Christopher Howarth

Author of #TheDurianPact 2019 Con candidate Sunderland. Fmr accountant, lawyer, spad, TA

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

Out 18th September.... https://t.co/DmOaqD4rhF

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@TheBlairArchive Here he is rolling out another terrible idea (student debt for mediocre degrees) yet he did it with such conviction nobody could question it. Dangerous man.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

More on how Britain would manage a sovereign wealth fund, and why we don't have one.
https://t.co/3RbWCtmlSG

[Ross Baglin @ross_baglin]

Brilliant article by Juliet Samuel in The Times today.

London’s City Bridge foundation, a charity commenced in the 13th century to maintain London’s bridges, is being systematically looted on a grand scale to fund Leftist causes since the City of london Corporation, its only trustee, amended its charter in 1995 to fund “other charitable purposes”. since then, inter alia:

£1.2m in 2023 granted to “strengthen representation of the London’s Muslim-led charity Sector”

£1m over seven years to “ build capacity in the trans and sex worker sectors”.

£15m into a “climate action strategy” fund.

in 2024 2025 the foundation spent £13 million on bridges and £82 million on grants.

Meanwhile, Hammersmith Bridge remains …. closed.

[Jon Trickett MP @jon_trickett]

Brexit didn't cause the structural hollowing out of our economy; the 2008 crash did. The EU isn't a progressive haven, rejoining won't fix our problems. It's a distraction from the real task: a rupture with neoliberal orthodoxy. My piece for @politicshome https://t.co/cKsmRteiGp

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@grok @iosif_lazaridis Your map randomly places something near teh Egyptian border, one last chance, draw an EEZ for Dhekelia and Akrotiri, on the basis the UK did claim an EEZ.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@grok @iosif_lazaridis @grok You are obviously strugling in identifying where the bases are and so where a potential eez might be. Let me help you , it would be something like this. Perhaps work from this?

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@grok @iosif_lazaridis Redo that putting the EEZ attached to the British sovereign base areas as if the UK decided to claim an eez.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

What a British Sovereign Wealth fund would look like in reality
https://t.co/t8XdwhIA50

[Richard Holden MP @RicHolden]

This is clearly insane.

A charity set up to maintain London’s bridges is sitting on £1.5 BILLION, funding political campaigns and giving £1.1m to a group with links to a charity now under investigation over alleged Hamas connections.

Meanwhile, Hammersmith Bridge is still closed and other Thames crossings are crumbling.

What on earth are @cityoflondon doing?

Via @Fhamiltontimes in @TheTimes

https://t.co/JARRobVrxv

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

Guilty men https://t.co/t0gH4B3xNJ

[The Blair Archive @TheBlairArchive]

Tony Blair’s first Cabinet poses for an official photograph at Downing Street following Labour’s landslide victory. (May 1997)

[Britain Unbound @BritainUnbound]

Another great example of how Brexit polling shifts when the issue of sovereignty is raised... 🤔

In this case, 47% agree that the UK Government should control who comes into Britain, even if this means a more limited relationship with the EU 👇

source: https://t.co/NAVaLA7NVE

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

Those beautiful British sovereign islands in the Indian Ocean, shame if something happened to them.
https://t.co/IAHk8t0iGD

[PoliticalPics @PoliticalPics]

Jonathan Powell our National Security Adviser out and about in Westminster this lunchtime, reminds me of a scene out of Reservoir Dogs, what would he be called in this excellent movie !! perhaps Mr Cool, considering the pressure he's under this week !

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

I think you are referring to the UK declaration not the Treaty. The bases are 100% sovereign. There is then a Treaty and the UK (non binding) declaration. There is nothing stopping the UK claiming an EEZ and/or 12 miles of territorial water, indeed they didn't exist back then. But you are right that from a policy point of view the UK would not seek to upset Cyprus by ignoring the declaration.

[Guy Adams @guyadams]

Filthy, studs up tackle on Miatta Fahnbulleh in today’s sketch! https://t.co/t1qxwRs3w0

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

We ran the Empire better than we ran ourselves? https://t.co/rUoWtYukd8

[Handre @Handre]

John Cowperthwaite did more for human prosperity than any development economist drawing a government salary ever managed, and he did it by refusing to do almost anything at all.

As Hong Kong's Financial Secretary from 1961 to 1971, Cowperthwaite ran one of the most radically free economies the modern world has ever seen. He kept taxes flat and low (the top income tax rate sat at 15%), ran consistent budget surpluses, abolished import tariffs, and blocked nearly every subsidy request that crossed his desk. When British civil servants demanded economic statistics to justify intervention, he refused to collect them. Not out of laziness. He genuinely believed that giving planners numbers gave them excuses.

The results? In 1960, Hong Kong's per capita income stood at roughly 28% of Britain's. By 1997, Hong Kong had surpassed Britain. That trajectory happened without natural resources, without foreign aid, and without a single five-year plan drafted by well-intentioned economists from Oxford. Hong Kong had a harbor, people willing to work, and a bureaucrat with enough intellectual discipline to keep the state out of their way.

Capital flows toward secure property rights and reliable rules, and flees the moment politicians start allocating it. Every industry Beijing picked as a "priority sector" during those same decades burned through subsidies and produced junk. Hong Kong's industries emerged organically, serving real demand, building real wealth.

You benefit from this history whether you know it or not, because Hong Kong's success gave the world a controlled experiment that still embarrasses every advocate of managed development. The control group thrived. The planned economies didn't.

Cowperthwaite retired to St Andrews, received a knighthood, and gave almost no interviews. That restraint was entirely in character.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@julianHjessop Also in a counterfactual tax would have been higher elsewhere in the 80s so lower growth and a smaller economy. And if the counterfactual is Ed Miliband as Energy Minister we would be in the dark ages.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

We should not want Germany, they vetoed Eurofighter exports to the UK's detriment and would do the same if we let them in again. https://t.co/15Qdhjz271

[Chris Lunday @lundayfunday]

The notes also single out Britain’s BAE Systems.

Officials accuse it of putting exports ahead of German interests in the Eurofighter program, warning that British dominance would undermine a partnership of equals.

6/

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

@grok @afneil @GROK add a drawbridge rather than a stone bridge.

[Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth]

But as that money was left in the private sector we would have a smaller economy to match. We have debt far bigger than any possible fund. Anyway does anyone think British politicians would keep their ha ds off it or allow it to be invested sensibly? The one example of a UK fund that worked, CDC, the MPs stepped I. to specifically reduce its rate of return.