After the non-event that was the Spring Statement, yesterday’s Mais lecture by Rachel Reeves was supposed to give us the granular detail of the Chancellor’s plan to rescue Britain’s economy. I hope no one held their breath. The speech was at times incoherent, and felt like an exercise in buck-passing more than the decisive plan […]
As it touted the latest recipe change to its flagship beer Punk IPA in December, BrewDog decided to splash the news across many of the country’s billboards. The tagline? ‘Tastes like commercial suicide’. Rarely has a marketing campaign from the brewer proved so honest. This week, the one-time £2 billion company agreed a sale to […]
Thinking ahead about the City of London should be high up on the policy agenda, given the City’s importance to the UK economy in terms of jobs, tax revenues, trade performance and inward investment. It is easy to take a relaxed and optimistic view of what lies ahead for the UK’s financial sector. London is, […]
Although it is early days, it does now look as if a cyclical recovery is starting in the UK economy. The best evidence is the recovery in retail sales from its six-year post-Covid slump. Since consumer spending is around 60% of GDP, a consumer recovery is critical to getting GDP rising. The recovery is also […]
Poverty was once the norm. A quarter of babies died in their first year of life. In 1980, around 40% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today only 10% of people do. Much of this is thanks to fossil fuels. The burning of wood, then coal, gas and oil, enabled us to prosper. […]
The Liberal Democrats have announced that they want to abolish the Treasury and replace it with a new ‘Department for Growth’, supported by a separate department for public spending. On the face of it, this sounds radical, even refreshing. Britain’s economy has stagnated for over a decade, productivity has broadly flatlined (especially in the public […]
Britain is stuck in a growth ‘doom loop’. Public spending has ballooned, taxes are at a 70-year high and the same pattern repeats each year. The result is a country that works harder, pays more and gets less. It’s a policy environment that is hitting business hard at all levels, and is toxic for young […]
Britain’s economic debate rests on a dangerous assumption. Debt crises are things that happen elsewhere. Greece, perhaps. Argentina, certainly. But not the United Kingdom – a mature economy with its own currency, deep capital markets and centuries of institutional credibility. History offers little comfort to countries that think this way. Countries rarely enter fiscal crisis […]
So, never-here-Keir is on, by my counting, his 38th overseas trip since entering Downing Street. This time, it is to Communist China, in what must feel like something of a homecoming for Starmer. The Prime Minister has declared that this trip will make Britain richer, which is a surprising goal given he is doing seemingly […]
British businesses have faced numerous challenges over the past few years, not least extortionate energy bills. According to the International Energy Agency, the UK has had the highest non-domestic energy prices of any member state, creating a significant barrier to growth and investment. What’s more, the government has imposed additional regulatory costs on businesses, such […]
Everyone talks about growth. How we don’t have it. How we desperately need it. From the Global Financial Crisis to war-induced energy crises to trade-crashing tariffs at the clicks of American fingers, our economy seems forever at the mercy of worldly vicissitudes. International onlookers could not be faulted for thinking that, for the past 18 […]
I am unapologetically pro-growth. Growth is good. But getting local agreement on significant economic expansion has historically been tricky. That’s why Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s new Local Growth Plan (LGP) is a precious thing; a genuine moment of unity and real ambition for our region’s economic future. The LGP is the roadmap for my target of […]
It’s hard to disagree with Lewis Goodall that the current Labour Government faces a ‘late 1970s’ moment. Productivity is flatlining, growth is anaemic and optimism has drained from our economic debate. Yet Rachel Reeves has a real opportunity to learn from her predecessors and revive her Government’s fortunes. Many of the reforms later associated with […]
If we judge governments by rhetoric alone, then this Labour Government is, by a country mile, the most pro-development in history. At the Labour Party Conference a few weeks ago, Housing Secretary Steve Reed proudly wore a hat bearing the slogan: ‘Build Baby Build’. In fact, the most common sight at the conference was Reed […]
Earlier this week, Housing Secretary Steve Reed effectively handed in his resignation. He told BBC One’s ‘Panorama’ that his job should ‘be on the line’ if he failed to meet Labour’s target to build 1.5 million homes by the end of the parliament. Even if it is far shy of the estimated 6.5m homes we’d […]
Economic growth has become the defining issue of our time. After years of stagnating productivity, squeezed living standards, rising taxes and ballooning government debt, the key question that our politicians are grappling with is whether we can reverse this decline and kickstart economic growth once again. This centrality of this to our politics is evidenced […]
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