Rish! Sunak is promising to cut the national debt. But the Tories never eliminated the deficit, and the national debt (the sum of every annual shortfall) has steadily risen from 64.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 to 96.5% currently – the highest level since the 1960s.
Rish! Sunak has committed to cutting NHS waiting lists. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates they will be falling come the election but will not hit pre-Covid levels until at least 2030.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates the UK’s trend annual growth rate has fallen from 3.4% a year in the postwar period up to 1973, to 2.3% up to the 2008 financial crisis, to just 1.2% in the years since.
The IPPR thinktank estimates the UK has underinvested to the tune of half a trillion pounds. Most visible in crumbling schools, hospitals and infrastructure, it argues this lack of investment is behind key reasons for lacklustre productivity gains – a key driver of economic growth.
The narrow Brexit vote in 2016 triggered lasting economic upheaval, including tougher trade barriers with the UK’s largest trading partner. The UK economy has notably underperformed other advanced countries since, with real GDP per capita barely above pre-Covid levels, at 4% above the mid-2016 level, compared with 8% in the eurozone and 15% for the US. Rather than an explosion in global trade after Brexit, the US investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates total goods trade volumes have underperformed by about 15% compared with other economies, and relative to staying in the EU.
Rising debt interest and growing demand on services from an ageing population have pushed up government spending. But sluggish economic growth has meant weak tax income for the exchequer. In response, Sunak has increased taxes, largely by stealth, to put revenues as a share of the economy on track to hit the highest level since the second world war.
A weak economy has left workers paying the price. Real wages had grown by an average of 33% a decade from 1970 to 2007, but this fell to below zero in the 2010s. In mid-2023, average pay was back at the level during the 2008 financial crisis, after taking account of inflation. This 15 years of lost wage growth is estimated by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to have cost the average work £10,700 a year. The performance has been ranked as the worst period for pay growth since the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815.
Poverty has deepened over the past 14 years, leading to an explosion in food bank usage. From fewer than 100,000 in 2010, the number of emergency food parcels from the Trussell Trust has soared to almost 3m a year.
Deep cuts to benefits and rising living costs have outweighed gains from large minimum wage increases for the lowest-income households. These cuts have reduced the incomes of poorest fifth by just under £3,000 a year, according to the Resolution Foundation. This laid the ground for a deeper cost of living crisis as inflation soared after the pandemic and Russian war in Ukraine to the highest level in 41 years.
Net immigration to the UK has surged despite Brexit and repeated government promises to reduce it. David Cameron said in early 2010 that if he won the election, he would limit net immigration to “tens of thousands” per year. Net immigration reached a record 745,000 in 2022.
The UK population is projected to hit 70 million by mid-2026, a decade earlier than expected. Without growth in the population, and with it the UK workforce, Britain’s economy would have grown at a slower pace. Official figures show GDP per head has remained stagnant or fallen for seven quarters up to the end of 2023 – the worst performance since modern records began in 1955.
Rish! Sunak has committed to cutting NHS waiting lists. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates they will be falling come the election but will not hit pre-Covid levels until at least 2030.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates the UK’s trend annual growth rate has fallen from 3.4% a year in the postwar period up to 1973, to 2.3% up to the 2008 financial crisis, to just 1.2% in the years since.
The IPPR thinktank estimates the UK has underinvested to the tune of half a trillion pounds. Most visible in crumbling schools, hospitals and infrastructure, it argues this lack of investment is behind key reasons for lacklustre productivity gains – a key driver of economic growth.
The narrow Brexit vote in 2016 triggered lasting economic upheaval, including tougher trade barriers with the UK’s largest trading partner. The UK economy has notably underperformed other advanced countries since, with real GDP per capita barely above pre-Covid levels, at 4% above the mid-2016 level, compared with 8% in the eurozone and 15% for the US. Rather than an explosion in global trade after Brexit, the US investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates total goods trade volumes have underperformed by about 15% compared with other economies, and relative to staying in the EU.
Rising debt interest and growing demand on services from an ageing population have pushed up government spending. But sluggish economic growth has meant weak tax income for the exchequer. In response, Sunak has increased taxes, largely by stealth, to put revenues as a share of the economy on track to hit the highest level since the second world war.
A weak economy has left workers paying the price. Real wages had grown by an average of 33% a decade from 1970 to 2007, but this fell to below zero in the 2010s. In mid-2023, average pay was back at the level during the 2008 financial crisis, after taking account of inflation. This 15 years of lost wage growth is estimated by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to have cost the average work £10,700 a year. The performance has been ranked as the worst period for pay growth since the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815.
Poverty has deepened over the past 14 years, leading to an explosion in food bank usage. From fewer than 100,000 in 2010, the number of emergency food parcels from the Trussell Trust has soared to almost 3m a year.
Deep cuts to benefits and rising living costs have outweighed gains from large minimum wage increases for the lowest-income households. These cuts have reduced the incomes of poorest fifth by just under £3,000 a year, according to the Resolution Foundation. This laid the ground for a deeper cost of living crisis as inflation soared after the pandemic and Russian war in Ukraine to the highest level in 41 years.
Net immigration to the UK has surged despite Brexit and repeated government promises to reduce it. David Cameron said in early 2010 that if he won the election, he would limit net immigration to “tens of thousands” per year. Net immigration reached a record 745,000 in 2022.
The UK population is projected to hit 70 million by mid-2026, a decade earlier than expected. Without growth in the population, and with it the UK workforce, Britain’s economy would have grown at a slower pace. Official figures show GDP per head has remained stagnant or fallen for seven quarters up to the end of 2023 – the worst performance since modern records began in 1955.
