Growth

[Protheroe]

Yes, the summer.

[Jacko]

hmmmm

[Baggiejacko]

Spacegoat

[Protheroe]

I hope you all bought gold all those times I told you to....

I wonder who will have the first sovereign debt crisis this time?

[Protheroe]

Leading Story on R4 PM tonight? Bond Markets

[Jacko]

Behave mate, just the markets panicking...

[Protheroe]

I didn't write this, but I agree with every word. NB - This sort of behaviour is by no means just a Labour thing:

Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Any Worse…

Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Minouche Shafik as his ‘top economic adviser’ is yet another reminder of how detached UK politics has become from the real economy.

Her CV may look impressive to some: former deputy governor of the Bank of England, deputy managing director of the IMF, vice president of the World Bank, and head of a leading university.

But take a moment to reflect, and we see a familiar pattern: an entire career spent inside national and international institutions whose policy prescriptions typically revolve around government borrowing, central bank credit creation, and higher taxation — all justified as necessary to maintain “confidence” in the system.

What’s missing? Any experience of actually building something.

Shafik has never started a business. She has never had to:

• Create a product or service that people genuinely want

• Convince customers to part with their hard-earned cash voluntarily

• Take on the personal risk of employing staff

• Generate work for suppliers and contractors

Instead, her instincts are clear. She has long been a big fan of wealth taxes, has publicly backed new taxes on inheritance, and even supported the targeting of pensions — policies that hit savers, entrepreneurs, and wealth creators hardest. These are precisely the kinds of measures that discourage investment, punish risk-taking, and sap the economy of the very energy it desperately needs.

And this is where the deeper problem lies. Once again, we see a “Government of the Experts” — unelected advisers with minimal real-world, hands-on experience, elevated to positions of enormous influence. They shape key decisions, yet bear zero accountability for the consequences.

Who is really in charge here? Politicians elected to represent the people, or the banking establishment and financial institutions that have dominated economic policy for decades?

If the UK truly wants growth, prosperity, and opportunity, it needs to put entrepreneurs and wealth creators at the heart of policymaking. Those who know how to take risks, create jobs, and drive innovation must have a seat at the table. Otherwise, we’ll continue down the same tired path of higher taxes, bigger government, and slower growth.

Britain needs builders, not bureaucrats.

[man in the corner shop]

Yes let's get that plonker wannabe Rod Stewart from Pimlico Plumbers in. That'll learn em.

We have had enough of experts

And judges are traitors

Stop the boats

[tHEgLASSdOORS]

“Wealth creators” and “risk takers”

Remind us of all of how they all helped us in 2008….

---

Even the very term “wealth creator” is hilarious

[Protheroe]

“Wealth creators” and “risk takers”

Remind us of all of how they all helped us in 2008….

---

Even the very term “wealth creator” is hilarious

In a crowded field, just about the most facile comment you've posted this week.

Credit Creators, government, central banks and regulators asleep on the job (see yesterday's post) were completely to blame for the GFC, not entrepreneurs nor business owners. I folded my development business a fortnight after Lehmans when liquidity ran out, not because we hadn't made stonking profit and paid £millions in wages and tax for a decade or more (when Labour used to promote growth). 

As it is there is zero incentive to start a business in the UK these days.

We can't all work for the state you know.  

Luckily I'm on my glidepath out, as you know.