New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, John Luther Adams
What is stopping Labour?
Where is the political programme for a plausible project of renewing Britain through public investment, asks WILL PODMORE
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during Prime Minister's Questions September 4, 2024.
Banksy’s identity may have been published – but was the investigation in the public interest, asks PETER BENGTSEN
RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist
CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile
SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a survey of successful contemporary worker co-operatives and economy-based co-operative systems
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends the staging of this Wagnerian classic minus one or two insignificant quibbles
Great Britain? How we get our future back
Torsten Bell, Bodley Head, £20
TORSTEN BELL was from 2015 to 2024 the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, an economic research charity. He is now the Labour MP for Swansea West. In this hugely informative book, he presents a plausible project of renewing Britain through public investment.
He notes that the most significant economic legacy of the 2007-08 crash, something not once discussed or anticipated in a single government meeting, was a monumental pay squeeze. We have now lived with flatlining wages for the past 15 years.
Ministers used to claim that if we looked at headline GDP growth — of the total goods and services we produced — we hadn’t done so badly, relative to other countries. This was true, but was simply because our population had increased faster than most, largely due to growing immigration. Net migration has been the main source of population growth since 1999. Growing our economy simply by having more people does nothing for what we need to focus on: raising our living standards.
Similar stories
PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
Under current policy, welfare cuts are just a small downpayment on future austerity, argues MICHAEL BURKE