Has the UK economy ‘flatlined’ since Labour took office?

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this week the Conservative party said: “The UK had the fastest growing economy in the G7 this year until Labour got in. Now it’s flatlined.”

It’s true the latest official figures show there was no month-on-month growth in the UK economy in July, with Labour forming a government on 5 July. But this doesn’t tell the full story—month-on-month growth was also flat in June, ahead of the election and when the Conservatives were still in government.

We’ve asked the Conservatives what figures they were looking at to make the claim, and haven’t had a response. But the comparison seems to refer to two sets of GDP figures measuring growth over different timeframes.

The claim that the UK had “the fastest growing economy in the G7 this year” appears to be based on the UK’s growth across the first half of 2024, which we’ve written about before. UK GDP increased by 0.7% in the first quarter of the year, and by 0.6% in the second quarter—the highest combined rate in the G7 over this period, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The claim that the economy has “flatlined” since Labour entered government, meanwhile, appears to refer to month-on-month growth. As the graph below shows, this was flat in July but also in June, so the recent period of zero growth appears to predate Labour coming into office.