Hi, I'm Stephen and welcome to the new States and Monday interview. This week we're

joined by Duncan Weldon, former economist at the TUC, economics editor at Newsnight, writer

on economics at the Economist, and author of a new book, muddling through the history

of the British economy from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the present. He

talks to us about, you guessed it, the British economy, the process of writing a book, and

I just recommend some extra books you'd go away and read afterwards.

One of the things which I think is interesting about politics generally, but obviously the

way I look on it is this continual sense whenever you read a history book or a diary

from the past, then very little is a new under the sun, which, as I understand it's one

of the themes of the book, was there anything which should have surprised you in the

other direction? Were there things that you kind of thought were big, significant changes

than perhaps surprised you in the process of researching and writing the book?

One of the things researching the book really brought home, and I don't want to bang on

about Brexit, because there's already so much banging on about Brexit that goes on, but

quite what a big moment it was when we left the European Union. In terms of, you know,

this was a huge part of our economic model for the best part of 40 years, and you just

really can't find another example of a developed, rich, advanced economy leaving, so deeply

an integrated trade block. So I think actually we are in sort of new territory when it comes

to reestablishing trade policy, rethinking how our economy works, having left the single

market in the customs union, that is, that is a new challenge.

What do you think the kind of big recurrent themes are in terms of British economic policy,

economic baked and its economic problem?

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