After 7 years of that complete buffoon, Mark Carney, now we have Mr. Andrew ‘numbnuts’ Bailey, the present Governor of the Bank of England, in charge of our inflation. Are we in a Carry On film or are they the Keystone Cops?
Lest we forget, Mr. ‘Barmy’ Carney, made five appalling predictions on UK interest rates, inflation, and the growth of the economy.
For his idiocy, we paid him some £847,000, as the Governor of the Bank of England plus a bloated pension, and may I remind you of his soundbites.
Prediction: In August 2013, he predicted that UK interest rates would not rise until the employment rate was down to 7% which was not expected until late 2016.
Fact: It fell below 7%, less than a year later.
Prediction: In July 2015, he predicted that interest rates may have to rise during the course of the year. Note less than six months later, he said, “Now is not the right time for an interest rise.”
Prediction: In February 2016, he proclaimed that interest rates would “more likely rise than not.”
Fact: No less than 3 weeks’ later he said, “We could bring interest rates down towards zero.”
This goon made more ‘about-turns’ than Colonel Mainwaring in ‘Dad’s Army.’
Governor Andrew Bailey
Turning now to the latest hapless Governor, Andrew Bailey, in autumn last year he foolishly predicted that “the UK would in all likelihood have the longest, deepest, most damaging recession in 300 years.” This had the effect of terrifying the public, investors and institutions, and this tumult was exacerbated by the political convulsions of the Truss/‘Kamikaze’ Kwarteng debacle.
Is it any wonder that the public was ‘caught like a rabbit in the headlights?’
However, against his worst prediction, the UK economy grew in December 2022, when it was meant to be in recession and perversely, inward investment in the UK has been one of the highest in the G7.
Inflation is moving progressively downwards to a sustainable long-term predicted rate of between 2% and 4% in eighteen months’ time, as energy, transportation and commodity costs fall as we speak, as a result of the global recession.
‘Remoaners’ Out in Force
It appears that the malcontent ‘Remoaners’ are out in force again, indulging in gloomster-ville economics and rejoicing at the slightest sign of bad news that besets this country.
“Hark, where are the Brexit dividends they cry?” May I remind them that Brexit is a generational matter which is an investment in the future of this country in order to shape its destiny. Did the newly reunified Germans, bitch and moan after reunification when the magnificent west German economy was thrown into disarray for twenty-five years? No, they didn’t.
I wonder what the appeasement lobby was thinking after Churchill declared war on Germany, despite only having 300,000 dispirited troops holed up in Dunkirk, facing 3million emboldened Nazi troops who gobbled up Europe in a month? When the bombs rained down on London in 1940, the voices of disquiet must have been cacophonous and the pressure to surrender irresistible. Winston, the visionary, battled on and the rest is history. ‘Remoaners’ take note – history can repeat itself with a positive outcome.
May I remind the ‘Remoaners’ that their darling European brethren are in a worse parlous state, with rising unemployment, slow growth (Germany is in a fully-fledged recession) and instead of looking at our former EU paymasters, we should instead look west to our largest, single trading partner, the USA, which will recover faster and stronger than any other country in the G20 and where our economies are often paralleled.
The Irish protocol is all but done – bar the shouting – and I am sure that as time goes on, the idiocy of the European bureaucracy which affects our export trade, will ease as common sense prevails.
If our imports from the EU are down, this is no bad thing and will assist our trading imbalance.
Rishi and his Merry Men
Why on earth doesn’t Rishi and his Merry Men, take a sledgehammer to the much-needed reforms of red tape, so that we can at least enjoy our hard-fought freedom from the shackles of former EU protocol?
After the Second World War, Ludwig Erhard deregulated the German economy, such that the country was free of rations after six months whilst the UK was under these restrictions for a further six years and were saddled with an over-regulated economy.
Whilst no one wants the ‘wild west’ maybe there is something between this and our legacy of EU bureaucracy to help this country out of the trenches, in which we are currently bogged down.
We have the same 85% service economy as Singapore and why don’t we ape their model now that we have the freedom to do so?
Raising Corporation Tax from 21-25% is a retrograde step, and although I appreciate it does generate money for the depleted coffers of the Treasury, it does not encourage new investment in this country, which is much needed in the post Brexit era.
The EU detests Ireland’s pro-business 12% Corporation Tax, as they stagger along with their socialistically inspired 35%, anti-business rate.
Whilst Brexit may be the cathartic benefit that we all thirst for, unless we use our newly won freedoms, we will inadvertently be in the worst of all worlds.
We need boldness and courage to grasp the nettle and fly free and very soon we will be leaving our leaden-footed, former European counterparts, where they belong – in the mire.