When Labour lost office in 2010
Unemployment 7.8%
Inflation 3%
Real pay -1%
When Conservatives lost office in 2024
Unemployment 3.6% ( under half 2010)
Inflation. 2% ( one third lower)
Real pay 2.2% (3.2% higher)
Today
Unemployment 4.4% ( more than a fifth higher)
Inflation. 2.5% ( up one quarter)
Real Pay 2.2% ( unchanged)
Growth in 2024
Q1 +0.7%
Q2 +0.4%
Election
Q3 no growth
Q4 +0.1%
February 13, 2025
Sorry don’t accept this – I was working throughout last decade and we were impoverished for years by Osborne’s austerity budgets, trying to put the house back in order from the Blair years which really wrecked it – no pay rises or pathetic excuses for them for years. The successive governments since 1997 but certainly since 2001 when the Blair administration started to go rogue have ruined this country – absolutely binned it and it remains to be seen whether even Reform can make any progress, hopefully when elected.
Such a shame – utterly wrecked this millennium, by New Labour and the excuse for Conservatives – especially exposed post Brexit when they had to earn their living, but failed woefully.
February 13, 2025
I notice john doesn’t include per capita income because any growth is down to immigration and government borrowing. This recipe has been tested to destruction and doesn’t benefit the indigenous population.
There are statistics and lies. The government prefers the latter.
February 13, 2025
‘Income per capita’ is a better measure Ian, yet what that income buys would enable a sharper perspective.
Newspaper writers used to compare how much time the English worked to buy a loaf of bread compared with Germans and other nationals.
An income of £1k per hour is worthless if a can of beans costs £5k and tin openers are banned on Health & Safety regulations. However much income people make, governments can still mess life up, and do.
February 13, 2025
Yes, even the numpties at Sky have started quoting per capita. What about taking out of the GDP number the amount of net increase in government debt? Growth in the public sector is easy if you keep borrowing, and that’s what the Consocialists have been doing for a decade. If we only looked at the private sector the picture would probably be very disturbing.
February 13, 2025
Growth per cap is essentially negative, the rich are leaving or not bothering to work, employ more or expand.
Reeves told by economists that she much cut government costs or will have to raise tax rates again. They should also have told her that increasing tax rates further will not actually raise any more tax anyway. Nor will most of the tax increases she has done already like VAT on school fees or the wars on non doms. We are in a doom loop, the only way out is far less parasitic government, a bonfire of red tape, lower taxes, ditch net zero and high skilled quality )self financing) immigration only.
So much fat that could so very easily be cut. But zero political will. A doom loop budget to kill growth call a budget for growth by a lying or daft Reeves.
February 13, 2025
If you don’t know the size of the population – including those in ‘modern slavery’ which we are all so sanguine about – how can you produce such a figure?
I want Lammy to work out how much the U.K. owes living slaves – and extract that sum from the slave owners that we allow to flourish.
February 13, 2025
How much worse are things now? No growth + 0.1% with immigration increasing in 2025.
February 13, 2025
I agree: this country has been utterly wrecked by the Westminster Uni-Party since 1997.
February 13, 2025
1990! Do you seriously think Major was not a disaster?
February 13, 2025
This country has been utterly wrecked by the Westminster Uni-Party since 1997.
Ceding power to the civil service and judiciary.
February 13, 2025
@Andrew Jones +1
As these politicos have proved you can fabricate austerity one year, to then show improvement the following year by just doing nothing. Year on year might show trends but they don’t reflect reality. We are a quarter of the way through this century and have gone backwards on every count, especially when compared to the average competitor country in the World.
Chillingly the Blair years destroyed the fabric and structures of the Country, then Osbourne and May and Johnson destroyed its economic future. The Country’s leadership has neglect its post and turned the Country first Socialist and now moving to a one party Marxist State. No one is willing to serve.
We have a bunch of MPs, with the leadership of their choice refusing even to be the UK’s Legislators, there doesn’t appear to be a ‘management’ brain between them. The don’t appear capable of the basics of creating a successful UK.plc, know there is more to the economy than tax. All wedded to ideology not the Country or its People. All looking to stroke their personal take on their personal self-esteem – from the outside we appear to have 620 freeloaders doing the bidding of their appointed ‘BLOB’
February 13, 2025
Fake growth magicked through financial jiggery-pokery.Eventually all ponzis collapse.
February 13, 2025
The lowest paid have had pay rises, 30% are said to have benefitted, the last couple of years they went up 10% each year. Is this the price of that Minimum wage that average earnings have dropped to fund it?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c9e0e72e5274a527faae38a/20_years_of_the_National_Minimum_Wage_-_a_history_of_the_UK_minimum_wage_and_its_effects.pdf
February 19, 2025
An article in the Guardian about Spain, which said that their minimum wage has increased 50% since 2018 and was in part used as a reason Spain is booming, this intrigued me. So I compared the UK minimum wage.
From 2018 to 2024 it increased from £7.83 ph from age 25 to £11.44 ph from age 21, 46% and if you use the April 1 2025 figure by 56%.
Immigration from Latin America is also mentioned as pro-growth, so how do their figures of immigrants that work compare to ours?
February 13, 2025
Blair also behind UK going the daft wars of Iraq and Afghan.
1) Costing the lives of British soldiers – and others.
2) Kicking up a storm of political unrest in these regions giving rise to other problems
3) Costing our country £20 Billion. When this money could have been saved for the tax payer or if you’re going to spend tax payer’s money, on helping to develop UK as world’s Second Silicon Valley and that £20 Billion would today be worth £200 Billion to our economy or more.
February 13, 2025
We know Labour are a failure, not only do they emphasise it on a weekly basis, but historically it is in their genes.
Thanks to their illicit relationship with socialism their predecessors in government also failed. They hitched themselves to the WEF, and Davos. Both would seem to encourage dependency on an international scale, while ignoring the needs of the UK population. In so doing they set aside the opportunities of Brexit, leading us into limbo land, where it became blindingly obvious that UK infrastructure had degenerated into abject failure. Their final gesture as a result was to bequeath us a government blinded by doctrine. A doctrine that guarantees failure in the real world. Both have and are consigning themselves to the dustbin of failure. Increasingly nobody trusts them. On an international scene we are fast losing our principal ally, the reborn USA.
Those who have the perception can but sit and wait the implosion, at worst a further 4.5 years. This assumes the cancelling of local elections is not a trial run for the same with the next GE.
February 13, 2025
@agricola +1
The ideology of Parliament is a cabal for themselves personally. Not one of the capable of running themselves let alone an economy or a country
February 13, 2025
Labour have never been able to compete with the Conservatives on the economy and they never will. Their ideology is economically regressive, it harms the country and they eventually get voted out.
That said the Conservatives get voted out because of ideological attrition (aka ‘rising damp’). All the Conservatives need to do is remain true to authentic Conservatism and they will win big.
February 13, 2025
They need to go back to authentic conservatism, not remain true to it. Their actions and, notably, inactions post Blair/Brown when the latters “reforms” gutted MPs by transferring power and responsibility to quangos revealed gutless conservatism. Consequently the Conservative party is now branded the Uniparty along with Labour as part of the problem causing the crisis in the UK and not part of the solution.
February 13, 2025
@David Andrews +1
The last GE saw what was left of Conservatives in the party move on. Now we have the ‘Continuity’ team the ones that owned and were collectively responsible for the loss of conservatism wishing to retain the continuity of ‘their’ failures. The countries Conservatives didn’t fail – they were deserted.
February 13, 2025
@Paul Freedman – “All the Conservatives need to do is remain true to authentic Conservatism and they will win big”. But where do they start, Conservatives are not amongst those that run the Party at any level. Conservatives are blocked from being even selected. The rising damp has morphed into Socialist mould that has been festering to long that it has become a permanent stain. In those situation the structures have to be knocked down and a complete clear out with a new build, with new material – other wise the stain will just reappear
February 13, 2025
Thanks Ian and David. I share many of your concerns as I have deeply disagreed with and disliked the Conservative drift to the centre ground.
Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to acknowledge it was a gargantuan mistake, learn from it and let the Conservative Party reform itself back to where it should be.
I am only a sideline observer but I think that reform might be happening. Clearly much more authenticity is still needed however.
February 13, 2025
How is real pay defined? Is this pay after taxes and inflation? Given high rents and commuting cost work hardly pays at all for many. Plus he Reeves NI grab has not even hit yet.
Can anyone explain why Sunak threw in the towel six months early to gift such a huge majority to the dire Starmer? Why did Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak stick to he net zero insanity, the ECHR and run an open door immigration policy when they promised not to? Thus destroying their credibility completely for years to come. Kemi has a difficult job is still taking the same line!
Only one in five immigrants it seems are skilled workers it seems, and I do not imaging that means even that 20% are all actually paying their way.
February 13, 2025
I predicted some time ago, when the Tories were still governing, that we’d soon have half of Gaza here. That’s coming true, especially with Alf Dubbs advising the government – the ultimate advocate of open door immigration. I’ve also predicted income tax increases shortly, whether explicit or by stealth.
I’m no longer surprised by anything. Goodbye England. It was nice knowing you
February 13, 2025
Because they are under the thumb of the WEF corruption pushers LL
We need honesty and truth back, and Badenoch is not fit for the job!
February 13, 2025
Kemi has a virtually impossible job given the make up of the her largely Libdem/Net Zero, open door to immigration MPs but her line (which is largely Sunak continuation) will never work. She will never restore Conservative credibility after 14 years of their fraudulent contempt for voters with the line she is taking.
February 13, 2025
When Conservatives lost office in 2024!
No so much “lost office” as threw it away and six months early to by pushing their net zero, open door to immigration, tax and regulate to death, duff socialist agenda.
Has Sunak admitted the Covid vaccines and lockdowns did huge net harm to health yet and corrected his unequivocally safe lies(?) to parliament yet?
February 13, 2025
@Lifelogic – if you keep continuing with the same mistakes, you still get the same mistakes. If you were part of the collective management team therefore owner of the mistakes and failures, then seek continuity – you are seeking failure not a turn around in fortunes.
The electorate is beginning to wise up they know themselves they cant keep voting the same way and then be surprised that get the same failures
February 13, 2025
I think we all agree here that we’ve been better off financially under nominally conservative governments than Labour ones. It’s not all down to governance, of course but that plays a very large part.
Whilst economic legacies still haunt us (2008, the lockdown bust), it’s the future we are concerned about. The huge, growing debt, the growth of government and harmful regulation are surely our biggest dangers. I hope that Trump/Milei show that these can be halted or reversed, and we get a political party here that has the ability to tackle these problems. The Tories just don’t get it; Reform still appear amateurish.
It should be added that economics isn’t everything. We need to recover our freedom of speech, and an end to judicial overreach and excess immigration.
February 13, 2025
Wanderer:
Any party achieving the three points in your last sentence would become highly popular.
February 13, 2025
Well,yes,but it depends on how long the bread queues get.
February 13, 2025
Yes Bloke- I fully agree with that
February 13, 2025
@Wanderer – to think the taxpayer still hasn’t paid down the debts of 2008. But Parliament, its MPs don’t like to talk about that
February 13, 2025
I volunteer at a particular charity and I can assure you the need for the service has grown since Labour came to power and not diminished.
I accept that no new administration can turn things around immediately, but I would expect to see a similar level of need for a while and not a rise. Certainly not from a Socialist government!
Most of those I work with are full on Socialists (champagne of course) and had plenty to say before the election and were cock-a-hoop at Labour’s victory. Now there is a deathly silence and no political talk allowed (I never dared air my views anyway or I’d be asked to leave I’m sure) and I can see that deep down they know things are not getting better as they pompously claimed they would. They are getting worse, and I see no end to it being so.
February 13, 2025
Michelle I have the same experience only now I take great pleasure in telling them I voted Reform for Lee Anderson who is our MP. Some of my colleagues really believe 2TK is doing a good job and they will deliver 1.5 million houses etc.
One particular thicko thinks we are short of power because the tories didn’t build enough windmills.
The fact we are all worse off and are going to be even more so under these clowns is completely lost in them.
February 13, 2025
@Michelle & @Ian wragg – having created a crisis now, screwed the economy, hanging back in the run up to the election just as Sunak/Hunt did the year-on-year figures will look amazing.
February 13, 2025
This puzzles me. Does anyone want another 1.5 million estate boxes built? Who are they for? Any in the South or West will be half a million quid.
February 13, 2025
You should follow DOGE – 22days and they have a ‘clock’ running up the saving they have made by scrapping and sacking. Yesterday the figure was 84,603,959,283 – Musk has attracted ‘the geniuses’ he started out with 25 and now over 100, Trump boasts that there are a lot of 160s and a couple of 182s (IQ levels) they are inundated by citizens reporting Government waste.
They think they will save a trillion, the economy will grow by a trillion (lower taxes) and the books will be balanced. From then on it’s pushing forward to repay the 36 trillion debt and achieve a small government, low taxes and free society. Nirvana!
February 13, 2025
And only recently I saw a note to say that individually we are no better off than 10 years ago. So your legacy is for us to stand still. So what’s the point of these figures if you can’t and haven’t translated them into our benefit.
Had you not poured money into an increasingly inefficient public sector the outcome might of been different.
February 13, 2025
@NigL – If, only if. If we had MP’s and their appointed Government working for the UK the they be managing UK.plc, managing the economy, which really means being on top of expenditure every miniscule penny. Just spending isn’t managing.
In reality parliament is to large as such it is to easy for MPs to lurk in the shadows, to be part of the ‘free-loading’ team, a job with money and nothing to do
February 13, 2025
Trump has announced the ending of NATO security in Europe, abandoning Ukraine and leaving the continent to Putin’s Russia, the right-wing press here are in raptures over this repeat of 1930’s appeasement.
Here are some headlines from yesterday – “Zelensky has to learn that he won’t get what he wants” “The American delegation to ceasefire talks has excluded Ukraine representatives to avoid arguments”
“Europe cannot rely on US protection, new Pentagon chief tells NATO allies”
Pathetic. After three years of war defending against Russian aggression, once again American security guarantees are shown to be worthless.
February 13, 2025
The killing will stop! Face reality – Ukraine is losing 1,600 per day! This HAS To STOP.
Have you no humanity?
There will be a European security Treaty. No need for NATO. Rejoice because they have fought and lost their proxy war (as Johnson states openly).
February 13, 2025
He’s not interested in Europe;with most of SE Asia and Africa joining or moving into alignment with BRICS this year and the Great Eurasia Project rapidly falling into place,Europe is left as a desertified liability which a hugely overstretched US is now ditching.
February 13, 2025
@Sakara Gold – all the time the USA taxpayer is having to foot the bulk of the bill, supply the bulk of the equipment and manpower is it a surprise.
Europe has a populating that is close on being 50% larger than the US, yet the USA is having to spend 70odd % more than Europe to keep NATO going.
Where is the reciprocity(fairness if you like) in that?
Trumps in a few short weeks has been all about addressing the imbalance and the taking for granted of the US Taxpayer. Others the EU, China etc initiated a trade war by stealth to sponge of the US – he now wants nothing more than to be treated as others treat themselves(he unlike them is not chasing the advantage, just the same respect and same treatment). – If only we had that same thinking this side of the pond. UK politicians don’t even respect the people that vote and pay them, they all cuddle up to masters in other domains
February 13, 2025
The unfortunate truth is that the UK and Europe has sheltered under the US military umbrella for far too long. The West has been running up it’s debt for years. In this country we have poured money into the NHS, whilst allowing our armed forces to decline to historic low levels. I served in BAOR when the British Army could field three Divisions, complete with heavy armour on the northern plains. I’ve always believed that we came very close to Amageddon on one occasion. I am probably lucky to be alive, as my Armoured Brigade would have taken the brunt of any Soviet attack. People have forgotten (or choose to ignore) modern European history.
So I listened very carefully to Pete Hegseth’s speech yesterday. Essentially he told told Europe (and us) that we would have to sort out Ukraine ourselves, as it would not come under NATO’s Article 5. He didn’t pull the plug on NATO but made it clear that this was a European problem and that we have to deal with it. The message was “Step Up!” because the US is going to be busy protecting the Pacific area and can’t afford to also take care of us any more. We need to make some very tough decisions about our spending priorities.
Hegseth’s speech has revealed the hard military realities facing Europe. With regards the UK’s military, frankly I doubt much will change and certainly not under this Government.
February 13, 2025
Rewriting your last sentence SG…After 80 years of defending Europe against Russia, USA is now saying it is time we paid for it ourselves.
February 13, 2025
typo..60 years
February 13, 2025
It’s time for European countries to stand up for themselves, rather than hiding underneath US’s umbrella. The US has given Ukraine plenty of support, now Europe needs to stand up against the bully.
If the US turns its back on Ukraine, will the US also turn its back on Taiwan when China decide to invade?
February 14, 2025
What is pathetic is the view that the US is to blame for wanting to reduce it’s military obligations in a region that has refused to take responsibility for it’s own security and stability.
But it was ever thus – spend some time in volunteering activities and you soon learn that the beneficiaries of your generosity do not value it and can get super stroppy when you withdraw it.
February 13, 2025
‘Today’ is always worse than something better.
February 13, 2025
The Uni-Party are both responsible for the state of the economy. It never really recovered from the 2008 banking crisis: Cameron and Osborne didn’t impose austerity, cut spending and shrink the size of the State. They increased spending, albeit slightly slower than Labour had intended and they continued with the process of increasing technocratic governance by creating more “expert” Quangos/Regulators. And all the time, they increased immigration so that GDP would grow (whilst GDP per capital shrank).
They jointly refused to seize the opportunities of Brexit. They jointly imposed the Covid Tyranny loading us with £2.1 TRILLION of debt. They are jointly imposing the Net Zero SCAM.
I really don’t care that Sunak got the economy moving again. That would probably have happened anyway as people picked up the pieces of their lives following the Covid Tyranny. Yes, Labour created Stagflation with Reeves’ budget. But I think that has all been deliberate in order to persuade the gullible that we must “hug the EU.”
I look at what the Uni-Party has done to this country through mass immigration and enforced multi-culturalism.
It bears no resemblance to England in the 1980s/90s … let alone the 1960s ….. and I conclude that neither the Tories nor Labour, post 2029, should ever be allowed to form another Government.
February 13, 2025
And in related news the Speccie has launched an initiative about waste in government. Sir JRs figures are irrelevant. Like saying a business has an excellent gross profit so it doesn’t matter if excessive spending turns that into a loss.
Read the article and see the examples (electric Porsches to Albanian orisons) and weep. Estimates of up to £200 billion could be saved.
February 13, 2025
@NIGL, DOGE is contagious everywhere except in government and their supporters.
February 13, 2025
Any chance of a list?
February 15, 2025
One to go on with, the £10 billion paid out by the DWP for bogus or erroneous benefits claims in 2023 – 2024. The vast majority ( £7.3bn reportedly ) was for fraud …. ” with the DWP displaying a dangerous mindset that pins the blame for its underperformance on a greater propensity for fraud across society, rather than seeing this as a challenge to meet. These estimates, of course, are for fraud, rather than the sort of waste generated by gaming a system of ludicrously lax rules. Yet even so, it is worth juxtaposing the ease with which departments wave away billions here with the hoops law-abiding taxpayers are forced to jump through …. ” ( D. Tel 01/02/25 )
February 13, 2025
You should include the GDP per head numbers, these show that the UK is in recession:
Q3 2024: -0.3%
Q4 2024: -0.1%
The Q3 and Q4 raw GDP numbers show 0% and +0.1% growth ONLY because of immigration in those periods – no wonder the current government to some extent and the last government to a massive extent were so keen on open borders.
February 13, 2025
To quote that famous election advert:
Has never worked, and will never work – not when they try to impose their ideology and perverted economic nonsense on us, not to mention their idiotic fascination for high tech like AI, and their need to foist their bad science bad religion through indoctrination.
There are exact reasons why the country is going down the pan since this regime assumed power, which are nothing to do with the markets or even bad luck. Some would call it incompetence, but nobody could be this bad with so many advisors.
Labour have shown they can be vindictive in many ways. They target groups and make them pay or regulate against them to make less of them.
Let’s top pussyfooting around this subject — HMG is deliberately intending to wipe the UK off the map as an industrial nation, while they turn it into an Islamic state.
We can all see this happening now, and the pain is going to get a lot worse.
February 13, 2025
Socialism is a mental disease. The proof of failure are overwhelming yet they cannot change – must be profiting from it personally do you think?
February 14, 2025
@Lynn
Agreed – they are not thinking on all cylinders and so make false conclusions and actions.
As we can see with the democrats in the USA they also act with less than 100% morals – by trying to to change the world to mirror their perverted lives.
February 13, 2025
Sir John
Your figures are of course correct, but I would take issue with you on the time frame used.
Hunt and Sunak decimated the economy increasing costs therefore inflation, yet by doing nothing for 12 months we magically had growth – growth on the previous 12 months. Starmer and Reeves as we have seen parrot the previous crowd, if they do nothing for 12 months the year on year figures will improve – then people will be applauding Labour.
Its vaguely similar to the Media picking up on the OBR’s recent comments, they paints a bad picture. But we all know the OBR just as with the BoE have never been correct on any of their assumptions since their inception.
The real one, is do we think things are better? Have things improved for the Country and the People this century? Are we better served by those that govern us? Do the Laws rules and regulations we have circulating the Country work for it or its People?
February 13, 2025
Be interesting to know what these figures were when Lady Thatcher took up control in 1979. I remember inflation being in the 20% and mortgage rates were 17% at one stage for us in the years before and when she was in power trying to right the mess the Labour lot left then. Blair inherited a much better position than she did and it would be interesting to see the two comparisons.
February 13, 2025
It was claimed in both 2010 and 2024 (far more justifiably in 2010 than in 2024) that the biggest economic problem was the large public expenditure deficit (that is public expenditure substantially exceeding governmental, mainly taxation, income) that required rectification.
February 13, 2025
The budget from Reeves was highly daamaging and unusually prompt in its effects. Let us though recognize the fragility of the legacy from the Sunak government: things were all set to get worse.
February 13, 2025
Makes one wonder why Rishi called the election? He was on a winning streak why did he cut and run?
February 13, 2025
Labour have been disappointing early on, granted. However, the economy was growing in 2010 when the Tory coalition won power.
The UK structural economy is worse today imho. Stagnant growth, black hole deficit, 100%+ debt to GDP (65% in 2010), baked-in high inflation, stagnant wage growth since 2008. Broken services. Accelerated inward migration both legal and illegal is off the charts.
The Tories inherited a difficult set of circumstances with the pandemic and Ukraine war, off the back of a challenging Brexit, but could have done better with time in office.
February 13, 2025
I see Mr Miliband is persisting with his plans to make many renters homeless by 2030, while escalating rents and energy bills (via unworkable heat pumps) sharply for those lucky enough not to be turfed out of their homes, all in pursuit of the unachievable and completely uneconomic attempt to make rented housing at least EPC C. It is also likely to mean that landlords will be reluctant to repair or replace existing boilers etc. if the need arises because it would crystallise a decision about trying to meet the new standard. An eviction notice and putting the property up for sale, likely to take many months, will reduce the available housing stock.
Meanwhile the Energy Select Committee heard that solid wall insulation installations under the previous scheme have been a disaster, causing damp, mould and failing to do an adequate job. The green zealots designing these schemes should be sacked. The focus should be on providing cheaper energy, and on insulation measures that work and have a reasonably rapid payback. I have previously suggested the limit should be 7 years.
February 13, 2025
Sir John
If I may, Chagos Petition at this address: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702712
February 13, 2025
All this is minor compared to the enduring damage from the 2008 global financial crisis.
February 13, 2025
Using today’s update from the ONS:
Average annual growth rates before and after the 2008 global financial crisis:
1948 – 2008 2.73%
2008 – 2024 1.13%
If the previous growth rate had continued for the past 16 years GDP would now be 28% higher than it is.
February 13, 2025
Neither Labour now, nor the Conservatives previously, have faced up to the real problem. 25 years of deficit budgets and constantly increasing debt. Too much government spending, too much power transferred to useless Quangos and Judges. Immature MPs who are not very bright, as we can see from the recent WhatsApp scandal,
and who have swallowed the Net Zero nonsense whole!
It is an absolute shambles and the PM, Foreign Secretary, Lord Hamer and civil servants involved in the Chagos discussions should be on trial for treason.
February 13, 2025
How much I like that at least some of the contributors here are insisting on GDP per capita or GDP per capita PPP when comparing with other countries.
Next stage will be when they’ll be considering how these GDP increases are distributed within various deciles of the population.
custommapposter.com ‘Who benefits from a high GDP? (2025)’.
D.Coyle, ‘GDP: A brief but affectionate history – revised and expanded’, 2015.
D.Susskind, ‘Growth: A Reckoning’, 2024.
February 13, 2025
I read today that the UK economy grew by 0.1% in the final quarter of 2024
So the population grew by 4 times more than the GDP?
Socialism depends upon people remaining poor.
February 13, 2025
All these figures are sexy for statistical nerds to get off on.
However we the UK are the sixth largest economy in the World. Those responsible for managing it are shuffling the dominoes so badly, nobody or very few are benefitting from it. Wherever you look nothing is working and indivuduals are enjoying our status less and less. In terms of personal GDP we have now fallen to 27th in the World league tables. Those creating national GDP are getting progressively poorer.
I maintain that the UK state is sucking, leechlike, more and more out of the system to pay for ill conceived projects, unwanted in many cases, and universally badly run. The state is killing the body it feeds on.
Solution, audit the state ruthlessly, and remove all negative cancerous growth from it. Result, the state needs much less tax income, bond income, and money printing to fulfill its much reduced role. Then rewrite the tax book. If Singapore can succeed on a reputed 500 pages and in terms of personal GDP reside at 2nd place in the world, what are the UK doing with a reputed 21,000 pages residing at 27th place, and heading downwards every year.
Eliminating much state spending and reducing excessive tax would turbo charge the economy and boost peoples sense of self worth, in their minds and pockets. A win win situation.
February 14, 2025
Moderation ?
February 13, 2025
What of the economic & social comparison of legal/illegal immigrant between governments …If you can’t deport them you must secure them, the economic & social costs are too great ….you mustn’t allow them to roam free
February 13, 2025
I see little point in rehashing these figures we are where we are and the world has moved on we’ll just have to get on with it – the government is there and we should support it best we can
Also no need to point out the sad situation we find ourselves in now with America turning inwards and then chaos pertaining over the Ukraine front.
Whatever was going through Trumps mind if he thoug he could do a backdoor deal with Putin without consulting NATO or the Ukranians beggars belief – am afraid we have much bigger things to be concerned about now besides economic inheritances.
Reply President Trump has kept Ukraine and NATO fully informed.Why are you against peace? The EU failed to give ukraine enough military support to win.
February 14, 2025
I don’t support this Government of treasonous Student Union Marxists; I hope they crash and burn.
February 13, 2025
As usual what you’d expect from Labour, and they’ve only just started, it will get catastrophically a lot, lot worse.
But we must not forget, the Tories under Boris had an opportunity to make Labour and socialism forgotten forever, but they blew it terribly became woke and more like Labour than Labour themselves and effectively they still are. If it were not for that Labour would never never have been elected
February 14, 2025
If it was all so good before the 2024 election where did all the money go?
Why were basic facilities and services so increasingly bad over the “golden” 14 years – education, dental and general health services, transport, road quality, time and costs to develop and implement infrastructure, declining energy and communications .. Where have all our industries gone?
Perhaps a simplistic economic dashboard does not provide an accurate picture for the majority of citizens nor point to how to reverse the direction and repair the damage.
February 14, 2025
Or just look at the same figures for previous years, say from 2007 onwards, or better (if you can find them) from 1979.