To put responsibility on the shoulders of a tamed man

John Caudwell: I backed Labour, but they haven’t kept their promises

We should be making it easier for entrepreneurs to invest, employ and expand. Instead Labour has given them more reasons to look elsewhere, writes John Caudwell...

Andy Burnham says he wants to be pro-business and I take him at his word. I want this government to succeed, and so do the founders who back this campaign, as for the benefit of the general population, we need to deliver growth.

The Budget on 28 October is the moment to show that. Get it right and the founders now weighing up their options will build their next companies here. Get it wrong and they will build them abroad, leaving Britain with fewer companies, weaker growth and fewer jobs in every part of the country.

 Andy Burnham says he wants to be pro-business and I take him at his word. A strange thing to say unless it is rhetorical and more challenge than expectation. At least as much hope as expectation perhaps. Yet it does suggest how far adrift we are economically. 

The political hunger for more taxation is out there in the open, along with ceaseless propaganda from the usual suspects. For Burnham to be pro-business, that tax hunger would have to remain unappeased which would be politically difficult. 

Even more difficult, would be the pro-business necessity to tackle what has become obvious tax plundering and cut it deeply enough to generate significant economic growth. 

Sounds unlikely. It would probably lead to a political storm before the growth, plus campaigns to undermine Burnham as Prime Minister. He knows all this of course, he comes across as a tamed politician, tamed by Labour and the tax and spend Establishment. Willingly tamed too, if his political history is any guide, which it almost certainly is. 

Many people expect more tax plundering on 28 October. As furtive as possible perhaps, but it's not an unreasonable expectation. Managing the machinery of government is difficult, so most professional politicians prefer to duck and dive. It's what they do best, the act they were tamed to perform.

You can do nothing if you are kept outside

An interesting conversation from the D.H. Lawrence novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The conversation is between Michaelis, a very successful Irish playwright, Sir Clifford Chatterley and Lady Constance "Connie" Chatterley. 

"Money!" he said. "Money is a sort of instinct. It's a sort of property of nature in a man to make money. It's nothing you do. It's no trick you play. It's a sort of permanent accident of your own nature; once you start, you make money, and you go on; up to a point, I suppose."

"But you've got to begin," said Clifford.

"Oh quite! You've got to get in. You can do nothing if you are kept outside. You've got to beat your way in. Once you've done that, you can't help it."

"But could you have made money except by plays?" asked Clifford.

"Oh probably not! I may be a good writer or I may be a bad one, but a writer and a writer of plays is what I am, and I've got to be. There's no question of that."

"And you think it's a writer of popular plays that you've got to be?" asked Connie.

"There, exactly!" he said, turning to her in a sudden flash. "There's nothing in it! There's nothing in popularity. There's nothing in the public, if it comes to that. There's nothing really in my plays to make them popular. It's not that. They just are, like the weather ... the sort that will have to be ... for the time being."

D.H. Lawrence – Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)

A point we could make today is that our digital world no longer has an "outside" which is as clearly defined as it was a century ago.   

VW - Very Worried

Volkswagen to cut up to 50,000 jobs amid growing Chinese competition

Volkswagen Group is preparing to trim its vehicle range substantially while removing 50,000 roles under newly introduced corporate restructuring plans.

The company's Supervisory Board has ‘unanimously approved’ the new ‘Future Plan 2030’ strategy as it seeks to reduce expenditure in response to rising market rivalry from China.

Consequently, Volkswagen intends to contract its car model lineup by roughly 50 per cent. It also intends to ‘reduce its offering complexity’ – decreasing trim options and specifications – by about 75 per cent.

The carmaker will downsize its workforce by approximately 50,000 positions. As this step is ‘beyond existing programs’, previously planned job cuts will continue to be rolled out as they were scheduled.

Merely a casual observation, but round here we see lots of Chinese cars on the road, far more than we did a couple of years ago. 

Overhead the mynah birds are making a great to–do

Environment Secretary warns people to store food for weather emergencies

An unprecedented El Nino event is forecast to reach more than 3C in the coming months.

Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle has urged people to store supplies in case of extreme weather events.

An unprecedented El Nino event – when sea temperatures in tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5C above the long-term average – is forecast to reach more than 3C in the coming months, making this year’s event “the largest since the 19th century”, according to the Met Office.

In England, in London, there are certain afternoons in winter when the clouds hang heavy and low and the light is so bleak that your heart sinks, but then you can look out of your window, and you see the coconut trees crowded upon the beach of a coral island. The strand is silvery and when you walk along in the sunshine it is so dazzling that you can hardly bear to look at it. Overhead the mynah birds are making a great to–do, and the surf beats ceaselessly against the reef. Those are the best journeys, the journeys that you take at your own fireside, for then you lose none of your illusions.

W. Somerset Maugham – Honolulu (1921)

The growth we don't need

Jonathan Eida has a useful TPA piece on what seems like the inexorable growth of the Civil Service and the humongous liabilities which come with it. Depressing but worth reading as there is no obvious prospect of Andrew Burnham doing anything about it.


The true cost of the civil service is worse than you think

The waistband on the trousers of the civil service continues to stretch as the Whitehall blob expands year after year. The prime minister may come and go, but the appetite for a larger, more active state appears remarkably constant. Andy Burnham is no exception, with his “Number 10 North” proposal being just the latest pretext for another layer of bureaucracy.

Since the government began publishing comparable civil service workforce data in 2016, headcount has risen by a shocking 33.3 per cent.

Between March 2016 and March 2026, civil service employment increased by 139,485, from 418,340 to 557,825. In the last year alone, the number of civil servants rose by 8,165, or 1.5 per cent, from 549,660 in March 2025 to 557,825 in March 2026. That rate of growth was two and a half times the 0.6 per cent increase in total public sector headcount over the same period.

Mayor deeply concerned about twaddle overshoot

Mayor of London 'deeply concerned' by Heathrow expansion plans

Allowing a third runway to be built at Heathrow would “overshoot” the UK’s legally binding climate targets, according to a report...

In a statement, Lord Khan said: “I am deeply concerned about the potential adverse impacts of Heathrow expansion on air quality, noise pollution, our environment and the transport networks in the capital and beyond.

“While aviation plays an important role in our economy and helps to keep us connected as a global city, any growth must not come at the expense of Londoners’ health or our environment.”

We expect politicians to emit twaddle, we're used to that, but to emit it all the time must be some kind of record. Although the thought that Khan might be champion twaddler does lead to a few names who could compete. 

Jeremy Corbyn for example, he'd offer some stiff competition, as would Ed Miliband, Ed Davey and Harriet Harman. Zack Polanski is cantering up on the inside too.

  

The most uninspiring official announcement since...

Prime Minister puts public control, community regeneration and cost-of-living at the heart of plans to ‘rewire Britain’

• Three new cross-government taskforces are being launched in the new Office for the Prime Minister & Cabinet, tackling systemic issues like the cost of living and public control of essentials and supporting local communities.
• Action to be taken on cost of living, local regeneration and essential services to drive down costs and support families.
• Taskforces will tackle the immediate priorities of the public, building on action already taken including cutting bus fares and cracking down on subscription traps.
• First Secretary of State, Louise Haigh to drive forward work across government to develop local solutions for local communities.

Three new cross-government taskforces are being launched in the new Office for the Prime Minister & Cabinet, tackling systemic issues like the cost of living and public control of essentials and supporting local communities.

Blimey Burnham's reign already shows signs of turbocharged tedium, possibly beating Starmer's turgid stint. 

It is even possible that experienced bureaucrats will be left floundering here, valiantly struggling to find procedures and processes to be expanded, mission-creeped and thoroughly gold-plated in the traditional manner. 

Oh well, I wonder if my slippers need replacing yet...