I share every bitter thought of yours about this "Government", but doubt that I could write as humorously. There was just one stellar achievement of the ravishing Reeves that you omitted - the onetime chess champion, apparently, so stellar that no one can find any trace of it. She seems to have a knack of doing wonderful things that no one else can recall.
As for the farmers, they are unique in having a factor of production (land) that has a value out of all proportion to its financial profitability - because land has many non-farming uses. Farms are also usually in family ownership so ownership is concentrated in one or two hands, unlike a company with hundreds or thousands of shareholders. So, on paper, they are very wealthy, but the cash flow generated does not reflect that wealth. Taxing that wealth will reduce farm size, reduce scale economies, and demotivate the sector. It would also encourage corporate farming (hello Blackrock) ... ah, that explains it!
Thanks Jos. Yes. I forgot about Reeves being a ‘chess champion’ ! 🤣
I think we saw how this sort of policy worked in the 1970s to eat away people’s property.
It’s just an aside. But I’m always minded how this is a one way street. These farms always end up in hands of developers and corporations. It rarely moves in the other direction. Unless of course we’re talking about the billionaire rich.
More and more stuff in fewer and fewer hands. And they’re meant to be the left. While ‘we’ are categorised as ‘the right’. They’re just corporatists and crony capitalists really. The rest of us? ‘Individualists’ maybe? We need new terms.
I worked in Bulgaria when it was trying to convert to capitalism. I was invited to a typical flat of one of the workers - one those tiny apartments in vast building blocks that the communists thought ideal for the proles. The Bulgarians were very hospitable and I spent occasional weekends with them. One weekend they drove me up to the select part of Sofia where the big houses belonging to the Party officials were congregated, Even at this time (1993) the Party still held power, and was just trying to work out how to hold on to its ill-gotten gains under the coming new-fangled system called democracy. They still had guards at the entrances to their spacious detached properties with grounds and swimming pools.
It seems in every society there is a rapacious group that wants the lion's share of the capital, and they either take it by force or manipulate the legal process to ensure they get it. It is no coincidence that amongst MPs lawyers are the predominant occupation, and corporations pay retainers to MPs to keep ahead of the game. The people think they have a democracy where every vote is equal - well, it is at the general election, but in the House where it really matters, it's big money that speaks there
Thank you LSO. My favourite was when it was revealed that we spend £536 million on farming projects around the world. Surely the obvious solution is to stop funding other farmers (that's if they even see any of this money) at the price of our own?
Yes Jeremy. It seems obvious. But the same goes for a lot of the ‘Aid’ we send round the world. Very little of which I’d suggest does’t end up in the pockets of various grifters, NGOs and foreign government officials.
Thumping good read, LSO, and I laughed a lot before I broke down and cried... Keir & Co are indeed being exposed for the absolute cretins they are. Unintended consequences? Have they ever heard the phrase? I do feel for the farmers, having worked on znd around farms earlier in my life I know what a hard life it is. They truly Work from Home and thank heavens they do. Can you imagine a world where we are desperately awaiting imported food from Calais and the French farmers are setting fire to the highway because they c a n ?
I especially liked your Teletubbies Selling Jaguars comparison. I expect Jaguar in Pink represents the dying breath of corporate wokeness and we can start making our way back to sanity now.
Thanks Ragged.🤞The backlash the Jag ad has caused does give me hope that you are correct, and the tanker is finally beginning to turn. Slowly. Very very slowly.
Thanks for the sanity check for the week. You do though wonder what is going on and think weird conspiratorial thoughts. The people in charge know they will not be able to create a green and prosperous land. Another £40 billion in tax won’t even pay the interest bill. Are they ideologically committed to tearing everything up and creating a perfect society from the rubble? Or do they think they can extract enough wealth for themselves while turning the rest of us into an impoverished and docile lumpenproletariat? This has to go beyond incompetence or student idealism locked in permanent adolescence - I just don’t want to go where those thoughts might lead!
I’m not sure there’s a coherent strategy at work here Martin. Not really. I think they’ve just managed to put a machine in place which incentivises waste, the centralisation of power, and bureaucratic growth. Everything else flows from that.
That’s why I am always wary of ‘we need to save money-cut benefits’. It won’t really save money, and it will just make miserable lives more miserable. We need instead to cut the system which actually incentivises unemployment. High taxes, massive state fiefdoms, sclerotic planning rules etc. Anyway I’m off on one…I’ll keep it for a post. Cheers!
Another post for you to work on, although this gets both gloomy and metaphysical. It is tempting to ascribe human folly and vanity to a symbolic source, whether a villain in Switzerland or an evil spirit seeking whom it may devour. Whatever, the effect is the same. A society can be ordered, optimistic and prosperous or it heads in the opposite direction.
One other thing I fear from our current overlords is that as reality starts to bite, there is no more money from taxes or bond markets, with zero growth and increased welfare spending. Labour will fall apart trying to impose austerity.
Well on form, LSO, great piece! Liked the ever expanding list of achievements for our new chancellor. It’s not just the £500m taken by destroying farms that will be wasted just being given free gratis to the public sector, so is the other £39.5bn. The public would see more benefit from it by simply printing it out and burning it in Drax, at least there would be some measurable gain from that ‘investment’ however transitory.
Ha ha. I think you’re right P. We need to shrink the state. But as ever when you suggest that it is immediately translated as ‘You want to privatise the NHS and close orphanages? You’re a monster!’ Charlotte Gill is excellent on this stuff. Pointing out the amount of government waste.
A mixed system seems best. With a safety net for the poor. The only problem would be the number of exemptions the grifters would demand.
It’s why ‘£10 to visit your gp’ would never work. It’s a good idea in theory. In practice only the compliant section of the middle class would pay it. Us mugs.
It works in France. It used to be €25 per visit to the GP (but GPs could charge what they like - what the market would bear). The state used to pay a fixed amount of that - around €17 when I was there - and one could either pay the difference oneself or take out private insurance. And one had a choice of specialist care from one man bands to private and public hospitals. Waiting lists? Never came across 'em.
Australia has a similar system. In both cases, the unemployed and those on defined benefits paid nothing. The problem is not with this system but the system that provides so many people with benefits and free access to medical services. The undeserving "poor" - the ones that will not get off their backsides - are the problem.
I’m not sure it would work here Jos. For the reasons I said. It would not be a universal charge. It would only be paid by the same people who pay for everything. The law abiding middle class. Everyone else would get a pass.
I cannot agree that the problem is the ‘undeserving poor’. People respond to incentives. We shouldn’t blame the most powerless in our society for responding to incentives created by the most powerful.
Stop what you're doing to read LSO! That's my rule. Great stuff LSO, one mistake in my opinion: the unneccesary swipe at Ellie Simmons, boosts Guardian clicks but it will get howls of 'nasty' - I can't send this to friends with that in there. Everything else spot on and it all makes sense when we realise Starmer is clearly taking instructions from his Communist WEF bosses and they take instructions from the UN who takes their instructions from China - that is worthy of research, easily proven. Start with 'Hidden Hand', the book by two Australian academics who lay out how China's tentacles reach into every government and corner of the world, the most incredible hidden war against us when we thought Gaza or Ukraine were wars. The 5th Gen war against the west, which we're losing, is 1000 times bigger.
Ah, we have strayed onto the subject of my PhD, some 50 years ago, when there had been a history of assistance to manufacturing businesses in remoter areas. Special Development Areas was one of the terms used. But they had no sustainable impact. The businesses were mostly branches of existing businesses, attracted by the subsidies. At the first sign of recession, it was these branch factories that were closed down. There were other issues too, but no time to repeat the thesis here!
I agree there are vast swathes of the country that have been failed by Government - mostly former industrial areas. They have also been failed by an education system which has never put employability, useful knowledge and optimism at the forefront of the curriculum. Blair with his emphasis on universities at the expense of apprenticeships and training really screwed a complete generation - and it is continuing.
In fact, we are talking at cross purposes because I can see that your focus is on the unemployed that never had a chance and I was referring to those either in employment and no more than dead weights on others (all in the public sector), and those who could work but choose not to. Yes, the State has encouraged both categories, but the objects of my criticism have freewill - they could choose to put more effort into their work or they could choose self-respect by getting a job. I should add that my experience in the UK is limited to North Wales, Shropshire, the South East and the South West, which were not the areas scarred by mass closures of industry.
Ok Jos. All good points. Ultimately I worry that this broader issue is distilled by the right simply a problem with ‘spongers’. And while I absolutely agree that wholesale abuse exists, I believe it’s too easy to believe that it is the entirety of the problem. I know you do not believe that. But I think we should be focussing elsewhere as a priority, while cracking down hard on abuses.
So perhaps we only have a difference when it comes to focus and priority.
It is only one problem. There are so many now in this country that despair is the only reaction of one so advanced in years that he will never have the energy or time to fight back. I understand why so many of the oldies stick to their gardens.
👍LSO it does indeed seem clear that your Starmer and friends are the enemies of the citizens. The attack on farmers has been all throughout Europe.
I read that Starmer and Macron are collaborating to send troops to Ukraine, due to Trumps policies.🙄 have you heard this?
I imagine Trudeau will join in soon. The young leaders of the WEF sticking together. It seems though they may have a very difficult time gathering enough men to volunteer, especially given the way the three have demonized men, especially white men, for years. It could be an interesting plot twist, if true.
Maybe all the trans and DEI soldiers will be enough.
I agree with your take on Biden making this move to sabotage Trump’s administration.
Trumps win does indeed hinder the plot of the world wide governments + elites (fascism) take over of the masses.
Are they willing to nuke the world to complete the goal? Or is it just more scare tactics to get Trump and Americans in line? Devilish either way.
Most of us are asking the same question. I don’t think Biden was ever in charge. Some say the state department runs everything. Jake Sullivan and Anthony blinken are another guess. Jake is the one who has been cozying up to Iran since his days with Obama. He also hired an Iranian spy to have top security clearance. The head of the CIA has close ties to the EU through his wife who works there.
And then there is the top democrats- Schumer, Pelosi and of course Obama. Most of Bidens top aides with important influence are former Obama aides.
It is all corrupt. More than I ever imagined.
Even worse they are delusional.
Thankful Trump has a large team of very intelligent and courageous people on his side this time.
Good interview Winston Marshall had with Kevin Roberts (of the dreaded, lol, 2025 report) yesterday.
These are big problems, however, step back even further from the detail and consider the possibility of the following: aside from demoralisation of the productive economy, the effects of this government will only just be taking hold in four years or so as the general waft of the last Conservative government’s flirtation with planned economy wears out and no-one does anything constructive at all, anywhere. (Too tired even to murmur that a 27 week wait to see a doctor is the best health-service-type activity in the world). Finding the effects of the tax / policy burden passed down, inexorably and unavoidably, from the ‘high and mighty’ to them, the population will vote for whomever is the most charismatic person claiming not to be in the Labour or Conservative parties and, inevitably, at a time where the Reeves budget(s) is beginning to scrape-away at whatever economic foundation layer remains on the beach.
[There is hope though because the government does not run the country: millions of people arising early each morning to work do. Many of them will spot competitive opportunities or productive service that the exhausted overlook, find themselves in leadership positions, and that will carry the country onward as it always has, irrespective of whatever obstacles to goodness in the world come next.]
Governments can stifle people and economic growth. I can recall the days of tax at 19/6 in the £ - that is 97.5 per cent marginal tax rate. No, I never paid that level but my father did, and the convolutions he went through to reduce tax liability were, economically speaking, a sheer waste of productive resources. And of course there was a huge Inland Revenue bureaucracy doing their best to monitor everyone and reduce tax evasion. These days, Govt departments can monitor you easily and more comprehensively - it's joined up Govt where you are a number on their computer. Submitting a tax return is mostly done online these days where everyone has a gateway number, and that number is shared across every department - and I would not be surprised if MI5/MI6 and the police had access to this data too. The only enterprises which will escape surveillance are the illegal ones.
Agree here Jos. It’s weird how the Taxman can make an intrusive, comprehensive IT system work perfectly well. But the NHS has never ever managed it. It’s almost like waste, siloing and inefficiency are incentivised in ‘our’ wonderful health service.
The problem with your hopeful conclusion there Ross is that the state (both Labour and Tory) has been finding ever new impediments to stop that from happening. Yes. The top 10% of entrepreneurs may still be able to spot opportunities. But the other 90% will just go, nah, this is too difficult, and head off to Dubai.
Hi, Do farmers still get paid to leave their fields fallow. Maybe. Recent train ride Woking to Portsmouth, hundreds of fields growing nothing but weeds and other unbeatable goodies. On another subject we have a Mr Dyson who wanted Brexit, and then moved his business to Singapore. He also owns a farm of some 4700 acres on which no declaration of income is declared is this because the value of the farm does not come into IHT rules.
Maybe Dyson moved to Singapore because he felt that we never capitalised on the benefits of Brexit.
Maybe if we had, he would have kept his business here. And we would have attracted many more.
But refusing to rescind any EU laws (except the ‘Tampon Tax! Boo!!) and shadowing the EU rules and regs so it will be easy to slip us back in by the back door, hasn’t been a very successful policy for growth.
Both the Tories and Labour seem to believe this country is useless, powerless, and finished. And their policies seem guaranteed to ensure that they are correct.
If I was Dyson. Or a few years younger. I’d be off to Singapore too.
Ah - that wonderful EU solution to the problem of butter and grain mountains and wine lakes! Set aside it was called - get paid for not producing. Then some sophistication crept in and they called them environmental schemes - leave margins around fields, let fields grow wild for a year or two to encourage wildlife. And, of course, get paid for it. We now, outside of the EU, have a number of schemes for farmers which encourage biodiversity and various other non-agricultural objectives. If farmers lose output from this approach, then, in my view, its fair enough to compensate them for their losses. After all, we (may) get a landscape better for all - and I include the natural flora and fauna under "all". My grouse would be that DEFRA does not monitor all its schemes to ensure that there is an environmental benefit. Some farmers do get away with murder.
You sound as if you don't understand the countryside. Crops are mostly annual - they grow in the spring and summer. Between crops, the land is often fallow or idle. You try growing stuff in the winter!
BTW, income (a flow) has nothing to to do with IHT (on capital).
My weekly touchstone of sanity 🤩 - thank you!
Thank you for coming Bettina!
I share every bitter thought of yours about this "Government", but doubt that I could write as humorously. There was just one stellar achievement of the ravishing Reeves that you omitted - the onetime chess champion, apparently, so stellar that no one can find any trace of it. She seems to have a knack of doing wonderful things that no one else can recall.
As for the farmers, they are unique in having a factor of production (land) that has a value out of all proportion to its financial profitability - because land has many non-farming uses. Farms are also usually in family ownership so ownership is concentrated in one or two hands, unlike a company with hundreds or thousands of shareholders. So, on paper, they are very wealthy, but the cash flow generated does not reflect that wealth. Taxing that wealth will reduce farm size, reduce scale economies, and demotivate the sector. It would also encourage corporate farming (hello Blackrock) ... ah, that explains it!
Thanks Jos. Yes. I forgot about Reeves being a ‘chess champion’ ! 🤣
I think we saw how this sort of policy worked in the 1970s to eat away people’s property.
It’s just an aside. But I’m always minded how this is a one way street. These farms always end up in hands of developers and corporations. It rarely moves in the other direction. Unless of course we’re talking about the billionaire rich.
More and more stuff in fewer and fewer hands. And they’re meant to be the left. While ‘we’ are categorised as ‘the right’. They’re just corporatists and crony capitalists really. The rest of us? ‘Individualists’ maybe? We need new terms.
I worked in Bulgaria when it was trying to convert to capitalism. I was invited to a typical flat of one of the workers - one those tiny apartments in vast building blocks that the communists thought ideal for the proles. The Bulgarians were very hospitable and I spent occasional weekends with them. One weekend they drove me up to the select part of Sofia where the big houses belonging to the Party officials were congregated, Even at this time (1993) the Party still held power, and was just trying to work out how to hold on to its ill-gotten gains under the coming new-fangled system called democracy. They still had guards at the entrances to their spacious detached properties with grounds and swimming pools.
It seems in every society there is a rapacious group that wants the lion's share of the capital, and they either take it by force or manipulate the legal process to ensure they get it. It is no coincidence that amongst MPs lawyers are the predominant occupation, and corporations pay retainers to MPs to keep ahead of the game. The people think they have a democracy where every vote is equal - well, it is at the general election, but in the House where it really matters, it's big money that speaks there
Thank you LSO. My favourite was when it was revealed that we spend £536 million on farming projects around the world. Surely the obvious solution is to stop funding other farmers (that's if they even see any of this money) at the price of our own?
Yes Jeremy. It seems obvious. But the same goes for a lot of the ‘Aid’ we send round the world. Very little of which I’d suggest does’t end up in the pockets of various grifters, NGOs and foreign government officials.
You missed our Rach also beating Elon with getting people to Mars ......
Ha ha! Sorry Ian. My error….🤣
Thumping good read, LSO, and I laughed a lot before I broke down and cried... Keir & Co are indeed being exposed for the absolute cretins they are. Unintended consequences? Have they ever heard the phrase? I do feel for the farmers, having worked on znd around farms earlier in my life I know what a hard life it is. They truly Work from Home and thank heavens they do. Can you imagine a world where we are desperately awaiting imported food from Calais and the French farmers are setting fire to the highway because they c a n ?
Thank you Julia! Yes they claim to want ‘energy security’ and ‘food security’ and yet do everything they can to undermine both.
Very good, Mr LSO. Well done.
I especially liked your Teletubbies Selling Jaguars comparison. I expect Jaguar in Pink represents the dying breath of corporate wokeness and we can start making our way back to sanity now.
Thanks Ragged.🤞The backlash the Jag ad has caused does give me hope that you are correct, and the tanker is finally beginning to turn. Slowly. Very very slowly.
Thanks for the sanity check for the week. You do though wonder what is going on and think weird conspiratorial thoughts. The people in charge know they will not be able to create a green and prosperous land. Another £40 billion in tax won’t even pay the interest bill. Are they ideologically committed to tearing everything up and creating a perfect society from the rubble? Or do they think they can extract enough wealth for themselves while turning the rest of us into an impoverished and docile lumpenproletariat? This has to go beyond incompetence or student idealism locked in permanent adolescence - I just don’t want to go where those thoughts might lead!
I’m not sure there’s a coherent strategy at work here Martin. Not really. I think they’ve just managed to put a machine in place which incentivises waste, the centralisation of power, and bureaucratic growth. Everything else flows from that.
That’s why I am always wary of ‘we need to save money-cut benefits’. It won’t really save money, and it will just make miserable lives more miserable. We need instead to cut the system which actually incentivises unemployment. High taxes, massive state fiefdoms, sclerotic planning rules etc. Anyway I’m off on one…I’ll keep it for a post. Cheers!
Another post for you to work on, although this gets both gloomy and metaphysical. It is tempting to ascribe human folly and vanity to a symbolic source, whether a villain in Switzerland or an evil spirit seeking whom it may devour. Whatever, the effect is the same. A society can be ordered, optimistic and prosperous or it heads in the opposite direction.
One other thing I fear from our current overlords is that as reality starts to bite, there is no more money from taxes or bond markets, with zero growth and increased welfare spending. Labour will fall apart trying to impose austerity.
Well on form, LSO, great piece! Liked the ever expanding list of achievements for our new chancellor. It’s not just the £500m taken by destroying farms that will be wasted just being given free gratis to the public sector, so is the other £39.5bn. The public would see more benefit from it by simply printing it out and burning it in Drax, at least there would be some measurable gain from that ‘investment’ however transitory.
Ha ha. I think you’re right P. We need to shrink the state. But as ever when you suggest that it is immediately translated as ‘You want to privatise the NHS and close orphanages? You’re a monster!’ Charlotte Gill is excellent on this stuff. Pointing out the amount of government waste.
I want to privatise the NHS - as would anyone of sense who has experienced the healthcare systems of France or Australia!
A mixed system seems best. With a safety net for the poor. The only problem would be the number of exemptions the grifters would demand.
It’s why ‘£10 to visit your gp’ would never work. It’s a good idea in theory. In practice only the compliant section of the middle class would pay it. Us mugs.
It works in France. It used to be €25 per visit to the GP (but GPs could charge what they like - what the market would bear). The state used to pay a fixed amount of that - around €17 when I was there - and one could either pay the difference oneself or take out private insurance. And one had a choice of specialist care from one man bands to private and public hospitals. Waiting lists? Never came across 'em.
Australia has a similar system. In both cases, the unemployed and those on defined benefits paid nothing. The problem is not with this system but the system that provides so many people with benefits and free access to medical services. The undeserving "poor" - the ones that will not get off their backsides - are the problem.
I’m not sure it would work here Jos. For the reasons I said. It would not be a universal charge. It would only be paid by the same people who pay for everything. The law abiding middle class. Everyone else would get a pass.
I cannot agree that the problem is the ‘undeserving poor’. People respond to incentives. We shouldn’t blame the most powerless in our society for responding to incentives created by the most powerful.
Powerless? The people who play the system? The powerless are those that fund the system.
Stop what you're doing to read LSO! That's my rule. Great stuff LSO, one mistake in my opinion: the unneccesary swipe at Ellie Simmons, boosts Guardian clicks but it will get howls of 'nasty' - I can't send this to friends with that in there. Everything else spot on and it all makes sense when we realise Starmer is clearly taking instructions from his Communist WEF bosses and they take instructions from the UN who takes their instructions from China - that is worthy of research, easily proven. Start with 'Hidden Hand', the book by two Australian academics who lay out how China's tentacles reach into every government and corner of the world, the most incredible hidden war against us when we thought Gaza or Ukraine were wars. The 5th Gen war against the west, which we're losing, is 1000 times bigger.
Thanks Mrs Bucket. It’s not a swipe at Ellie Simmons. Just a joke about Starmer. Nothing nasty here.
Just don't think it needs to be there, less is more.
To save me clicking on the Grauniad, just tell me who Ellie Simmons is! An air head like Zoe Williams?
Not at all Jos. She’s no airhead. Shes a brilliant, gold medal winning, Paralympic swimmer.
Ah, we have strayed onto the subject of my PhD, some 50 years ago, when there had been a history of assistance to manufacturing businesses in remoter areas. Special Development Areas was one of the terms used. But they had no sustainable impact. The businesses were mostly branches of existing businesses, attracted by the subsidies. At the first sign of recession, it was these branch factories that were closed down. There were other issues too, but no time to repeat the thesis here!
I agree there are vast swathes of the country that have been failed by Government - mostly former industrial areas. They have also been failed by an education system which has never put employability, useful knowledge and optimism at the forefront of the curriculum. Blair with his emphasis on universities at the expense of apprenticeships and training really screwed a complete generation - and it is continuing.
In fact, we are talking at cross purposes because I can see that your focus is on the unemployed that never had a chance and I was referring to those either in employment and no more than dead weights on others (all in the public sector), and those who could work but choose not to. Yes, the State has encouraged both categories, but the objects of my criticism have freewill - they could choose to put more effort into their work or they could choose self-respect by getting a job. I should add that my experience in the UK is limited to North Wales, Shropshire, the South East and the South West, which were not the areas scarred by mass closures of industry.
Ok Jos. All good points. Ultimately I worry that this broader issue is distilled by the right simply a problem with ‘spongers’. And while I absolutely agree that wholesale abuse exists, I believe it’s too easy to believe that it is the entirety of the problem. I know you do not believe that. But I think we should be focussing elsewhere as a priority, while cracking down hard on abuses.
So perhaps we only have a difference when it comes to focus and priority.
It is only one problem. There are so many now in this country that despair is the only reaction of one so advanced in years that he will never have the energy or time to fight back. I understand why so many of the oldies stick to their gardens.
👍LSO it does indeed seem clear that your Starmer and friends are the enemies of the citizens. The attack on farmers has been all throughout Europe.
I read that Starmer and Macron are collaborating to send troops to Ukraine, due to Trumps policies.🙄 have you heard this?
I imagine Trudeau will join in soon. The young leaders of the WEF sticking together. It seems though they may have a very difficult time gathering enough men to volunteer, especially given the way the three have demonized men, especially white men, for years. It could be an interesting plot twist, if true.
Maybe all the trans and DEI soldiers will be enough.
I agree with your take on Biden making this move to sabotage Trump’s administration.
Trumps win does indeed hinder the plot of the world wide governments + elites (fascism) take over of the masses.
Are they willing to nuke the world to complete the goal? Or is it just more scare tactics to get Trump and Americans in line? Devilish either way.
Silly boys playing with young mens lives for their own advantage. Yuk.
Who is in charge Deidre? It seems someone is trying to start WWIII.
It’s just hard to tell, with Biden out of his tree and Harris out to lunch, exactly who.
Most of us are asking the same question. I don’t think Biden was ever in charge. Some say the state department runs everything. Jake Sullivan and Anthony blinken are another guess. Jake is the one who has been cozying up to Iran since his days with Obama. He also hired an Iranian spy to have top security clearance. The head of the CIA has close ties to the EU through his wife who works there.
And then there is the top democrats- Schumer, Pelosi and of course Obama. Most of Bidens top aides with important influence are former Obama aides.
It is all corrupt. More than I ever imagined.
Even worse they are delusional.
Thankful Trump has a large team of very intelligent and courageous people on his side this time.
Good interview Winston Marshall had with Kevin Roberts (of the dreaded, lol, 2025 report) yesterday.
Always Obama 🙄
Ok. I’ll give that a listen. It’s in my coming up listen. But I skipped it because sometimes I find Winston, who I like, a bit low key for my mood.
These are big problems, however, step back even further from the detail and consider the possibility of the following: aside from demoralisation of the productive economy, the effects of this government will only just be taking hold in four years or so as the general waft of the last Conservative government’s flirtation with planned economy wears out and no-one does anything constructive at all, anywhere. (Too tired even to murmur that a 27 week wait to see a doctor is the best health-service-type activity in the world). Finding the effects of the tax / policy burden passed down, inexorably and unavoidably, from the ‘high and mighty’ to them, the population will vote for whomever is the most charismatic person claiming not to be in the Labour or Conservative parties and, inevitably, at a time where the Reeves budget(s) is beginning to scrape-away at whatever economic foundation layer remains on the beach.
[There is hope though because the government does not run the country: millions of people arising early each morning to work do. Many of them will spot competitive opportunities or productive service that the exhausted overlook, find themselves in leadership positions, and that will carry the country onward as it always has, irrespective of whatever obstacles to goodness in the world come next.]
Governments can stifle people and economic growth. I can recall the days of tax at 19/6 in the £ - that is 97.5 per cent marginal tax rate. No, I never paid that level but my father did, and the convolutions he went through to reduce tax liability were, economically speaking, a sheer waste of productive resources. And of course there was a huge Inland Revenue bureaucracy doing their best to monitor everyone and reduce tax evasion. These days, Govt departments can monitor you easily and more comprehensively - it's joined up Govt where you are a number on their computer. Submitting a tax return is mostly done online these days where everyone has a gateway number, and that number is shared across every department - and I would not be surprised if MI5/MI6 and the police had access to this data too. The only enterprises which will escape surveillance are the illegal ones.
Agree here Jos. It’s weird how the Taxman can make an intrusive, comprehensive IT system work perfectly well. But the NHS has never ever managed it. It’s almost like waste, siloing and inefficiency are incentivised in ‘our’ wonderful health service.
The problem with your hopeful conclusion there Ross is that the state (both Labour and Tory) has been finding ever new impediments to stop that from happening. Yes. The top 10% of entrepreneurs may still be able to spot opportunities. But the other 90% will just go, nah, this is too difficult, and head off to Dubai.
But I hope you are correct!
Man, that was the funniest, most incisive, pertinent and solid snapshot of the current situation I have yet to see.
Coffee coming your way.
Excellent work
Thanks Nicholas. And thanks for taking the trouble to say that. A genuine boost.
Hi, Do farmers still get paid to leave their fields fallow. Maybe. Recent train ride Woking to Portsmouth, hundreds of fields growing nothing but weeds and other unbeatable goodies. On another subject we have a Mr Dyson who wanted Brexit, and then moved his business to Singapore. He also owns a farm of some 4700 acres on which no declaration of income is declared is this because the value of the farm does not come into IHT rules.
No idea Tony.
Maybe Dyson moved to Singapore because he felt that we never capitalised on the benefits of Brexit.
Maybe if we had, he would have kept his business here. And we would have attracted many more.
But refusing to rescind any EU laws (except the ‘Tampon Tax! Boo!!) and shadowing the EU rules and regs so it will be easy to slip us back in by the back door, hasn’t been a very successful policy for growth.
Both the Tories and Labour seem to believe this country is useless, powerless, and finished. And their policies seem guaranteed to ensure that they are correct.
If I was Dyson. Or a few years younger. I’d be off to Singapore too.
Ah - that wonderful EU solution to the problem of butter and grain mountains and wine lakes! Set aside it was called - get paid for not producing. Then some sophistication crept in and they called them environmental schemes - leave margins around fields, let fields grow wild for a year or two to encourage wildlife. And, of course, get paid for it. We now, outside of the EU, have a number of schemes for farmers which encourage biodiversity and various other non-agricultural objectives. If farmers lose output from this approach, then, in my view, its fair enough to compensate them for their losses. After all, we (may) get a landscape better for all - and I include the natural flora and fauna under "all". My grouse would be that DEFRA does not monitor all its schemes to ensure that there is an environmental benefit. Some farmers do get away with murder.
You sound as if you don't understand the countryside. Crops are mostly annual - they grow in the spring and summer. Between crops, the land is often fallow or idle. You try growing stuff in the winter!
BTW, income (a flow) has nothing to to do with IHT (on capital).
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdf
Net Zero quasi religion - it requires belief - is not supported by either the science or the data.
Thanks Pat 👍