Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

  Wars are won on the factory floor. Expensive, unreliable energy is a gift to our adversaries. Spiked 01/09/26 Russian threats to attack British factories producing drones and missile components for Ukraine are a reminder that the industrial base is once again becoming part of the battlefield. In a way, this has always been the case. In an attritional conflict, the ability to produce, replace and sustain military capability matters as much as the weapons a country starts with. Military power has always depended on productive force. It was Paul Kennedy who documented the relationship between economic power and military power across five centuries of great-power competition in his magnum opus, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers . In December 2024, John Bew, former chief foreign-policy adviser to No10, gave this logic a new name – ‘machinepolitik’. He argued we are returning to an era of ‘raw power’ in which the ability to harness productive force, from armaments to energy to tec...

  The PM will keep plucking the goose until there are no feathers left Daily Telegraph 27/08/26 With ever-growing tedium, the forthcoming Budget once again seeks to extract more tax from the public. As Jean-Baptiste Colbert famously said: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible number of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Andy Burnham, it would seem, is deaf to the hissing. He appears determined to keep plucking, no matter the pain. But more tax is not just a threat to Britain’s   attractiveness for wealth creators and entrepreneurs   – it’s a direct attack on those who keep the economy alive. Nor should one be surprised that, when asked which taxes should go up, people always plump for the one they are unlikely to have to pay themselves. So, which taxes are being spoken about the most? The first is a wealth tax, which will be impossible to collect and will cost more to administer. Outside quoted invest...

  Tory leader says PM’s inability to make tough decisions and say ‘no’ to spending will lead to chaos in the economy Daily Telegraph 03/09/26 Britain will go bankrupt under Andy Burnham, Kemi Badenoch has said. The Conservative Party leader said the Prime Minister risked running out of money by making too many promises and being unable to say no to government departments. In a speech on Thursday morning, Mrs Badenoch set out her plans to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 by slashing Britain’s welfare bill . Mr Burnham has so far declined to commit to the same target. In a warning to the Prime Minister about the threat posed by Russia, Mrs Badenoch said: “Vladimir Putin called Britain Russia’s number one enemy. National security doesn’t just happen, we have to pay for it and that means spending more money on defence.” Advertisement Asked whether Mr Burnham would bankrupt Britain, she said: “If you listen to his statement on [Tuesday] , I think the answer is ‘p...

  Borrowing costs soar to highest in decades, leaving Prime Minister facing £14bn Budget shortfall Daily Telegraph 01/09/26 Andy Burnham’s Commons debut as Prime Minister on Tuesday was overshadowed by a market rout that sent borrowing costs to their highest in decades. Addressing MPs for the first time since entering No 10, Mr Burnham claimed that “life is too expensive and too hard for too many”, blaming Brexit and Margaret Thatcher for “low growth and stalled regeneration”. Pledging to bring back hope to Britain , the Prime Minister said he would deliver “much more substantial change” to the economy to reduce household bills. However, he now faces a shortfall of up to £14bn in his autumn Budget following a surge in gilt yields, which will squeeze his plans for higher spending. Britain’s borrowing costs have risen at one of the fastest paces in the world, with interest rates on 10-year gilts, a benchmark for the Treasury, reaching their highest level since 2008. The cost to bor...