Brexit will be good for the U.K.
John Redwood
We think it would be safer if the Bank of England had responsibility for solvency regulation of UK-based banks, as well as having an overall duty to keep the system solvent. Otherwise, there could be dangerous delays if a banking crisis did hit.
The Prime Minister in the UK thinks spending and borrowing more is the right thing to do in the circumstances, and is busily trying to bail out chunks of the private sector which would otherwise have to adjust more quickly to the painful reality that we have been living beyond our means.
The government would also be wise to press on with its further measures to promote growth, as it will want to outperform the low figures in this outlook. This will mean delivering measures to ease money and credit and to stimulate demand.
When teachers try to teach, nurses try to nurse, small businesses try to serve their clients and the police try to arrest criminals, there is always a regulator or three breathing down their necks. Conservatives want to make people's lives easier.
I am mightily relieved that my holiday does not come after a long queue with the National Holiday Service, complete with bedroom-sharing like the NHS.
Living standards in both the public and private sector have to be brought down. The private sector has to sell more abroad and consume less at home. The government sector has to get closer to just spending what it can collect in taxes.
We have always been a great national party, with views on all the main issues. We recognise that what matters to people most are those things that affect their daily lives: schools, hospitals, transport and law and order and we have plenty to say about them.
The library is seen as a force for self improvement and the pursuit of knowledge. I fear that in many cases this is no longer true, if it ever was.
What the study I chaired actually said was we needed tougher regulation of cash and capital in banks, as credit was too easy. Events proved that right.
The best way to get more tax from the rich is to cut rates. The best way to deliver more jobs for the less well off is to cut tax.
There is not necessarily a good reason why a regulator should have to be involved in product design and marketing for rich and sophisticated investors. We recommend that such investors should be able to sign a piece of paper, which allows them to go ahead and buy unregulated products at their own risk.
We need to remind our core supporters that we have not forgotten their concern with the way our democracy is being replaced by European bureaucracy in so many areas.
My main argument against staying in the E.U. has been the poor economic record of the E.U. as a whole and the eurozone in particular. The performance has got worse the more the E.U. has developed joint policies and central controls.
As we leave the E.U., the U.K. can turn its back on the austerity policies that have been the hallmark of the euro area.
Voters want prosperity, not austerity.
The three main political parties all agree the UK deficit is high and needs to be brought down. All agree that it is easier to get a deficit down if you have faster growth, cutting unemployment-related costs and raising revenues.
No sensible elected politician would look for spending reductions out of sacking teachers and nurses. We all know how important they are and that our electors want to keep those we have and employ more where possible.
At the next General Election, voters face a clear choice: deregulation and less interference in everyday life with the Conservatives, or yet more regulation and interference under Mr Blair.
All my adult life, I have lived with Labour lies about tax cuts. Their cry is always the same. Tax cuts are impossible in a civilised society. They mean less revenue for the state, which means sacked teachers, unemployed doctors, fewer nurses. I am amazed anyone still takes such arrant twaddle seriously.
The whole point of politics is to stay in touch, to be relevant to modern problems, to offer people relief from current worries, to give them hope based on contemporary experience.
I was the original moderniser in the Conservative Party, telling it, 'No change, no chance.'
The E.U. referendum is a major watershed in U.K. history. It will be important for the future of the Conservative party. It will be even more important for the future of our country.
Leaving the E.U. will enable the U.K. to undertake a major campaign for import substitution.
The Irish move to a very low corporation tax has generated very significant revenue growth, considerably in excess of Britain's, where a slower economy has been combined with a number of stealth taxes.
I want to end austerity.
British people do not like being bossed around.
If Scotland is to have the power to fix its income tax rate for the whole country, England needs a body that can fix its income tax rate for the whole country.
I am always very grateful that I do not have to rely for my meal on a nationalised dinner service working as well as the Post Office on strike day.
Under Conservative, Labour, and coalition governments, the U.K. was never willing to accept all the moves to union or all the requirements of the E.U.
When the telecoms system in the U.K. was made to compete and to seek private capital, many worried that the service would get worse and there would be a further shortage of investment. They were wrong on both counts. Technology was transformed, and investment soared. Prices went down; choice and usage went up.
Cuts in tax rates on individual and company income nearly always produce more revenue, not less.
The UK downgrade will come as little surprise to many. It does not appear to be occurring because the UK is cutting its deficit too far and too fast.
We should begin to remind people they are always after your money and if you are on something around average earnings you really don't have that spare capacity to pay for all these follies that Labour keep spending their money on.
Our problem as a country is that most of us do not want to join the euro, and we wish to stay aloof from the common frontiers of the free-travel Schengen area. This makes our relationship with the E.U. fraught with tension and trouble.
A growth strategy requires tax rates that people are prepared to pay and cannot avoid or do not wish to avoid by going offshore or leaving the country.
Most agree, whatever their party political position, that the West can and should open its agricultural markets more fully to the products of the poorer countries of the globe. They are agricultural societies that need our markets more than our charity.
You have to be very rich to afford Labour, with 66 tax rises since they came in power.
What is good enough for Scotland is good enough for England. Fairness demands no less.
Designing our own agriculture policy will mean we can put behind us the quotas and regulations that have held back U.K. output during our years in the E.U.
To me, politics is about the future.
Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date, just as young women have every right to go on a date and to say 'No', having it respected.
If we leave the E.U., we will regain control of our own money.
