And as far as nonsense is concerned John Longworth (below) takes some beating. He is one of he worst offenders, a quarter wit if you like.
He has appeared on this blog a few times. Longworth was CEO of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) in 2016 when he was forced to step down because of his enthusiastic and outspoken support for Brexit, against the policy and wishes of his own employer. He has written a lot of what reads like drug-addled stuff for The Telegraph and others both before and since the referendum always promoting Brexit and as hard as you like.
Longworth is now Chairman of the Foundation for Independence and of the Independent Business Network, whatever that is, but has taken time out to write another deluded piece for Conservative Home. I say deluded out of kindness, most of it is flat wrong.
He says this:
"Before the EU referendum in 2016, all of the institutions of the EU, UK. and international political and finance community – including the IMF, OECD, ECB, the Treasury, and the US President – said that voting to leave the EU would produce a tsunami of disasters of Biblical proportions.
"None of these came to pass in reality, except perhaps the loss of value of Sterling. This of course has made the UK more internationally competitive. As an example, the then-Chancellor, George Osborne said it would cost half a million jobs, when in fact it led to an additional half a million jobs being created. The greatest impact has been in the reputations of the pundits who got it so wrong.
"The U.K. economy has outperformed the EU and key EU member states on growth, inflation, and employment each year since 2016 until today. That includes 2020 and 2021 when we had left the EU. The coming year is forecast to be more challenging – forecast by those same institutions that were wrong in 2016."
I don’t think anyone forecast "a tsunami of disasters of biblical proportions." The Treasury forecast was for a reduction in GDP of about 4% by 2030 (circa £100 billion a year), a figure we have already reached. Brexit has been a disaster for a lot of individual businesses and some industries, notably fishing, but is in fact a slow puncture for the economy which will slowly and irrevocably make us all poorer.
The loss of value of Sterling - which he admits the so-called 'doom mongers were right about - may have made us more competitive internationally but it hasn’t helped our exports, which are stagnating, as the current head of the BCC noted only this week. Exporters in the UK are struggling despite booming export markets while our competitors are doing great business. It has also added to inflation.
We import about £500 billion of goods and services each year. The twenty per cent devaluation of the pound since 2016 has added another £100 billion a year to the bill - for the same amount and quality of goods. Hardly a benefit is it?
William Bain, the BCC’s head of trade policy, said that since last summer UK exports to the EU and the rest of the world have stalled while many other leading exporting countries have enjoyed a boom. “The combination of supply chain disruption, soaring prices, and the impact of Brexit red tape and compliance costs has had chilling effects on exports, especially for smaller firms already scarred by the pandemic,” he said.
Not quite what Longworth suggests is it?
But perhaps his biggest delusion is his assertion that the UK economy has "outperformed the EU and key EU member states on growth, inflation, and employment each year since 2016 until today."
Only a couple of days ago, I posted about top economist Paul Johnson of the IFS saying that, "Economic growth in the UK has been feeble for a good 15 years. We have underperformed most other major European nations, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, which have all grown more quickly than we have since 2007 (and in particular since 2015)."
Not only have we not 'outperformed' the EU, we have done particularly badly since 2015. Longworth is specifically contradicted by one of the most highly respected figures in the field of economics. Paul Johnson is the BBC's go to person for a quote on the budget.
Who do you believe?
Next comes, David (now Lord) Frost our former chief Brexit negotiator and the man responsible for both the withdrawal agreement with the infamous Northern Ireland Protocol, and the trade agreement. He may or may not have voted for Brexit. He certainly wrote an article against the whole idea of leaving the EU when he was CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association, but has since become a convert and a rabid Brexiteer.
Frost had a bizarre piece in The Telegraph yesterday morning which looks as if he wrote it after undergoing some sort of nervous breakdown. It’s hard to credit that a sentient human being is behind it. His elevation to the peerage has clearly gone to his head.
“We must never surrender our right to drive freely” his article is titled, adding that, “Driving has allowed us to express ourselves and avert socialist planners. No wonder they want to kill it.”
What?
It is (I think, it’s hard to be sure) about evil planners who want to 'stop us' driving cars with internal combustion engines. He bemoans electric cars and suggests....
“In our planners’ minds, the car can only survive on certain terms. Cars must be super-safe, plodding, ugly boxes like armoured troop carriers. There must be GPS-linked speed limiters and road pricing so the government knows where you are and can control when you go out. Really, they would rather you didn’t own a car at all but hired it by the hour instead.
“Yet cars are so much more than that. They are about a way of life that seems to be disappearing fast.”
He seems to think we will all be confined to our gardens, popping out occasionally on pushbikes.
"Cars should also be about beauty. They represent the society that made them. Communist East Germany produced the Trabant. Communist China produces Politburo-style boxes. Western civilisation produced the VW Beetle and the Mini, the Ferrari Testarossa and the E-type Jag – symbols of achievement, of individualism, of power.
"And cars are about excitement. The Fiat 500 nipping around the streets of Florence. The elation of burning down the Autoroute du Midi with the Alps in the distance. The sense of anticipation of heading along the urban freeway, the towers of New York or Chicago before you, as the signs flash by and the off-ramps flicker past.
"We’ll miss it when it is gone. And that time is closer than you think."
I am really not sure what it is he is advocating. Does he want to keep the internal combustion engine? Does he want to scrap the Highway Code? Is he calling for more dangerous cars? Which socialist planners does he think are preventing us driving freely? Is he denying climate change? Does he want better EVs with a longer range and more charging points or not?
It isn’t entirely clear to me.
What is clear is that Frost, like Longworth, lives in a fantasy world.
In Longworthland, erecting trade barriers with your biggest customer has boosted exports while in Frostworld devious, scheming planners are deliberately plotting to spoil everyone's fun.
