As always, I like the way you think. And John Cowperthwaite is, with Nigel Lawson, maybe the best economic policy-maker we've ever produced. Though I'm afraid we sold the pass on "prob… (View Post)

Monthly and even quarterly GDP statistics are worth precisely nothing, and it is stupid to make decisions on that basis. For one thing, they are routinely revised by large amounts. For another, facto… (View Post)

I don't agree. I worked in Whitehall in the dying days of the Brown government, and the stench of death then was remarkably similar to now. It took months to get the simplest decisions, nobody w… (View Post)

There's nothing inconsistent in not having made your mind up yet. I think he was still weighing the options then. The important thing was that once he decided, he stuck to his guns, unlike, say,… (View Post)

Contrasting Johnson and Starmer shows the difference between two types of trustworthiness. Boris is clearly not trustworthy personally. Only a fool would believe him on day-to-day matters. He says wh… (View Post)