Trump despises the EU. He has historically backed the UK’s departure from the EU, notably during his first term when he praised Brexit saying it would be a “great thing” for Britain. Comprehensive reasons or what? Trump will continue to pressure Starmer that Britain must maintain its independence from the EU economically, as he wants […]
The irony meter must be peaking like one of South West Water’s storm overflow monitors. Former East Devon Conservative MP Simon Jupp, who was an outspoken critic of the utility firm, has taken a job with its parent company, Pennon, advising on community engagement. During his time as an MP Mr Jupp did plenty of […]
President Trump calls it “Liberation Day” – but what he’s launching is a global trade war. Sweeping US tariffs are provoking retaliatory ones from around the world. Everyone, including Americans, will end up poorer. Contrast that with the EU’s approach: cooperation, not confrontation. The Single Market offers tariff-free, frictionless trade among its 27 members. It’s […]
Our government faces stiff challenges and if it is to meet them and deliver the promised national renewal, it will need a rapid and significant shift in mindset. Before the 2024 General Election, Sir Keir Starmer explained that the UK needed a decade of national renewal. He was undoubtedly correct. The Chancellor recently commented that: “The world […]
Well over a year ago I started writing about my concerns at how some elements of the automotive industry seem happy – perhaps intentionally – to mislead the motorist in their cynical use of names for car makes and models. I am irritated by the exploitation of the concept of ‘Britishness’ put about especially by […]
Elon Musk doesn’t like it. Stronger legal measures are in the pipeline to rein in the spread of dangerous lies and misleading claims on social media platforms including X, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Google. The racist riots last summer, following the Southport murders, didn’t only show how social media disinformation can provoke real-life violence on […]
Look. I absolutely get copyright. As a children’s author with a sixth title out in July, I want my copyright protected. PDF versions of my books and pirated audio versions crop up from time to time and my publisher, part of Penguin/Random House, quickly gets them taken down. These breaches are not innocent. People are […]
All Budgets are important, but this one is especially critical: 13 years of market fundamentalist policy choices have left the UK in a state of decay, with a weak economy, falling real wages, a cost-of-living crisis and growing poverty. Our public services are on their knees: our schools are crumbling and even our cherished NHS is struggling […]
Friday 17 November saw the West Country Voices live debate on Plymouth & South Devon Freeport. Held within the spectacular St Mary’s Church in Totnes, the event was attended by around 80 people in person and an even larger number online. The livestream was not without some problems, but it was an ambitious project, blending […]
The Chancellor is due to announce his Autumn Statement on November 22. Truss will apparently also announce her own so-called ‘Budget for Growth’. This is an open letter to the Economics Editors of our major newspapers and broadcast media setting out a few suggestions for how to analyse the Budget(s) in a way which accurately […]
I have been asked on here if I have ever looked at the benefits of freeports. The honest answer is no, but that is because I have never been able to find any such benefits. I have, however, looked at the massive downsides to this idea that both Sunak and Truss support. It is important […]
“The 7 million-plus NHS waiting list, the 2 million-plus fall in the labour force, the world-beating rate of inflation and spiralling mortgage rates are all the result of a succession of bad policy choices made by Conservative Ministers at crucial times in the past 13 years.” Words of truth and wisdom spoken by a Labour […]
Churchill commented, “It is a joke in Britain to say that the War Office is always preparing for the last war. But this is probably true of other departments and of other countries, and it was certainly true of the French Army.” It is certainly true of the Treasury and the Bank of England in their […]
I have been suggesting that interest rate rises are fuelling inflation. I have created a model of a company that is largely service-based to explore my suggestion. Using that model I show that it is more likely that interest than wages push up prices. This is the starting point for this model: The figures are […]
People understand sewage. It stinks. So does the system that has allowed privatised water companies to make huge profits while failing to upgrade our sewage treatment system. Over the last eleven years the companies have paid out £16.8 billion in dividends while sewage discharges continue to be unacceptably high. Graphic pictures of raw sewage spilling […]
Dear Madam, It was a breath of fresh air reading this, perhaps because it confirmed my views! I am no economist, I am a retired plumber, living in Newton Abbot. What gets me is that I left school at 16, and I can see that the Bank of England policy is irrational. Fundamentally, if people […]
Let’s leave aside for a moment the whole issue of democracy, sovereignty and ‘taking back control’ which is covered in this article from Jon Danzig, and instead call out the abject gaslighting and lies being spewed out to defend a lamentable deal that has some real nasties hidden inside it. It’s not for nothing that […]
Britain is joining an 11-member Asia-Pacific trade bloc, the CPTP. The UK government thinks this is a suitable replacement for our membership of the EU. But when did we have a say on this? When did Parliament consent to this? Brexiters often claim that the EU is undemocratic and that we should have had a […]
Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave another of his excruciating speeches on economics yesterday. You only had to read it to know how far adrift from reality he is. Start with this: Monetary policy, in other words, works through the management of aggregate demand in the economy. Simply put, when inflation is too high, we increase […]
It seems to me that there is very little reason to have confidence in our current government. I mean, how can you have faith in anything they say, and what evidence is there to suggest that they can do anything competently? With this in mind, it is particularly alarming that Conservative MPs are voting through […]
It’s two years on from Brexit and so it’s timely to look at the current transit times from our suppliers and cost changes around the EU. As a recap, it used to be door-to-door ten days max for all EU collections. The average single pallet collection cost £180. All fairly standard. Today, after trying out […]
When I lived in Britain, the drivers were sharing tips with each other: “do go work for this company, you can earn good money there, as there is plenty of overtime”. I even saw a discussion on UK trucking subreddit today when a young guy is asking about becoming a trucker and they say to […]
The most difficult thing about writing about economics at the moment is working out why it is that those who are in charge of our economy think that anything that they are doing makes any sense any more. As most economists would agree, when faced with a recession and the likelihood of rapidly falling inflation […]
Dear West Country Voices, I am 70 years of age and started my career in the scientific civil service Chemical laboratories (Ministry of Defence) at Porton Down, Wiltshire. After four years I left, and worked in the food industry, both in production and research and development, finally becoming quality assurance manager in a major baby […]
I had a long discussion with a radio producer on what I thought was wrong with the Autumn Statement. We discussed the numbers but what I said is most important is not what was said, but what was not. That’s where the frightening bits are. It was a very long time ago that I realised […]
Dear West Country Voices, Harry S Truman famously had this sign on his desk pointing out that as, President of the USA and the man in charge, he should take responsibility for stuff that goes wrong. If only this was true here in the UK. The first of this year’s three Prime Ministers now earns […]
Ominously omnishambolic, the government’s budget has brought the country to the brink of financial implosion. The markets were horrified by a lack of clarity and credibility. An important feature has been the impression that the prime minister and the (now former) chancellor can’t add up and have been talking … blather. Andrew Levi explains. Nightmare […]
On a recent episode of the unmissable podcast The Rest is Politics, hosts Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell discussed the Truss cabal’s extreme ideology and their obsession with Singapore – the ultimate libertarian ‘paradise’ – as a model to follow. At one point, Stewart asserted that the idea of Singapore-on-Thames becoming a reality was pure […]
Drink heavily, buckle up, and let's get started with a visit to the Tory Party Conference, where the most dense things in the known universe are packed into one room, and we all pray it reaches critical mass and explodes. Yet another #TheWeekInTory: 1. Liz Truss – ITV4 made flesh – got dressed up as […]
I am a retiree in my sixties, having spent most of my career as a senior NHS manager and CEO. Politically, I am in the centre ground and have never been a member of a political party. I was a committed European and, as such, the 2016 Referendum result, and the way the vote was […]