The real ‘anti-growth coalition’: Five biggest barriers to the UK’s economic growth

We need a government that can focus on detail, not one that spouts ideology, writes Hamish McRae

Increasing GDP per head, while certainly desirable, needs to go alongside the fostering of a decent and equitable society (EPA)

What on earth are we to do about growth? Liz Truss railed against the “anti-growth coalition” in her speech to the Tory party conference, and met with a robust response. But there is a huge problem with the relatively slow rise in real living standards in the UK, with the poor performance dating back many years.

The Truss project will fail, and whatever view you take of her idea that lower taxation and deregulation will boost growth, the adverse response from the markets has already scuppered it. So what else will work?

Three qualifying points. First, growth isn’t everything. So increasing GDP per head (the conventional measure of living standards), while certainly desirable, needs to go alongside the fostering of a decent and equitable society.