Mixed signals for Labour as GDP rises but the rich leave

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Prime Minister is in Albania today to focus on immigration: the government has announced that the UK is in talks to set up 'return hubs' with other countries to send failed asylum seekers abroad.

Unfortunately for the government though, also going abroad are Britain's millionaires. In the cover article for this week's Spectator, our economics editor Michael Simmons writes that London lost 11,300 dollar millionaires last year alone. These figures run in stark contrast to today's news that GDP increased by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2025. This continues a trend of mixed signals for Britain's economy.

Also on the podcast Spectator editor Michael Gove discusses his interview with justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, who announced today that some reoffenders will be recalled to parliament for a reduced, fixed amount of time to relieve the pressure on prisons.

Both Michaels join Lucy Dunn to discuss further, and for the full interview with Shabana Mahmood click through to Spectator TV.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
0:06.2	Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online,
0:11.5	along with a free £20 £10, John Lewis or Waitrose voucher.
0:15.0	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:29.0	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots.
0:33.2	I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by two Michaels, Michael Gover editor and Michael Simmons,
0:35.3	who cleans the cover of news.
0:37.4	Our economics editor.
0:39.3	And Michael Simmons, I'll start with you.
0:41.7	We heard this morning that the UK economy grew faster than expected
0:42.9	in the first three months of the year,
0:44.9	according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
0:48.2	GDP rose by 0.7% in the first quarter.
0:51.4	You've written for this, for Coffee House, about this.
0:53.6	Is this a sign that
0:54.3	Rachel Reeves' work is paying off? Well, it's certainly good news for the Chancellor. She'll be,
0:59.7	you know, ecstatic about this. I mean, if this growth was to continue across the year, we'd be by
1:04.8	some distance, the fastest growing part of the G7. But is it down to Rachel Reeves, I would say, you know, emphatically
1:13.8	no. And there's a few signals in the data that suggest that. There's one particular survey that
1:20.1	economists are really interested in, which is the purchasers managers index. And it's basically a measure
1:25.3	of, you know, companies buying stock. And what we saw was in
1:29.5	March, so right in the end of the quarter, that kind of jumped to, I think it was the highest
	...

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