We’ve had a marvelous speech from Richard Tice saying all sorts of good conservative things, particularly we should stop net stupid zero.
And not only is he going to have a go at net stupid zero, but he thinks that pension funds should be used more wisely, particularly as there’s a surplus in the local Government one.
And, just to wind up the lefties, there’s a wonderful line that Richard gave us early in his speech about being proud to be British and how the Empire brought civilisation around the world. This, I think, was one of his best lines.
Well, isn’t that a wonderful thought?
That there was a time when Britain had an economy that worked, that was successful, was the economic engine for the world, and that time has passed into the mists of history.
But it’s not impossible for us to do things properly again.
There’s always a choice for politicians. Politicians can either settle back and be managers of decline.
They can say ‘we’ll never get back to the greatness that we once enjoyed, that the British people don’t want to work hard in the way that they used to, that we have grown fat on prosperity and therefore too idle to move from our beds’.
To the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain, you have waked me too soon. ‘I must slumber again’ becomes the motto of those sorts of politicians.
Jacob Rees Mogg reacts to Reform UK’s plans to stop ‘net stupid zero’
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GB NEWS
Or you can be, as Margaret Thatcher was, somebody who believes that our best days are ahead of us, if only we try. And the thing is, we know what to do.
We know the solutions that will open up economic growth.
They are planning reform. They are taking the state out of people’s lives. They’re letting businesses get on with the business that they need to do.
They are getting rid of the crazy regulations that come from net zero that have made our energy, our electricity, industrial electricity, four times more expensive than that on average in the United States.
It’s getting away from the carbon emissions regulations that shift all our manufacturing overseas. The rules that hold back employers because they daren’t employ anybody because if they make a mistake, they can’t get rid of them.
Richard Tice made his first speech as Reform UK’s business and energy spokesman
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GETTY
We know what is needed. And then we’ve got these billions of pounds in investment funds that are limited by ESG.
I used to run an investment fund and I hated ESG. I thought it was against the fiduciary duty of both the trustees who were appointing us and indeed as us, the investment managers.
Your job as an investment manager, or more importantly, as a trustee, is to make money for your beneficiaries, not to apply your woke political views to investment management.
It’s amazing how ESG has fallen by the wayside in the United States since Donald Trump came in. And what extraordinary performance you’re getting in the United States economically, as woke capitalism is ground out of the system.
So that’s the exciting opportunity. And I confess, it is refreshing to hear a politician on the right saying that this is what we need to do.
I have, of course, some quibbles with Richard. I don’t believe in national champions. I am not in favour of tariffs to protect industries and so on.
I think it’s best to let the market to decide.
But the overall principle is right. Free markets, capitalism, deregulation, supply side reforms, work and away with the idea of managing decline. It is the most defeatist, most unsatisfactory, depleting approach to politics.
And I’m afraid we’ve had far too much of it since Margaret Thatcher went.