Britain shoots for the top spot

England dominates European football. It looks as if it will take home the trophy for economic success, too, says Matthew Lynn.

Matthew Lynn
By
published
in Advice

947_MW_P16_City-View

Football triumph points to a bigger trend
(Image credit: 2019 Getty Images)

Dramatic last-minute comebacks, nail-biting penalty shoot-outs, spirit, determination and the occasional flash of sublime skill. It's a been a great month for English football. Both the Champions and Europa League finals will be played between English teams, the first time any single country has so dominated the continent's most popular sporting spectacle. Three of the four finalists are from London. European football is turning into an extension of English sporting rivalries.

Money isn't everything, but it helps

That is just an early signal of a bigger trend that will become increasingly apparent as the 2020s unfold: the UK is becoming the dominant economic power in Europe, too. Just take a look at the figures. The British population is rising steadily, while other countries are about to go into steep demographic decline. Eurostat predicts the UK population will hit 77 million by 2050, up from 67 million now. By the same year, Germany will have shrunk to 74 million from its current 80 million. France will be roughly the same. No other country will be even close to matching our growth.

How will that translate into total GDP? It is hard to say, but a few points are clear. The UK is growing faster than both Germany and France, and has been for some time now. Right now, Germany still has a slightly higher GDP per capita than the UK $44,000 against $39,000 but that may well close. France's GDP per capita is already slightly lower than the UK's. And with ageing populations, both will have far fewer working people. On current trends, the UK should become the largest economy in Europe sometime in the 2030s.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

There are other signs of growing British dominance. London is by far the largest city in Europe, with nine million people. Berlin is the next closest with only three million. London is much the richest, too. Inner London has a GDP per capita of six times the EU average; Luxembourg is in second place on just 2.5 times the average. The largest national stock exchange in Europe is London's, with more than 3,000 listed companies with a combined value of £3.7trn. Of the top ten universities in the world, three are British (Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial). The rest are all in the US there are none in the rest of Europe. London has produced 17 tech unicorns, compared with seven for its closest rival, Berlin, while a third of all tech start-ups worth more than a billion dollars are UK-based.

It's not just football that's coming home

Matthew Lynn
Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.

Latest