As tens of thousands return to the streets for the first national Palestine march of 2026, this movement refuses to be sidelined or silenced, says PETER LEARY
Latest editorial
Growth is not good: the great GDP myth
It’s not some question of being realistic yet effective over being compassionate but economically incompetent: there is absolutely no material basis to continue to measure societies by their GDP, explains BERT SCHOUWENBURG
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
MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used
One of Canada’s most revered politicians is a native of Falkirk but is relatively unknown in his original homeland. KENNY MacASKILL tells his story
Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
SINCE the second world war, the number one priority for politicians and their economic advisers is the pursuit of growth, which is typically measured by gross domestic product (GDP), a composite index using consumer spending, private investment and government spending to arrive at a figure representing a country’s economic output.
In today’s media and academic circles, economic growth is widely acknowledged as being an unquestioned and essential good, the absence of which leads to recession, which is regarded as being an undesirable economic state.
Indeed, it is one of the few areas where Labour leader Keir Starmer has not committed a U-turn by frequently saying that he and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will make economic growth their principal policy aim once elected.
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In his first of a new monthly economics column MICHAEL BURKE argues that public-sector investment is more effective, more productive than private-sector investment