The UK economy is like, totally starting to turn a corner, according to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. She was all excited because the growth in the first three months of the year was more than what everyone thought it would be. It went up by 0.7%, which is pretty cool, right? But then Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, was like, “Hold your horses, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves with the champagne just yet.”
What’s up with the growth, you ask? Well, it was better than the 0.6% that experts were predicting. And it was all thanks to people spending more money and businesses investing more. But guess what? Things might not be all sunshine and rainbows ahead. The US slapped some import tariffs on us, and UK employer taxes went up in April. So, the growth party might be slowing down a bit.
Labour was all about boosting the economy when they took over last year, but some people weren’t happy about their decision to hike up employers’ National Insurance contributions. Mel Stride was throwing shade at them, saying they were risking the progress the UK had made in the economy. Daisy Cooper, from the Liberal Democrats, was like, “Hey, this is good news and all, but let’s not get too comfortable.” And Richard Tice from Reform UK was straight-up like, “Just you wait, those tax rises are gonna hit us hard.”
The Office for National Statistics spilled the tea that the services sector was the big player in the growth game for the first three months of the year. But experts are saying that the growth is going to chill out in the upcoming months. Paul Dales said the latest numbers might be the best we get all year, and that’s because a lot of it was just businesses rushing to beat the tariffs and taxes. But hey, Liz Martins from HSBC was feeling pretty good about it all. She was saying business investment was up and the service sector was doing its thing.
Annabel Thomas from the whisky distillery in Scotland was feeling pretty chill about the UK’s prospects. She said they’re growing in the US and will just absorb those pesky tariffs. John Inglis, on the other hand, wasn’t as jazzed. He runs a diamond tool company and is all stressed about the tariffs messing with his margins. Making decisions about the business is like walking on eggshells these days. The Bank of England lowered interest rates last week, but with the economy looking perkier than expected, maybe the rates won’t drop as much as everyone thought.
So, is the UK economy on the up and up? Well, maybe not so fast. The growth is looking good for now, but with all these tariffs and taxes in play, who knows what’s coming next. Just gotta keep an eye on those numbers and see where the money’s flowing.
