Britain is “flirting with recession” and current economic policies are “catastrophic for growth”, Conservative peer Lord Moynihan said in a blistering attack on the Government’s economic policies. The Express has more.
Speaking in response to last week’s Spring statement, and at the launch of his new book – Return to Growth – Lord Moynihan accused the government of trying to use businesses as a “milk cow,” hiking taxes and increasing red tape. At the same time it has been dishing out “inflation-busting pay rises” to its public sector allies.
The British businessman and venture capitalist added: “Every policy led to the opposite of growth,” he said. “Last year’s budget was fairly punitive on business – we warned in the Lords that growth would be crushed.”
Last week the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicted just 1% growth this year – half of its original figure but a projection Lord Moynihan says is still optimistic. “I think they’ll be proved wrong. It will be less. People are leaving for Dubai and other low-tax countries – not just bankers, but even hairdressers. This isn’t sustainable.”
In Return to Growth, Moynihan lays out what he calls the “three enemies of growth” – high government spending, excessive tax and regulation, and bureaucratic interference – all of which he says the Labour Government is embracing. “We’re moving towards central state control. History shows that this eventually ends in state violence. It’s deeply worrying.”
He calls instead for a return to the “three angels of growth” – free markets, free trade and sound money – to unleash innovation and rebuild prosperity. “We’ve become a nation addicted to regulation. The belief that government knows best stifles the creativity of the British people.”
Particularly scathing was his criticism of the new Employment Rights Bill, which grants new hires immediate workplace rights. “It’s catastrophic for business. Employers will hesitate to take on new staff. This won’t help workers – it’ll reduce jobs. I’m on the side of the working man.”
Lord Moynihan also blasted “moral panics” around net zero and diversity initiatives, claiming these have sparked “a huge spray of regulation” with little purpose. “What on earth is the question they’re even trying to answer?”
He concluded: “If we keep taxing and regulating like this, in four years’ time the damage will be catastrophic. We need to return to growth – urgently.”
Worth reading in full.
You can buy a copy of Return to Growth on Amazon.co.uk here. Highly recommended.
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“Disinformation is one of the gravest threats weighing on our democracies,” he says.
This is absolsutely true, but it is the Governments who are using it to push narrative and silence opposition. Ergo, the Governments are the gravest threats to our democracies.
I must say, I’ve had doubts about how far Musk will go in his ‘free speech’ campaign. I dont think it reasonable for him to withdraw from the EU, so I expect he will sail somewhere close to the line, without actually crossing it.
Withdrawing from the EU might get people’s attention, though most likely people would blame Musk not the EU.
Musk can’t take on the EU by himself.
If the population were ready to see him as a champion and rally behind him to fight for free speech, then obviously he could.
But we’ve seen how spineless the population is. Many of them have offered up their children as guinea pigs for untested jabs to appease a menacing state bureaucracy, so…
I think it would do more harm than good for him to take that step, yes.
There’s little support for freedom of speech, at least in the UK and Europe, among people I speak to. People will tell you they like the idea, but when you start quoting types of speech (“hate”, “misinformation”) and ask if they should be allowed they will tell you “no of course not”.
It would also probably be suicidal.
I don’t see Twitter’s withdrawal from the EU’s code of practice an empty gesture. It is a signal. Now, one can debate what the signal is.
It might just be to try to look good. Or it might be a signal of measured defiance which says – ok, you might be forcing me to comply by turning a code into law, but I will t least, with my gesture, show you I don’t agree with it or like it.
I don’t know how committed Musk really is to free speech. I doubt few do. But if one assumes he is, how he plays his cards is anything but simple. It would be fiendishly complicated to try to runTwitter as a free speech platform in today’s regulatory environment, if that was what one wanted to do, without being destroyed by the heavy hand of ever more oppressive and authoritarian states.
My guess is that he’s trying to do his best, but I am ready to be disappointed and discover I’ve been naive.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – Musk doesn’t give a flying duck about Free Speech.
Surely Twitter need to replace the display of offending content with a message saying banned in the EU. If people are really interested they can use a VPN to avoid this. If enough people are annoyed then there will be push back.
The EU appears not to want Twitter being what it is but wants something else instead.
The EU should build its own ‘service’ as it wants it to be – I’m sure they could make it just as popular eventually.
I hope Elon has the power and the balls to withdraw Twitter from the EU territory.