Another week, another set of shop closures.Retailers and restaurant owners complain about rising costs, newspapers publish photographs of boarded-up shops, and inevitably somebody blames the Government. There is some justification for this. In April 2025 the National Living Wage increased by 6.7%, from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour. At the same time employers’ National Insurance … Read more
It’s the 40th anniversary of the end of the miners strike and I went back to Redhills to watch a documentary about the. strike. People who grew up in former mining owns bemoaned the decline of manufacturing and similar industries, and the disappearance of the tight knit communities that grew up around them Thatcher’s period … Read more
For much of the last forty years, Britain’s economic direction appeared settled. Governments argued about tax rates, spending priorities and public services, but the broad framework changed little. Privatisation, deregulation, competition, independent regulation, free trade and globalisation became part of the political consensus. Even Labour governments largely accepted the settlement created during the Thatcher years. … Read more
There has been a lot of comment about the latest UK growth figures. The headlines are undeniably good. Britain is now the fastest-growing economy in the G7 on recent quarterly measures, and since the General Election only the US has grown faster. That is particularly notable because the US is running a budget deficit of … Read more
I have finally given up on BT. Not just personally, but professionally as well. My business is moving away from them, and after the last few weeks I genuinely cannot understand why anybody voluntarily stays with them unless inertia, exhaustion or fear of changing provider finally overwhelms the instinct for self-preservation. The final straw was … Read more
Over the last few weeks I’ve travelled up and down the East Coast. It’s the tenth anniversary of Brexit, and with local elections looming, Reform are loudly predicting a string of victories. In some places they sound less like a political party and more like a touring production—same script, slightly different audience each night. Hull … Read more
The IMF recently downgraded its growth forecast for the UK following the escalation of conflict between the US/Israel and Iran. All major economies saw downgrades, but the UK’s was the largest. Even so, the IMF still expects the UK to be among the better-performing advanced economies. That didn’t make the headlines. Instead, we got the … Read more
At long last, the student loan system is being debated seriously. It should be. Few policies impose marginal tax rates that politicians would tolerate anywhere else: 37% on incomes over £25,000, 51% over £50,270, and 71% over £100,000, before you even factor in interest and postgraduate add-ons. The Conservatives have proposed scrapping interest rates of … Read more
The latest immigration data slipped out last week with surprisingly little noise. It should have been a big political moment. Net migration has fallen to 204,000 in the year to June—less than a third of the previous year’s level. That’s not a marginal shift. That’s a collapse. It’s now so sharp that it risks tipping … Read more
Are Pubs Really in Trouble? Reform are proposing a package of support for pubs — or possibly the whole hospitality sector. It’s not entirely clear. Robert Jenrick says one thing, Lee Anderson another. But before we get into subsidies, it’s worth asking a basic question: Are pubs actually in trouble? A Sector Caught in a … Read more