The Oxford economist and academic Martin Slater recently published a brilliant account of two centuries of UK government spending and borrowing, The National Debt, A Short History in which he says “the only way of eliminating a deficit is through a return to higher rates of economic growth, or improvements in the efficiency of delivery of government services, but the latter is much easier to imagine than to implement. History suggests that actually the likeliest saviour is always economic growth”.

Earlier this week, the Chancellor finally admitted this: that the best way to repair the public finances is not to cut spending but to get the economy growing.

We have put up with eight long years of austerity in the name of ‘balancing the books’ – a goal so sacrosanct that the coalition government tried to put it into law. But they were wrong.

At this week’s Treasury Committee, the Chancellor confessed that the easiest way to get debt down as a percentage of GDP was to “get the economy growing faster with higher trend productivity growth…grow the GDP, strong real wage growth, rising living standards”.

Owners of privately owned businesses – the sector most damaged by austerity – have known and been saying this since the recession. If ever there was a time for entrepreneurial business owners to invest in their businesses then this is it.

And if you were wondering where the money is going to come from take 20 minutes, get a coffee and watch this short video…..it’ll be the best investment of your time today.

​​​​​​​To your success

Noel Guilford