With immigration on the increase and interest rates rising the claim that high house prices are caused by immigration is going around again. I am sceptical, and not just because the original claim came from Dominic Raab, who is wrong on pretty much everything. On paper the link between immigration and house prices seems pretty … Read more
Top management have celebrated the 75th anniversary of the NHS by publishing a workforce plan I realise that workforce planning is boring, but the NHS is in existential danger due to problems with staffing. The NHS only exists because staff believe in it, not because of politicians or plucky campaigners sharing memes. Senior managers seems … Read more
As you may have noticed nothing much works in the UK these days. My last job in the public sector was part of the Child Support Agency rescue mission. An expensively assembled group brought together to try and fix the CSA, or at least get it off the front pages, including people from across … Read more
Poor people waste their money away on takeaways, beauty salons, cafes and dog grooming. The idea of feckless poor people frittering away their meagre incomes is well engrained in our culture. Normally accompanied by calls to make benefits less generous. or conditionality more stringent. Stupid, feckless, and untrustworthy. Mostly it is Conservative politicians and similarly … Read more
Austerity is back. The Government this week announced £55bn of tax rises and spending cuts. Some of the pain has been deferred to after the next General Election, but pain nonetheless. This was the 5th major announcement by a Chancellor this year, from our 4th different Chancellor. Once again the British economy … Read more
I started to write this blog when the Government was announcing the financial support package, but developments with Trump over took me. I’m glad I waited until after the mini-budget because the speed of events has meant that anything I had written previously would be out of date by now. Lets go back one … Read more
Amongst all of this weeks budget announcements, one stood out to me – more sanctions to force people on benefits to take on more hours: This is the familiar story of the benefit trap – people are better off on benefits and there is no incentive to seek work, in this case more work. It … Read more
Maggie Thatcher once memorably claimed “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” During the credit crunch we discovered that deregulated free market capitalism had exactly the same problem, just on a much bigger scale. This week is the 30th Anniversary of Black Wednesday when HMG raised interest rates … Read more
Prince Andrew this week settled his court case vs Virginia Giuffre, with an enormous payout reported to be $10-15m. The Queen is to help Prince Andrew pay his settlement, and his massive legal fees, however this will come from her own private wealth and the sale of his Swiss Chalet, and not from taxpayers funds. … Read more
Dehenna Davison is the newly elected “red wall” Tory MP for Bishop Auckland. I am attending Bishop Food Fest next weekend, and I am hoping to say hi! Dehenna is also the co-Chair of the Conservative Free Market Forum – a grouping of hardline Thatcherites in love with a tax-cutting, government-shrinking deregulated future. Last week … Read more