It is now just over a year since Labour entered office with promises to deliver the highest sustained growth of any G7 economy. The ambition was admirable; the delivery has been garbage.
Public sector industrial disputes have largely been resolved, thanks largely to agreeing to costly pay rises without requireing any increase in productivity. Lack of fiscal discipline has been a recurring theme for the last 14 months.
Planning reform, while insufficient, has accelerated some housing and infrastructure projects, though not nearly enough is being built. Relations with the EU have stabilised, reducing some of the trade friction that accumulated under successive Conservative governments.
The October 2024 Budget delivered the largest tax rise in a generation at precisely the wrong moment in the economic cycle. It’s sequel next month doesn’t look like being any better.
Business investment surveys have not recovered in the last 12 months. Inflation, while below its 2022–23 peaks, has proved sticky, partly because wage settlements remain elevated.
The fundamental incoherence of Labour’s economic approach, which seeks growth even as it expands the state and increases the regulatory burden on enterprise, remains unresolved.
A government serious about growth would have an honest conversation about which of these goals to prioritise. There is as yet little sign of that conversation taking place.
Macro Aggressions 