Donald Trump and Nigel Farage make a US-UK dream team (Image: NC)
Contrary to what the gloomsters would have you believe, there’s every reason to be cheerful in 2025 as long-running conflicts in the and the Middle East look set to come to a close. Combined with America producing a glut of oil and gas, energy should be cheaper around the world, bringing down prices of food and heating – including knocking as much as 10 pence off a litre of petrol.
The principal driver of optimism in 2025 will be president-elect . His new administration will demonstrate the alternative to the growth-strangling regulations and high taxes demanded by big governments. In the UK, public sector workers are now paid on average 6% more than their private sector colleagues while, shockingly, a quarter of our council taxes now go towards supporting their gold plated pensions.
At the same time, public sector unions are demanding four-day working weeks even as their productivity sinks. By contrast, Trump is setting up a department of government efficiency, co-led by , which has pledged to cut the number of unproductive pen-pushers in the US. And we know it can work. In Argentina, the new president Javier Milei has taken a metaphorical chain-saw to whole government departments, sacking some 25,000 civil servants, and returning his basket-case economy to GDP growth of 3.9% in 2024, with inflation down from 25.5% to 2.7% in a single year.
If Trump can reduce the cost of government in the US, it will give him room to cut taxes and turbo-charge the American economy, which is good news for us all. Already, economists are forecasting that Trump’s promise to ramp up oil production will bring the price of a barrel as low as $60, knocking 10p off a litre of petrol, back to what it was in 2021 before ’s invasion of .
And what is good for drivers is good for the rest of the economy, reducing the cost of food and dampening inflation. By ignoring net zero concerns, Trump will also step up fracking, ultimately cutting the cost of natural gas and our heating bills here in the UK.
We can only hope that wise heads in no-growth Britain under , with net zero impoverishment and stagflation, look to Trump’s freewheeling America, prioritising growth over virtue-signalling policies, and take note. Such a contrast will invite questions as to why we can’t have the same attitude to economic growth?
That should play well into the hands of and Reform UK who have pledged to release us from the burdens of big government and restrictive climate change policies.
Already rising in the polls, their first big test will be in May’s local elections, though there are fears the Government will make changes to local government rules to enable the postponing of some of the elections.
Britain needs a party that puts real distance between two other rivals that have failed or are failing to roll back the growth-stunting state. Voters want a real choice and I believe Reform will provide that. May also brings the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe (and hopefully an extra bank holiday). It will remind us the West is strongest when it pulls together and uses its economic might to overcome totalitarianism.
But we cannot hope to be strong without economic success and Germany needs to regain its energy by reversing its disastrous de-industrialisation. Elections in February will give Germans an opportunity to back a more pro-enterprise government, breaking their green shackles and embracing cheaper forms of energy.
has already endorsed the AfD and its plans to restart nuclear power.
Trump will build upon his Abraham Accords to conclude peace in the Middle East, bringing and many Arab states together to boost stability in the region. Iran is already much weakened by the defeat of Hamas, Hezbollah and the fall of Assad’s Syria. is currently degrading the military capabilities of the Houthis in Yemen so trade can pass unhindered through the Red Sea.
Similarly, Trump will insist on an end to the tragic conflict in , which neither side seems able to win. Putin’s war machine has been shown to be far less impressive than he claims it to be and with the fighting over, the threat to Nato countries may recede.
With Trump showing the way on the global stage to an alternative future without self-destructive net zero and enterprise-sapping high-tax government, there’s every reason to be optimistic. His success in America will help others make the case for similar policies in the UK and elsewhere in the EU. Together we are stronger when we are richer and we now finally have a leader of common sense in the driving seat.
Happy New Year to us all!