The Office for National Statistics has issued a bulletin on GDP growth this morning, noting:
- UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2024, following growth of 0.5% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024.
- GDP is estimated to have increased by 1.0% in Quarter 3 2024, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
- Within the output approach to measuring GDP, the services sector grew by 0.1% on the quarter; the construction sector grew by 0.8%, while the production sector fell by 0.2%.
- Within the expenditure approach to measuring GDP, there was an increase in net trade, household spending, business investment, and government consumption in expenditure terms in the latest quarter.
- Nominal GDP is estimated to have increased by 0.8% in Quarter 3 2024, mainly driven by increases in compensation of employees and other income.
- Real GDP per head is estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in Quarter 3 2024, and is flat, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
What I want to emphasise is the last point.
Whatever the spin on the other statistics (and none of them are good for either of our leading political parties), the reality is that GDP per head is currently falling, and over the last year, it has been flat. Nothing else matters in all this data. The aggregates make no sense when people know that, at best, they are no better off now than they were a year ago (when things also felt pretty grim) and may be worse off.
No wonder Labour is already proving to be so unpopular.
As many political commentators have noted this week, it appears that Labour has already reduced its five commitments made at the time of the election to just two on which it will now focus. Those on the NHS and education, plus one other which I and everyone else have forgotten, have fallen by the wayside. All that is apparently left are commitments on growth and controlling migration, which sound exactly like the Sunak agenda.
And now we know growth is failing.
Good luck with managing the fallout from this Keir Starner, because with Trump in Washington, there is no sign that any growth is coming the way of the UK anytime soon, and whilst climate change and continuing conflicts guarantee that the small boats will keep coming until you do the right thing and allow refugees a legal right of access to this country as required by international law that issue is also not going to be solved.
In other words, failure is now hard-wired into all that Labour is doing, and they seem clueless as to what to do about it.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Want low economic growth then vote into office “isolationist” and “blackhole” political parties!
How did Reeves become Chancellor? She is a product of the economic system that keeps the rich in their place and the poor in theirs. Life will certainly not improve with The Trilateral Commission member Starmer and The City of London’s voice Reeves.
My local authority – paying hand over fist for temporary staff – is asking for redundancies again this week, under a Labour government that seems ill prepared for what it has taken on after the Tories defeated themselves in an election.
Yet all I see is people putting off retirement because they are looking at inflation and price gouging and wondering how they can afford to retire or accepting that they are just going to have to be poor until they die.
Labour – many of whom on the ‘Blue’ side and would have voted for Tory cuts I bet, but at least were there when austerity was nodded through in Parliament (all recorded in Hansard BTW) plead ignorance at the state of the country and spend more time passing the buck than digging deep into what is a very simple problem – a lack of government investment, succumbing to lie that the government has no money of its own.
Even in our past, there were better managed societies than ours that knew how to pull together for the common good.
For all our technological prowess, we have lost the techniques of how to be fair to each other and live alongside others.
It is a world moulded by a remote rich whose consumption is based allocating more to themselves at a loss to others under the label of ‘freedom’.
It is nought but a recipe for disaster.
Agreed
Thank you, both.
Yesterday evening I was at an event hosted by Bloomberg. I noticed, not for the first time, that no attendees were from overseas. When we talked shop, it was about how gloomy the economy and society are. No headline making activity going on. The City is losing its lustre and being squeezed out.
I just got off the ‘phone to a headhunter. We agreed that the job market is as bad as 2008 -9 and during covid.
None of us thinks a rapprochement with the EU will bring many jobs back. Firms won’t take that risk. That is not to say we don’t want a rapprochement. I think the UK needs to reduce its reliance on the City and end the City’s dominance.
I wholeheartedly agree
But some think ‘it’s the jewel in the crown’ (Reeves, last night)
That is irreconcilable with reality
An economy circling the drain and dopes in charge.
Depressing.
Even Andrew Bailey (BoE Governor) knows the real solution is not allowing the cowboys of the finance sector loose, again. They will ruin us, as they always do. Even Bailey knows the real problem is Brexit.
Sshhh! you can’t mention Brexit. It is not allowed.
Brexit. Brexit. Brexit. Brexit.
🙂
For once, Bailey is right
It had to happen
Thank you, both.
It has taken Bailey long enough.
From, I reckon, 2010, Bailey was a Brexiteer. It counted in his favour when Johnson, Javid and Cummings gathered at No 10 and discussed who should be governor. Cummings wanted Haldane. Javid owed Bailey a favour… Johnson was neutral, but liked Bailey’s Brexiteer sentiments.
In 2012, Bailey spoke in favour of Brexit and Britzerland at the Swiss embassy. I sat next to Hamish MacRae, Brexiteer.
Oooh you naughty, naughty boy John Warren!!
Tim Watkins on form this morning, too.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/11/15/inevitably/
Thanks
I love Tim but the amazing analyses and evidence of things being a shit show never ends with ” so this is what should be done. It’s interesting, and full of “fact ammunition”for debates, but ultimately a bit disempowering..
LINO have “formed a view” (like Haig in WW1) and like in WW1 – that view prevails regardless of the body count – or in this case the progressive erosion of UK society and industry making UK serfs more and more … poor. In real time we are seeing a replay of the USA – 2021-2024, a supposedly “progressive” government, afraid of its own shadow, owned by finance & incapable of making the changes needed, partly (mainly?) because, only London & its environs count in the calculations of LINO and the Treasury (who live there). Starmer & LINO, fascism’s handmaiden(s).
Sorry to wade in again but today at work I had been asked to go through our funding from Homes England from 2011 for our affordable housing programme. It made me stop and think somewhat about our current crises.
It turns out that our average grant subsidy since 2011 from the Government (Homes England is just the middleman yeah?) was between only £15K to £17500K per unit. A paltry amount since the days of 100% and even 50% grant rates.
Not exactly a big incentive to spend on increasing affordable housing supply.
The cost is also being met by tenant’s rents at 80% market rent which tracks of course the market rents which have been going up. This means that even working people need more help with being able to cope with housing costs and local authority rents. Sure, 80% market rents help pay down the debt of the development. But now we are finding it harder to find people who can afford to live in our new homes and eat and warm themselves at the same time!
This lessening of state support has other consequences. Housing Associations (HA) had resorted to increased borrowing from private banks for development because of paltry grant. Recent rises in interest rates and low Social Housing Grant rates has also meant that affordable housing development is affected in the HA sector. HAs have even returned their social housing grant to the government because their schemes have become unviable, squeezed between low grant rates and high interests rate (oh for interest rates that can be varied for specific purposes!).
Add in the inflationary effects of BREXIT on supply chains and skilled labour and the Ukraine debacle (+20%) and housing becomes its only little petri dish of human misery created by Neo-liberal theories that simply do not stand up to scrutiny in the real world.
What a country……………………
Indeed……
This is my fear. But then it was before the election. We are already seeing a weak, in thrall to the corporate World, govt unable to do what the country needs for fear of upsetting the markets, and more importantly, the tory press and right wing talking heads.
It becomes a paradox for centre right govts like this one. Whatever they do, that same Tory press will attack them. Those same talking heads will sneer, smear and spread fear. So why keep running scared? Do things they’ll moan about, but will get the public onside.
In the USA lack of ambition, bold policies and inertia allowed Trump to portray the president and govt as weak and worthless. Had the govt been progressive it could have rebutted Trump, pointed out what it was doing differently, and tackled the cost of living crisis instead of doing it the neoliberal way, by which we mean doing nothing, we could be looking at a lot less bleak future. Not to mentioned asked, ‘well what would you have done mr trump’ wedded as he is to extreme neoliberalism?
What’s even sadder, is the ‘blue Labour’ mob telling us what a great job the govt is doing, and bemoaning the ‘lack of PR holding it back’. No, what’s holding it back is lack of imagination, invention, and progressive policies which the country badly needs.
Yes, absolutely. What a weak and cowardly government this is.
Come up with some decent left wing policies like PR, limiting party funding, implementing Leveson 2, attack the Brexit liars and say the UK belongs in Europe, implement a Green New Deal etc.
And ignore the howls from the deranged right wingers. Whatever you do they’ll attack you, so stop trying to appease them over anything and get on with it.
I am totally “Lost in Space”!!!!
Where does Rachel Reeves see any potential growth coming from?
“Good luck with managing the fallout from this Keir Starner, because with Trump in Washington, there is no sign that any growth is coming the way of the UK anytime soon”
From all I have read on other blog sites and I am referring to the comments, people in the UK do not seem to want any type of trade deal with the USA because they want nothing to with USA agricultural products. If people do not want to trade with the USA and trade with the EU is difficult and an impasse with the EU seems to have has been reached, then who does England want to have a trade deal with?
Vanuatu
I thought Liz Truss secured a fantastic trade deal involving soy sauce?
Wasn’t it pork?
Sweet & sour pork needs soy sauce. (Lettuce on the side?)
How dare you minimise miniMaggie’s achievements?
Truss safeguarded soy sauce imports for the Great British Public. Or said she did, which is the same thing in lettuceland.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/soy-sauce-tweet-liz-truss-trade-deal-japan_uk_5f994e23c5b6a4a2dc80f084
I agree, she also performed miracles with cheese, pork and apples, and no doubt scoffed them all at her expensive “working” lunches.
Sorry. I’ll get serious again on Monday.
🙂
We need a TART (TransAtlanticReevesTrump) treaty..
This treaty will sell the UK to Elon Musk (or the Tony Blair Foundation) for an amount equal to the size of the Black Hole, and we lease it back from them on a 999 yr repairing lease, on a PPE arrangement (Private Public Exploitation – the initials reminded me of something), annual lease payments to rise at twice the rate of annual inflation in USA or UK, whichever is the greater, as measured by the BGI (Billionaire Greed Index).
Ivanka & Jared get use of Buckingham Palace, Starmer gets new designer specs for life, and Reeves gets first dibs at Ivanka’s preloved cast-offs for use at public appearances.
This is a Great British Deal for the Great British People.
I’m sorry but I haven’t managed to find a fiscally responsible way to fit Wes Streeting into this scenario yet.
We are in the UK Labour fantasy world. Mandy proclaiming that with Trump in the White House the “UK can have its cake and eat it”.
Things are only going to get worse.
This is so frustrating… what is wrong with them… why can’t they see what we (and a growing number) can see, that there are only two types of growth we are currently witnessing and quite possibly being encouraged by their naive policies.
1) Growth in the bank accounts (and assets) of the super wealthy, furthermore once they’ve bought their 10 houses, 5 cars, a yacht, and maybe a bit of farmland!! what are they spending their money on… perhaps garnering influence through substantial political donations… they’ve certainly no appetite or need to spend back into the economy!
2) Growth in the gap between the super wealthy and the rest of us.
I’m no expert and I accept this maybe a rather narrow and over simplistic view but until Labour are brave enough to engage in policies that truly attempt to resolve these issues, it’s not going to get any better.
Although the real GDP per head is estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in Quarter 3 2024, it is probably worse than this as “GDP per head” evens out the spread; it will not show if the well-off increased their GDP per head by 5% at the expense of the less well off. I wonder whether there is a figure that measures inequality?
Inequality measures are poor and only infrequently updated.
The typical measure for inequality is the Gini coefficent. Like any simple measure it tells you something but not everything. Income and wealth are often distributed in very different ways (often wealth is more concentrated than income). Countries with very different absolute wealth or income, or quite different distributions, can have the same coefficient.
Perhaps neoliberal institutions have made progressive govt impossible. ‘Free trade’ treaties, WTO rules, ISDS courts, independent central banks, monetary dominance, the full funding rule, etc.. were designed to insulate markets from democracy and deter public spending. Which they do, even after neoliberalism has failed. Hence today’s zombie capitalism, lurching into fascism.
Neoliberalism certainly loathes democracy.
My understanding is that protection of corporations “right” to ALWAYS make a profit, is hard-wired into many recent and still being negotiated international trade treaties. It takes priority over the right of “sovereign” (ha! ha!”) governments to protect their citizens against harm from cigarettes, sugar, UPF, CO2, Vapes, pesticides, beef hormones, or firearms. If the legislation reduces profits rhe corporations can sue for compensation. Here’s one even the Tories pulled back from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68369916
IIR this was also an issue with TTIP, between EU & US, negotiated mostly away from the prying eyes of mere citizens. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm27yr56peyo
Social Care.
Another deeply damaging failure hard-wired into Labour.
It’s a terrible analysis (guess what – all together now, we CAN’T AFFORD IT!!!) but I don’t go to Kuenssberg for economic advice. But despite that, it’s a terrible indictment of Starmer/Reeves’s political incompetence.
Bang goes another Labour promise, the Nationsl Care Service. Back into the long grass with you while thousands more die in despair. So much for being ready to take “difficult decisions”. They’ve known about THIS difficult decision for YEARS but, hey, let’s put it off for a bit longer. I know we promised CHANGE, but we didn’t mean it, honest.
More evidence that Starmer’s team focussed all their attention since 2016, on purging the left, bowing down to Bailey & BoE, and devising catchy names for policies they never intended to implement.
Did they not realise they would have to GOVERN the country? No wonder the Tories are ahead in the polls.
I suppose Dilnott disappeared down the Black Hole, weighed down by all those regressive NI increases tied to his ankles?
Thanks
All the more reason we must urgently demand the return of Common Land – with zero economic growth, we MUST ensure, at least, food security – return responsibility for food access to communities. Clearly there can be no trust in politicians – and food banks are no alternative.
That is not going to happen
We have many priorities. That is not high on the list.
Nor will it happen as long as the pundits’ plaudits for capitalist imposition push/promote complicity, as though no alternative may exist, even in thought. It is no coincidence that Enclosure Acts were weaponised against a people for whom loss of self sufficiency/having to work for payment, was held to be shame and ignominy.
To be fair to Labour, I think failure is hard-wired into the country and into the population of the UK. No government would be permitted to introduce policies that could be successful. The people wouldn’t have it.
Let’s all just sit in a circle and sing Rule Britannia!