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This is very fun

OK.

Now, we would read that and say Thatcher good, even Blair good – do note that the stater continued to shrink as a portion of GDP well into the second term – and then it all goes to shit when Brown takes office. Then decent growth when the Tories gert in again – note that we’re talking about relative to other similar economies here – and then it all goes to shite again as govt spending as portion of GDP rises with May.

That is what the chart is saying. Here’s the ‘Tater:

After 2007 the UK’s economic wellbeing collapsed.

Matters did get worse after Brexit: investment collapsed from 2016, but the tipping point was not then. It was the 2008 crisis that created that tipping point.

What created that difference? George Osborne did. He delivered austerity, which was a deliberate attempt to undermine wages and simultaneously withdraw the state from involvement in the economy.

That’s not really a conclusion that can be drawn from that evidence, is it? Note, again, that in 2010 to 2016 UK growth was better than the other places.

Danny Blanchflower and I are issuing a paper very soon

Oh good, we are all looking forward to that, aren’t we?

14 thoughts on “This is very fun”

  1. You’ve got to factor into those figures the fact that the UK doesn’t know how many people are in the UK, by several million at least. So official GDP per capita figures are undoubtedly overstated. Its one of the reasons why all government services are going to rat shit (among many other reasons) – there’s millions more using them than are accounted for in the funding. The covid vaccination program has shown us that the official ONS data for population is out by a significant amount, when you try to reconcile the vaccination data to the population data it doesn’t make sense – in some age ranges more than 100% of the population appear to have been vaccinated.

  2. The main problem is that this graph comes from a style magazine called the Financial Times. The morons who write for it will do anything they can to piss on the UK and Brexit. This is another of their pathetic analyses. Like all measures, per capita GDP growth has to be looked at in comparison with other measures to get a reasonable view. And this is beyond the capacity of FT journos. They really are that malevolent or thick. It’s like driving a care solely by reference to the fuel gauge

  3. It’s amusing that if someone were to point out how well the US did by this measure when the evil orange man was in power, they would howl with rage

  4. Jim is bang on. As if people will fill out the census accurately when they are crammed in a home in east London or any other city for that matter. Even if you allow for that the ONS thinks the population of Tower Hamlets doubled in <20 years.

  5. We all know that the 2001 census was wrong – westminster City Council won a High court judgement because the census reported fewer inhabitants than it had council taxpayers (NB there is only one council taxpayer per household) which is part of the reason why 1997-2010 growth in GDP per head looks better thanit truly was (and was all of the reason why New Labour claimed to have marvellously improved mortality rates in 2001-10) but there is a second reason – exposed in “Significance” the journal of the Royal Statistical Society, so I believe it – the RPI calculation formula was changed in the autumn of 1997 and the new formula understated inflation by up to 1% pa and the error was only corrected in autumn 2010 after Gordon Brown had resigned. “up to 1%” may not seem much but in the context of “real” growth of around 2% to 2.5% it’s a major factor in New Labour’s claim to have achieved economic growth within shouting distance of Mrs Thatcher’s and probably accounts for more than the alleged difference between Blair and Cameron.

  6. Now, we would read that and say . . .
    – [stuff] –
    . . . That is what the chart is saying.

    Unless Gordon Brown ran the world economy into the ground, your reading is no more accurate than Murphy’s (or the FT’s). Was it the Tories from 2010 or Nick Clegg’s sage advice?

    The proper reading of the chart is that it’s meaningless toss, most likely the result of incompetence and mendacity. “Average annual growth” over time chunks of 27, 3, 4 and 6 years (graphically represented the same)? Get tae.

  7. Ducky McDuckface: I was about to say the same thing. Why not throw in September 1996 and last Tuesday as well, for good measure?

  8. Jim

    I can remember one story, now suppressed by Google that the amount of food brought in the UK would be sufficient for 85 million people (suggesting 19 million illegals not accounted for) – obviously that’s an over exaggeration but there’s certainly large numbers unaccounted for.

    Additionally one council (possibly Hounslow) allegedly went through using infrared sensors on its housing stock and stopped doing so as after three streets as they found so many positive readings (over 100 people) in outbuildings.

    As I said, both stories ruthlessly suppressed by the KCNA style search engines but they’re illustrative of how many people are over here – will see if I can find the links,,,

  9. “As I said, both stories ruthlessly suppressed by the KCNA style search engines but they’re illustrative of how many people are over here – will see if I can find the links,,,”

    I’m pretty sure there was also analysis done by Thames Water on sewage flows (given every human being sh*ts about the same amount per day its fairly simple maths to work back to population levels from sewage flow levels) indicated several million more people in London alone. But as you say you can’t find it mentioned anywhere via the usual search engines.

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