Is the UK heading for economic meltdown?

What a week it has been.

It feels like years ago that I was standing outside Westminster Abbey filming one of my Inside the Lords episodes discussing the death of the Queen. Now, of course, all the talk is of economic crisis.

Many have described the budget announcements as‘brave’. But merely cutting taxes and simply repeating the word 'growth' over and over again does not do anything to address the deep-rooted and long-standing issues of productivity in this country. It has also been infuriating to watch government ministers evade their responsibilities and pretend that nothing has been happening for the past 48 hours.

Podcast of Ideas

To try and get a handle on what is going on, the Academy of Ideas team invited Phil Mullan - the economist, author, and Battle of Ideas festival regular - onto our podcast. You can listen to him in discussion with my colleagues Jacob Reynolds and Rob Lyons here or on your podcast app.

Inside the Lords

I also have been taking the temperature around Westminster from the last few days. My regular video series Inside the Lords continues - you can watch it all here:

The Battle of Ideas festival

As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, we have an almighty challenge ahead to fix the British economy. But first, we need a series of honest conversations about how we got here, what our problems are, and what kind of society we want to build. With this in mind we have programmed a whole range of discussions on issues related to the economy, energy, and the future of our productive lives at the Battle of Ideas festival on 15 & 16 October at Church House Westminster. Including:

• How will we revolutionise the economy?

• How will Net Zero affect plans for growth?

• What about housing - do we need to simply build more or is it more complicated?

• Are young people getting a particularly raw deal out of all of this?

• And what about our own relationship with work - have we fallen out of love with the idea?