Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 The UK’s economy may be dismal, but the bloc is crashing into austerity and recession Source - Daily Telegraph - 30/09/23 Link The Italian budget deficit is spiralling upwards again. France is about to have to make perhaps its first serious cuts of the free-spending Macron presidency. And Germany is facing a round of cuts to every form of government spending with the sole exception of defence. In the background, the bond markets are increasingly staging the kind of revolt against wild spending that the UK endured a year ago. The British economy may well be in dismal shape, but the eurozone is heading straight back into austerity and recession, and as it does so all the flaws in the single currency will be painfully exposed all over again. The latest round of upgrades to the UK’s growth figures published on Friday revealed that our performance has been middling compared to the rest of the G7 since the start of the pandemic. We have done significantly worse than the US or Canada, but, d

 The idea that new drilling is 'an act of war against life on earth' is mad   In climate terms, Rosebank is a rounding error, and may have no incremental impact at all   The real scandal is that it's taken 20 years to get this development approved Source - Capx - 28/09/23 Link Yesterday the UK engaged in an ‘act of war against life on earth’. You may not have noticed, however this is the view of naturalist and BBC presenter Chris Packham in regard to a decision in favour of drilling for oil in the Rosebank field, West of Shetland. Other climate warriors agree; from Caroline Lucas, former leader of the Green Party calling it ‘a moral obscenity’, to Ed Miliband, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero denouncing ‘climate vandalism’. The more cautious Conservative Lord Goldsmith merely described it as something that ‘trashes the UK’s (global) reputation’. This is all mad. The mundane reality is that Rosebank might, from 2025, produce enough oil to sa

 Forget fiddling around with thresholds and allowances – be far bolder and abolish the cruel death duty Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/09/23 Link In the dog days of summer 2007, a junior Tory party apparatchik penned a highly sensitive email to a senior colleague and pressed “send”. At the time, Gordon Brown was 10 points ahead in the polls, prompting fevered speculation of a snap election. Addressed to one “Hancock M”, the confidential message outlined all the Conservative Party’s best ideas, including a policy the party leadership hoped would be the big bazooka: a huge cut to inheritance tax.  Unfortunately for the young aide, there were two “Hancock Ms” in Parliament at that time. Instead of going to shadow chancellor George Osborne’s then special adviser Matthew Hancock, the email landed in the inbox of a Lib Dem MP with the same surname but very different politics.  For 48 hours, everyone at Tory party HQ sweated it out, wondering whether their carefully laid plans to unveil the vo

 Whisper it, but the Tories may yet be able to end the sense of inevitability around a Labour victory Source - Daily Telegraph - 25/09/23 Link It's Important not to get ahead of ourselves. A Tory majority at the next general election remains the stuff of science fiction. And yet something very strange is happening: Keir Starmer’s campaign strategy is beginning to implode. The reason for this potentially game-changing development is unfathomably basic: he seems to have made the rookie error of listening to Tony Blair. The warning signs that Starmer was being sucked into an obsolete New Labour philosophy have been there for some time: Peter Mandelson’s proximity to Starmer’s inner circle; the constant triangulating, with the party gravely warning there is no money at the same time as promising seismic change; the furious blizzard of policy papers emanating from the Tony Blair Institute as the former PM polishes his plans to rescue the country from relegation. But it is only in the pa

Source - Daily Telegraph 25/09/23 Link The Conservatives have slashed Labour’s poll lead by eight points in the wake of a bold Downing Street policy push as an election expert said voters remain “wobbly” on Sir Keir Starmer. Figures from Deltapoll published today showed the Tories have closed the gap between the parties from 24 points to 16 points in the space of a fortnight. Labour are down by three points to 44 per cent overall, while the Conservatives are up by five points on 28 per cent. The polling was conducted between September 22-25.  It comes after Rishi Sunak watered down the Government’s net zero policies last week.  Tom Lubbock of JL Partners told a Tony Blair Institute event at the Liberal Democrats’ annual conference today that Sir Keir is “not very popular”, particularly among swing voters who may be tempted to return to the Tories. He said: “They will be trying to draw that contrast between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, who despite this huge polling lead and everybody s

 A fresh round of negotiations with Brussels will only condemn Britain to more stagnation Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/09/23 Link He will negotiate a better deal. He will commit the UK to aligning itself with EU rules. And he will secure greater access to the European market for British businesses. As he begins to reveal possible manifesto policies, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer keeps referencing his disapproval of the current Brexit deal. But he is kidding both himself, and the electorate, if he believes he can improve on it. Reopening negotiations with Brussels would create even greater uncertainty for business. It would threaten our achievements to date, while wasting huge amounts of time and political capital on a failed project. What we know thus far of Starmer’s economic programme appears very flimsy indeed. The shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has ruled out major tax increases and has tucked plans for a £28bn a year “green industrial strategy” safely behind the back of the

 The PM thinks voters will reward him for confronting hard truths, while Keir Starmer plays it safe Source - Daily Telegraph - 21/09/23 Link When Rishi Sunak became chancellor, there was a certain element of Mr Smith going to Washington. He was quite new (elected in 2015) and was struck to see promises being made without any plan on how to achieve them.  He was aghast at how lockdown was imposed without a basic cost-benefit analysis, or even serious discussion about its drawbacks. The see-no-evil approach, he thought, would count as gross negligence in the outside world. But in government, it’s seen as “just politics”. He never quite acclimatised to this and, in the end, resigned as chancellor because of it. “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly,” he said in his resignation letter.  He had reconciled himself to writing the cheque for projects he disliked but Boris Johnson wanted (like HS2). But when the prime minister pledged to subsidise care home costs, Sunak

Tories must get behind the PM’s green pragmatism, and prepare for a Brexit-style battle in the courts Source - Daily Telegraph - 20/09/23 Link Was I wrong about Rishi Sunak? Does he still, despite everything, have what it takes? In a dramatic move that may yet upend British politics, the Prime Minister has declared war on the green establishment, torn up the cross-party, fanatical consensus on how to achieve net zero, defied the useful idiots within his own party – including many of his closest allies – and promised a gentler, more humane, more sophisticated environmentalism committed to protecting consumers. It was the best speech he has ever given, and the first indication that he might, after all, have it in him to forge a new, more conservative vision for Britain.  There is now clear green water between the parties, making life trickier for Sir Keir Starmer. But I hope Sunak realises just how vicious the backlash will be: the Blob, the cultural aristocracy and myriad pseudo-Tories

 The Prime Minister’s modest tweaks are a welcome indication that the green orthodoxy is gradually crumbling Source - Daily Telegraph 20/09/23 Link You might still be able to buy a petrol car for a few more years. You won’t have to rip out your old boiler right away. And extra taxes on your next summer holiday might be postponed, while that fiddly recycling scheme that required countless different bins could be scrapped.  No doubt his critics will try to portray the Prime Minister’s modest watering down of green commitments as turning the UK into a climate-change denying pariah. In reality, the UK is just switching from “net zero” extremism to “net zero” sense, joining many other developed countries in recognising that carbon emissions can’t be eliminated right away and all we will do is bankrupt ourselves by trying. There is just one problem, of course. We still have a lot further to go.  To listen to some of the reaction to the PM’s leaked announcement on climate change you might thi

 Decarbonising the grid by 2030 is impossible   Labour's policy will have very severe repercussions if it makes it into the manifesto   Starmer will have to increase subsidies – putting lie to his claim his plan will save money Source - Capx - 19/09/23 Link It’s not hard to see how Keir Starmer got himself into the position of promising to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 – five years earlier than the government’s own target. Net zero is popular with the public, he will have concluded, therefore if Labour tries to push a little ahead of the Conservatives it will come across as positive and ambitious. But shouldn’t he have stopped to consider the practicalities first? Unlike the 2050 net zero target, which still lies a reassuring distance over the horizon relative to the careers of today’s politicians, 2030 will fall very nearly within the lifetime of the next Parliament. Starmer has committed Labour to a policy which will have very severe repercussions if he goes on to put

 People ask if the 2024 election could be as bad for the Tories as 1997. Under profligate Sunak, they’ll be lucky to do that well Source - Daily Telegraph - 18/09/23 Link We're approaching a year since the notorious “mini-Budget”, widely regarded as the cause of Liz Truss’ downfall. With the luxury of hindsight, it is increasingly clear that her approach, while imperfect, has been vindicated in certain key respects, and the position of her Conservative critics shown to be empty. It remarkable that Rishi Sunak, a man whose career was built upon spending hundreds of billions on a furlough scheme that took public spending from 39 to over 53 per cent of GDP, running an unprecedented 15 per cent of GDP deficit, and who continues to plan to spend nearly 45 per cent of GDP for the foreseeable future, has somehow managed to paint himself as the fiscal conservative in intra-Tory economic debates. Truss’ position during her Conservative leadership election campaign (and a key reason she won)

 The European Commission’s plans to manage asylum applications Europe-wide are coming unstuck just as Keir Starmer is hoping to join them Source - Daily Telegraph - 17/09/23 Link There is a very big hole in Keir Starmer’s plan to do a deal with the EU over migrants, offering to take asylum-seekers from elsewhere on the continent in return for France and other countries agreeing to take back those who have arrived in Britain illegally on small boats. How on Earth does he expect the EU to agree to a deal with Britain when it cannot even sort out the issue of migrants between its own members? What Starmer is proposing is how Europe’s asylum system ought to work in practice. Asylum-seekers should be obliged to make their claims in the first safe country in which they land, with those who travel between safe countries swiftly returned either to the first safe country in which they set foot – if not straight back home. As part of the deal, the burden of dealing with asylum applicants ought t

 The opposition leader wants to rebrand illegal migration as legal   Labour's policy is riddled with practical flaws and based on false or immoral premises   Starmer would cede control of our borders to the EU Source - CAPX - 15/09/23 Link Keir Starmer might talk tough on illegal immigration, but Labour’s plan for stopping the small boats can be summed up in one word: surrender. Surrender on principles, and surrender in practice. It is all too clear that Labour’s anti-Churchillian, Merkel-esque approach is only going to deepen the crisis in the Channel and entice more migrants to cross the Mediterranean into Europe than ever before. Labour’s policy, in essence, is as follows. On the one hand there is the law and order framing. If we can just ‘smash the gangs’ by expanding the use of serious crime prevention orders and anti-terrorist legislation, then the means of crossing the Channel will be reduced. On the other hand, there is the supranational framing. If we can just reduce deman

 Broadcaster faces soaring evasions amid struggles to compete with streaming platforms Source - Daily Telegraph - 29/08/23 Link Households are being bombarded with millions of enforcement letters sent by the BBC as its TV licence revenues fall. Over 36 million licence enforcement letters were sent to addresses that do not have a licence in the last financial year, The Telegraph can reveal. It comes as the broadcaster faces soaring numbers of people evading the £159 annual payment, while the corporation attempts to compete with online streaming services.  Enforcement letters from TV Licensing are known to warn recipients that they could be falling foul of the law by not paying and warn them an officer may visit their address. TV Licensing, which operates the income-generating licence fee for the BBC, has been steadily increasing the number of letters it sends out enforcing the legal requirement for viewers to pay to watch live television programmes and catch-up on iPlayer. In the financ

 The Tories should urgently pull out the stops to back Susan Hall, the one woman who can defeat Sadiq Khan Source - Daily Telegraph 30/08/23 Link When I wrote in April that Sadiq Khan could be ousted because of his persecution of motorists, my suggestion was widely panned as delusional. Didn’t I realise that nobody owns a car in our capital city, that London is a Labour rotten borough and that the Tories are finished?  My argument doesn’t look so silly today. The mayor’s nasty, vindictive Ulez cash grab has triggered a wave of French-style civil disobedience, radicalised an outer suburbia that the snooty inner London elite had long forgotten even existed, lost Labour a parliamentary seat it could otherwise have won, and exposed the exorbitant cost to our pocketbooks and freedom of the rush to net zero.  It turns out that there are, in fact, almost 9 million Londoners, and the vast majority don’t live in Islington or Hackney, don’t commute by bike and don’t work in a Left-wing think tan

 The NHS’s most committed fanboys are shouting loudest about instances of NHS failure   'Dying while on a waiting list' must not be confused with 'dying because you are on a waiting list'   Compared to our continental counterparts, the NHS is one of the least privatised healthcare systems in the world Source - Capx - 31/08/23 Link The NHS used to be Britain’s ultimate sacred cow. It has always had a handful of critics, but their role in the debate used to be, as the writer Ed West puts it, ‘like that of the Middle Eastern wrestlers in WWF whose job was to be booed by the crowd when I was a kid.’ This has, at least tentatively, changed a bit over the past two years. You can now, at semi-regular intervals, find articles in mainstream newspapers which take on the cult around the NHS, and point out the superior performance of European social health insurance (SHI) systems (e.g. here, here and here). The Times is currently running an online poll on the question ‘Should the N