serve.

The BBC’s decision to encourage and allow a journalist to use illegitimate means to gain an interview with the Princess of Wales was bound to disrupt her marriage,  and harm the family and monarchy that stood behind it. It  was not just wrong in itself, but symptomatic of an institution, the BBC, which wanted to use its special place in our nation to disrupt our constitution. They were cruel on the children of the marriage with the interview and its questions, and wounding to the monarchists in the wider nation. This is why this dispute about journalistic techniques has such resonance. It sums up  a characteristic of BBC journalism in recent years that wants to go  beyond acting as a faithful mirror to the varying views within our nation  to being a player seeking to make news. BBC journalists often go beyond their welcome task of reporting accurately and in a balanced way what people are saying, to adopting a tabloid opinionated approach seeking to put words into people’s mouths. They  to get people to do ill advised interviews where they can try and make them say something disruptive, or can create a new division or split where it scarce existed before or where the plan is to make one worse.

The BBC’s treatment of England is a disgrace. It is as if our country did not exist. We are treated in England to a regular diet of commentary on the words and deeds of the SNP government in Scotland. The BBC gives Scotland its own Scottish news then muddles the national  newscast with English news because it cannot bring itself to have an English news to match the Scottish news. We are told the Scottish  covid regulations in the main  news, their continuing opposition to Brexit all the time, and often see the SNP used as a displacement for the official opposition in challenging the UK government. We are not told what the Mayors of London, Birmingham and Manchester are actually doing with the powers and money  as we are with the SNP occasionally. The Mayors  are usually  only heard when they talk about  matters decided by  the national Parliament.

The BBC is respectful of Scottish and Welsh culture and identity  but stumbles over UK and English identity. They love pictures with plenty of Scottish saltires and Welsh dragon flags but make a joke of the Union flag and repress the English flag most of the time. Most national broadcasters would be happy with their flag over their websites and close to their newsreaders, but you could not see the BBC ever wanting to do that. The BBC website is largely devoid of symbols, colours and familiar favourite history of the UK, and carefully screened to remove anything that could reflect well on England. The choice of topics and references to our history seems keener to reveal the flaws of the past which the UK usually shared with many other nations, rather than the exceptions where England and the UK made unique contributions to the advancement of freedom and prosperity through bold moves and radical movements. It is a great irony that an institution that is so keen to encourage and help many people to come as migrants to our country can never think of all the good things about the UK which means so many of them want to come.

The BBC continues on its long chosen road of opposition to Brexit, hostility to  populist movements, veneration of the world of elites and international treaties, and a slavish following to everything wokeish. In interview after interview we have the same tropes and tired  questions, nearly always asked from the point of view that the UK government is to blame for the world’s ills and more government and a bigger public sector would solve many of them.

All this requires an avalanche of sloppy thinking and a passion for olds over news. It also means a relish for unseen contradictions. Here’s a few questions:

Why was it so crucial to have a zero tariffs free trade deal with the EU, yet a similar deal with Australia or the USA would according to recent questions and features be ruinous?

If the BBC really is concerned about UK farming, why has it never examined the great damage done by EU policy and EU imports to our ability to feed ourselves from flourishing food producing  UK farms?

Why does the BBC not recognise England and go on about England as much as it does about Scotland?

Why does the BBC persist in wanting to break England up into Euro style regions, given the way elected regional government was rejected by electors when offered?

Does Manchester which gets plenty of BBC coverage speak for Liverpool or Blackpool?

Given the BBC dislike of border fences and anti migrant policies why hasn’t it run features on the Spanish frontier at Ceuta or the long border fences and walls of central Europe?

Why has it never explored the relationship between the so called austerity policies of the Osborne era which it disliked and following the Maastricht rules on state debt and deficits?

 

I could go on with many more. You might like to supply some.

 

 

Dear Grant

I enjoyed hearing your enthusiastic presentation of railway reform. I agree fully with the aims you have set for the new railway. It must indeed be passenger focussed, concentrating on the basics of punctuality, comfort, cleanliness and great service. I also agree that you need to harness more private capital and ideas, and allow more competitive challenge to ensure innovation and rising service standards.

Your example of extra cost and wasted effort concerning attribution of blame for delays was well made. 400 people in the train operating companies and Network Rail arguing over who had caused a delay and who should therefore compensate is not ideal. It also illustrates the need to remodel the railways under leadership who wish to reduce these kinds of costs. The danger will be that the train companies will still keep people ready to dispute their responsibility for delay, as presumably their new contracts to run the services will contain penalty clauses for poor punctuality, whilst Great British Railways may keep the transferred staff from Network Rail and still engage on the other side arguing that it was not their fault. Simpler contracts with more objective data to quantify risk and blame would obviously help but will not eliminate all disputes with contractors.

As Great British Railways take over responsibility for timetables, there is a need to ensure they wish to challenge past patterns in a pro passenger way. Various Councils and local communities will be lobbying for faster and more direct routes, and for more frequent services. There needs to be a fair way of evaluating these bids, assessing value for money and likely demand levels. There also needs to be a good review method to examine line capacity. Network Rail tended to a cautious approach on line capacity, with a reluctance to expand it to accommodate new services. There are various ways of increasing the capacity, including the faster roll out of digital signalling which allows more use of the lines safely, and more by pass track sections to allow more fast trains to dodge the stopping trains on the same line. Faced with demands for more and different services there may well need to be decisions taken to expand some line capacity to allow competitive challenge. How will such decisions be taken?

It will also be important at this time of massive change in work patterns and travel needs for the railway to adapt to the new train  travel demands, not to defend out of date service provision geared to five day a week commuting. Budgets need to allow changes to services and timetables, to permit improved capacity where needed, but to avoid subsidy for little used services which once commanded a decent number of passengers.

As they take over responsibility for service standards there will need to be decisions about how companies are rewarded for service innovation and good quality. How much can they expect to make by way of return from innovation? When and how will good new developments be rolled out across the network through other companies? Will there be any innovation franchise payment or one off contribution to the development costs for the innovator?

As they take over responsibility for routes will there be easy methods  by which communities and rival companies can offer to provide a more frequent or more direct or faster service to a named town or area than the current Railway offers? If so, how will this be assimilated and used? The Hull Trains service is a good example of a challenger company delivering a better service for Hull passengers, but it was all too rare under Network Rail when potential service providers often faced a variety of obstacles which defended incumbents.

One of the areas where Network Rail often blocked progress was in property. The large Rail estate is suitable for joint ventures and development attached to the rail lines. The large central City stations have now received attention with several undergoing extensive mixed use redevelopment, but the large bulk of stations, sidings and yards on the network have not. Worst still Network Rail can be a problem for others seeking developments on their land nearby, as in my constituency where Network Rail wanted a substantial payment  from the Council for wanting to place a bridge across the railway line to cut risks at the level crossing and to allow more housebuilding in the area.

None of this is easy. It will require a good constitution and objectives for Great British Railways, the choice of flexible and imaginative leadership and strategic Ministerial supervision to carry it off.

Yours etc

 

 

The proposed reorganisation of the railways has at its centre a wholly admirable concentration on the passenger. We are told there will be a new accent on

1, Punctuality.

2. Cleanliness.

3. More comfortable seats – also a campaign of mine given the way GWR substituted less comfortable seats for more comfortable ones when it switched from the 125s to the new Hitachi sets.

4. Good wi fi availability

The aim is to allow the reconnection of places where closure of lines and stations by the former nationalised industry left places without service, and to encourage service quality improvements in areas like catering.

The issue is can the  new structure deliver these straightforward and desirable requirements? Great British Rail, a public sector body, will have ultimate control of trains and track, timetables and service levels. They can use and harness a wide range of local community groups, local government partnerships and private sector companies to bid to provide and manage services.

I asked for some assurance that Great British Railways will have the powers and the will to  innovate and accept challengers to the status quo. We do not want them delivering existing timetables and clinging to them when it would be possible to change them for the better. We do not want them delivering current levels and standards of catering or wifi or other on board services when we want new and better.

The government made several good arguments about the way rail travel shrank badly under nationalisation, with  high fares, line and station closures, poor catering and poor punctuality. The Secretary of State remined us  how the privatised railway doubled passenger miles travelled after years of decline. Now we want something better that can adapt to part week commuting, new patterns of leisure travel and a more tempting offer to displace the car.

 

The cry has gone up from the Opposition parties that the government should reform social care. Labour in office promised to do so but found it too difficult and abandoned the idea. Mrs May in office made proposals which proved to be very unpopular and was unable to find a compromise reform which the Opposition parties liked. It turned out there are as many variants of social care reform as there are political parties. I have never personally pledged to campaign for social care financial  reform, and have always been cautious about the subject having studied various plans  and seen the degree of disagreement there is about both the objectives and the shape of reform.

Today I am inviting those interested to write in with their thoughts again on this vexed topic. I am particularly interested in what people think the aim of reform should be, as well as in the more normal question of who pays for the care people need?

I have championed changes to social care to improve the service for those who need it. This seems to be the forgotten issue amongst many reform plans. The government does need to set out again clear rules governing the relative responsibilities of care homes and the NHS.  Care homes whether private or public sector need to work closely with GPs and the local hospitals to ensure elderly residents have good access to free NHS care as they are entitled to. The NHS should not send patients back to a care home prematurely as some did during the pandemic with bad consequences for the patients and other residents at the Care home. GPs might like to offer – as some do -surgery times at established Care Homes to cover the residents needs as well as  making on line consultations and prescription renewal accessible. The local hospital needs good links and understanding with Care Home Managers. There is a temptation by Care Homes to send residents to the local hospital on a precautionary basis where better understanding and contact might allow the resident to stay with GP supervision in the Care Home.

I also wish to see decent standards of accommodation and catering. Where someone is supported by taxpayer money for the living costs in a Care Home the budget should be sufficiently generous to provide a decent standard and good pay for the Care workers. The sums involved may well need to vary around the country as property cost is an important part of total cost and property costs are very variable. A property based supplement to amounts should reflect objective property cost figures by area.

It is also important for Homes to have good programmes of activities for residents for those who wish to join in with them in public rooms or on outings. There must be quality of life as well as security and protection.

It has been a longstanding policy of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties when in government that whilst all healthcare is free living costs are not free for those who have private income or surplus capital. Surplus capital includes the value of their own former  home if they   no longer need it as they are on their own or are  going to live out their remaining days in a Care home with their partner. I accepted this policy when my own parents had to go into a care home.  I helped them choose a good one and helped them sell their flat to pay the bills. Some now argue that there should be a higher permitted amount of capital that people can pass on to the beneficiaries of their wills. I think most accept that a rich person  on a large pension or with substantial wealth should continue to pay their living costs in old age. If the state does opt for a higher permitted capital amount then there will be the need for extra taxes on the rest of us to pay for this alteration to allow the inheritance. Should this line be redrawn?

The Uk has now rolled over the EU deals with other countries as promised in the referendum. The draft Australian Free Trade Agreement could be the first of the new UK negotiated deals, which will go much further than the EU went in opening up opportunities for more trade and business activity. The Australian one will go some way to restore the losses we experienced with Australia thanks to EU protectionism against them. Australia is a key ally and partner, a fellow member of the 5 Eyes Group and a willing collaborator. For example, Australia is buying the rights and support to build  9 Type 26 UK designed  frigates.

The Agreement will sweep away tariffs and quotas, and open up services. It will provide great opportunities for the UK dairy industry to sell more UK cheeses, the whisky industry to sell more drink and the  car industry to sell more vehicles. UK consumers will have access to some great Australian products at cheaper prices, with a likely rise in interest in Australian wines as one of the  consumer wins.

Some now say we need to offer protection to our beef and sheep meat sectors through tariff quotas to limit the amount of product Australia can sell us at better prices. To argue in  this way is to seek to wreck the agreement. Australia has rightly  not signed Free Trade Agreements with any country whilst accepting tariff rate quotas. The people who think the UK needs this protection from food produced on the other side of the world did not of course offer any such protection from EU food products, where we have tariff and quota free food trade and plenty of EU imports. It is difficult to believe our beef and sheep meat sectors will lose out to Australia given the distances involved and the relative costs. Australia has  high standards of animal welfare and husbandry. UK beef and sheep meat are quality products with plenty of scope for us to export more and to sell more at home.

We owe it to ourselves and to Australia to do this deal. When we joined the EEC we turned our backs on Australia and other Commonwealth allies, placing heavy barriers in the way of their exports to us to give a big advantage to European product. Australia is a willing friend keen to promote our joint interests by freer trade. Doing a deal with Australia also gets us closer and sooner to a deal with CPTPP, the Pacific partnership countries. That is another large prize, a free trade deal with the fastest growing part of the world.

It is wrong that many GB businesses now find they cannot send their goods to willing buyers in Northern Ireland without a large amount of extra paperwork or even EU inspired bans. Both sides to the UK/EU Agreement opposed a hard  border on the island of Ireland. Both wished to protect the EU single market and the UK internal market, and allow NI easy access to both. That is what the Protocol says.

The EU has decided to use the Protocol to create a hard border in Northern Ireland against Great Britain. This border is not in the Irish Sea but is enforced against containers, vans and trucks on arrival in Northern Ireland. The EU seems to think a North-south border has to be open but an east-west  border needs to be tightly controlled by them. They should try reading the Good Friday Agreement which is about looking after the interests of both the Protestant and the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. This heavy handed  approach by the EU violates the Good Friday Agreement as far as the loyalist community in Northern Ireland is concerned.

Lord Frost’s recent article is right in tone and content. He now needs to be careful in negotiations not to allow the EU to insert its controls in the way of GB/Northern Ireland trade. That trade should be regulated and policed by the UK and NI authorities. Of course they should make sure people are  not using easy access to NI to then send things onto the Republic which are not EU compliant. There is no evidence this is happening. The UK authorities have every interest in not allowing that. There is no need to submit trucks taking supermarket produce from GB to named stores in Northern Ireland to special checks in case they were planning to go on to the Republic, because they are not. In an age of computer manifests, truck tracking, pre filed journey and stock schedules trade should be allowed to flow. Any checks or audits that are needed in NI should be for the UK to carry out, and any needed in the Republic for the EU. There have been smuggling problems on the UK/Republic border during our time in  the EU which were always sorted out by co-operation from each side whilst respecting the different jurisdictions. .

Either the EU agrees sensible mutual enforcement with each jurisdiction taking responsibility on its own territory or the UK must simply impose that on the UK side. It is the best and most practical way of implementing the stated aims of the Protocol.

 

The Spring 2021 official EU forecasts show the EU growing at 4.2% in 2021 and 4.4% in 2022, compared to their UK forecast of 5% in 2021 and 5.3% in 2022.  Yet when they put the detailed forecasts for each member state and for the EU as a whole in an appendix you open up the EU one and discover they have used the  numbers from the UK forecast instead. Not surprising they prefer the UK forecast, even though their version still  looks a bit low.