Slash spending and taxes

The answer to Britain's economic woes isn't century-long borrowing, says Merryn Somerset Webb. It's spending cuts and startups.

So just how bad are things in Britain? Dr Tim Morgan of Tullett Prebon appears to be on a mission to make sure no one thinks for a second that the answer is anything but "awful".

He's been circulating a UK economy primer that sums up our problems all too clearly: the economy has for too long been "excessively dependent" on the "twin drivers of private borrowing and public spending". Both are now dead in the water, something that has left 70% of the economy in "growth lockdown".

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.