{"id":83892,"date":"2025-07-11T08:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T07:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83892"},"modified":"2025-07-11T08:37:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T07:37:33","slug":"however-necessary-money-is-it-cannot-encapsulate-all-that-is-important-about-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/11\/however-necessary-money-is-it-cannot-encapsulate-all-that-is-important-about-life\/","title":{"rendered":"However necessary money is, it cannot encapsulate all that is important about life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It's that day in the month when we get GDP figures, and the farce of pretending that these are relevant continues.<\/p>\n<p>As the Office for National Statistics <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/grossdomesticproductgdp\/bulletins\/gdpmonthlyestimateuk\/may2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">says this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Main points<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in May 2025, following an unrevised fall of 0.3% in April 2025 and growth of 0.4% in March 2025 (revised up from 0.2% in our previous publication).<\/li>\n<li>Real GDP is estimated to have grown by 0.5% in the three months to May 2025, compared with the three months to February 2025, largely driven by growth in the services sector in this period.<\/li>\n<li>Monthly services output grew by 0.1% in May 2025, following a fall of 0.3% in April 2025 (revised up from a 0.4% fall in our previous publication), and grew by 0.4% in the three months to May 2025.<\/li>\n<li>Production output fell by 0.9% in May 2025, following an unrevised fall of 0.6% in April 2025, but grew by 0.2% in the three months to May 2025.<\/li>\n<li>Construction output fell by 0.6% in May 2025, following growth of 0.8% in April 2025 (revised down from 0.9% growth in our previous publication), but grew by 1.2% in the three months to May 2025.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Let me rewrite that for them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>May 2025 GDP data continued to show the UK economy was stagnant.<\/li>\n<li>Taking population change into account, there was a likely decline in the standard of living for most people in the UK.<\/li>\n<li>This follows recent trends where this has also been the case.<\/li>\n<li>There are no signs that this situation is likely to change.<\/li>\n<li>The prospects for growth in the UK economy look to be remote in the extreme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let's put this another way: a year into her reign as a Chancellor who said her sole goal was growth it is very apparent that this is not happening, and is not going to happen any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>The Office for Budget Responsibility think that is the case.<\/p>\n<p>So, too, does the Bank of England.<\/p>\n<p>And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/06\/28\/what-is-screwing-britain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">so does the Resolution Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reeves hangs on to her dreams in glorious isolation and increasing desperation.<\/p>\n<p>What do we do about it? First, abandon Reeves.<\/p>\n<p>Second, recognise that GDP is a dire measure of wellbeing and move to something very much better.<\/p>\n<p>Third, understand that however necessary money is, it cannot encapsulate all that is important about politics, let alone life itself.<\/p>\n<p>We really have got things very wrong, and when we stop doing so, we might get better politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that day in the month when we get GDP figures, and the farce of pretending that these are relevant continues. As the Office for<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/11\/however-necessary-money-is-it-cannot-encapsulate-all-that-is-important-about-life\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83892"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83894,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83892\/revisions\/83894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}