Economy

There’s talk of reparations in the air. Lobbyists from around the world are demanding sin-payments from former colonial powers. Let me add my voice to the clamour on behalf of this island’s indigenous Celtic people. My family are from Llanelli in Carmarthenshire and I believe that my compatriots have an excellent case to make against the Roman empire. This is not an extinct claim – the money is still in play. Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar in 55 BC and his visit was followed up a century later by the Emperor Claudius and his mob. The Roman occupation, which involved the military subjection of the Celtic peoples, lasted for

It is an uptick so small that it could almost be comic, but the UK economy started to grow in May: by 1.8 per cent following a 20 per cent slump in April. Office for National Statistics figures out today show that, even in lockdown, surging online retail sales – coupled with signs of a recovery in construction – show a small increase in GDP. The big question is what shape we can now see: a L, a Nike swoosh or a sharp V? Reopening the economy can only go so far: tackling people’s fear of Covid-19 is key for a V-shaped recovery Today’s increase suggests growth is  – every so

Today Boris Johnson launched his ‘new deal’ for Britain – billed as an economic recovery plan to follow the Covid recession.  It sounds positively Rooseveltian. It sounds like a new deal. All I can say is that if so, then that is how it is meant to sound and to be, because that is what the times demand – a government that is powerful and determined and that puts its arms around people at a time of crisis. What has changed is the PM’s political positioning, away from the market economy and towards state intervention But were the announcements really a ‘new deal’ – or a new anything? The vast

Putting the UK into lockdown was only going to send growth in one direction: down. While today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics were expected, they nevertheless confirm that the UK has experienced its largest monthly economic contraction on record. The UK economy shrank 20.4 per cent in April. Combined with March’s GDP drop (now the second largest fall since records began), the British economy is a quarter smaller than it was in February. Putting these figures alongside other monthly slumps makes for stark comparison. Hits taken for additional bank holidays and for the pain experienced during the financial crash barely compare to what’s happened in light of the

The global lockdown has seen economies shrink and unemployment soar across the world, pushing governments to borrow at rates never seen in peacetime. On Wednesday, the OECD published country-by-country estimates for the economic hit – and its projections for the UK are some of the worst. Under the scenario of no second wave (that is, assuming countries won’t need to lockdown again this year), Britain’s economic downturn is forecast to be the worst in the G7, and fourth-worst in the OECD, with an 11 per cent fall in annual GDP. In the case of a second wave, prospects still aren’t great: in the G7, Britain’s 14 per cent downturn is on

What exactly is an apprenticeship guarantee? That’s the major question to come out of Wednesday night’s Covid press conference after Boris Johnson committed to offering an apprenticeship to all young people:   I think it is going to be vital that we guarantee apprenticeships for young people. We will have to look after people across the board, but young people in particular, I think, should be guaranteed an apprenticeship. While the commitment was there, the detail was not. Is this really a guarantee for all young people? In the first quarter of this year, over 350,000 people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed (excluding those in full-time education); another 1.5 million aged 18 to 24-year-olds were

Just how bad will the Covid economic hit be? Today’s figures for the first quarter of 2020 show Britain’s economy shrunk by two per cent, but that takes into account just a few days of lockdown (and suggests that the recession started some time before). The March figure is more like it: despite only formally being in lockdown for eight days in March, the UK economy contracted 5.8 per cent that month alone. As Capital Economics puts it ‘in just one month the economy has tumbled by as much as it did in the year and a half after the global financial crisis.’ Yet some responses to today’s figures reveal a worrying degree of

Can the UK expect a V-shape recovery? The Bank of England has this morning published data revealing very deep V, suggesting a complete economic recovery in a matter of months: a 25 per cent plunge in growth in Q2, followed by a 14 per cent and 11 per cent boom in Q3 and Q4. That would be the sharpest collapse in 200 years followed by the sharpest recovery in 300 years: more of a bungee jump than a V. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s an ‘illustrative scenario’ rather than a forecast. It’s not just lockdown: living with the virus takes a big economic toll The