Torsten Bell

If one wants to understand some of the best thinking in the governing Labour party … this is an invaluable analysis and a call to arms

A roadmap to the new normal … surprisingly hopeful … required reading for the new intake … this is an incisive, upbeat vision of how a Labour government could turn things around even in difficult times

An economic blueprint for a Starmer administration

Bell is an excellent writer with a talent for putting things so clearly and crisply that they lodge easily in the brain ... Although Bell is pretty bleak about Britain’s condition, he is refreshingly optimistic about our chances of catching up with our peers

This is stellar: brilliant, incredibly pragmatic and serious about the country we are. It presents a wonderful opportunity for an incoming government.

Spiced with wit, this is a masterful, fact-packed indictment of modern Britain after its decade of decline. But there is also hope and optimism in its practical prescription for a great social and economic restoration.

A refreshingly honest and nuanced analysis of our economic decline, and a clear-headed appraisal of what needs to be done to pull ourselves out of it

Fascinating stuff - recommended reading

No one has done more to re-inject sanity into our national policy debates – Torsten Bell writes with optimism and clarity about the things we are getting right, as well as the stuff we should be desperate to improve. Authoritative, forensic and humane – a critical voice for our troubled times.

An incisive, challenging and brilliantly researched agenda to deliver what Britain needs: inclusive and sustainable growth.

One of the prime intellectual influences on the new administration ... with characteristic verve and clarity ... the author is driven by facts, which he is extremely good at marshalling, and by an acute sense of fairness

A superb, detailed account of Britain's failure to invest – in infrastructure and people. It's also, ultimately, full of optimism.

“Essential background reading” doesn’t do justice to the brilliant Torsten Bell. Everyone - Labour or not - should read this book if they care about our country.

Pretty cool … the think tank work I raved about on The Rest Is Politics has morphed into a book!!

An economic playbook for the incoming UK government

Pragmatic … Great Britain? is full of policy detail … Bell makes the argument for immediate, concrete change on both principled and political grounds … Bell argues convincingly that Labour needs to go further and faster to deliver concrete improvements in people’s lives. As he concludes, “Problems will not vanish overnight – yet, as we start investing in our own future, the clouds that hover over Britain will lift far more swiftly than we might realise.” Keir Starmer should listen.

Torsten Bell has produced a brilliant analysis of the politics of pessimism in which the UK is currently mired and shows us how we can begin to arrest, then reverse, our dispiriting torpor. He is also that rare thing – an economist who can write for non-experts. The country must cherish him – and ask for more.

A devastating account of the moth-eaten state of Britain. But it’s not all gloom. We can fix this, he argues.

Finally – an exciting, positive agenda to restore growth, reduce inequality and rebuild the social contract in Britain.

Hugely informative ... a plausible project of renewing Britain through public investment

Torsten Bell is an extraordinarily accomplished economist and thinker who not only speaks lucidly about what ails the British economy, but also offers upbeat, relentlessly sensible ideas for making things better.

Head of Economics and Government, Bloomberg

This is a sobering but optimistic book. It paints a brutally honest portrait of Britain’s decline, but wisely shows us how to take action and get our future back.

A forensic, sometimes merciless, critique of what lies behind Britain’s headlong economic decline – and hopeful, feasible proposals for turning it around. One of the most impressive and readable books in a growing body of work that together is arguing for a radical change of direction. We can’t go on like this.

This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain

How and why did the British economy become both stagnant and unequal? What must be done to transform its current plight for the better? This book gives thoughtful and provocative answers to both questions. Anybody interested in securing a better future for the country should read it.

Compelling, engaging and meticulously researched. Excellent stuff.

Bell[’s]… a creative thinker whose ideas are often ahead of his time and focus on those others overlook: low and middle-income earners, not the wealthier middle classes, and renters, not homeowners … required reading for the new intake … its real achievement is in creating what he calls some “hardheaded believable hope” of better days ahead … There are original ideas here for everything from helping the low-paid build up emergency savings to making shiftwork less precarious, and perhaps most radically, for shifting the burden of tax from income to wealth.

A dose of Torstenomics is the only thing that can give us hope

[A] surprisingly hopeful new guide to halting this country’s crumbling decline… an incisive, upbeat vision of how a Labour government could turn things around even in difficult times

How We Get Our Future Back

‘No one has done more to re-inject sanity into our national policy’ Emily Maitlis 
‘A dose of Torstenomics is the only thing that can give us hope’ Amol Rajan 
 
There are few who are better placed to investigate Britain’s plight than Torsten Bell, Labour MP for Swansea West and former Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation. 
 
In Great Britain? he offers both a clear-eyed diagnosis of the problems facing our country – a uniquely toxic combination of huge inequality and stagnant economic growth – and a bold vision for the alternative. 
 
In his treasure trove of enlightening and original analysis, Torsten Bell argues that our era of chaos and cynicism needs neither utopianism nor nostalgia, but a practical patriotism to raise living standards and create a more equal country. This is a book bursting with ideas and infectious hope: Bell passionately points us towards a Britain that we can actually build – a future worth fighting for.

Torsten Bell

Praise for Great Britain?

If one wants to understand some of the best thinking in the governing Labour party … this is an invaluable analysis and a call to arms

A roadmap to the new normal … surprisingly hopeful … required reading for the new intake … this is an incisive, upbeat vision of how a Labour government could turn things around even in difficult times

An economic blueprint for a Starmer administration

If one wants to understand some of the best thinking in the governing Labour party … this is an invaluable analysis and a call to arms

A roadmap to the new normal … surprisingly hopeful … required reading for the new intake … this is an incisive, upbeat vision of how a Labour government could turn things around even in difficult times

An economic blueprint for a Starmer administration

If one wants to understand some of the best thinking in the governing Labour party … this is an invaluable analysis and a call to arms

A roadmap to the new normal … surprisingly hopeful … required reading for the new intake … this is an incisive, upbeat vision of how a Labour government could turn things around even in difficult times

An economic blueprint for a Starmer administration

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