UK shares underperforming

Matthew Lynn

The UK economy might be doing well enough but its stock market is fairing worse than most of its European peers

One of Gordon Brown's favourite pastimes is lecturing the rest of Europe on how the British economy is outperforming the rest of Europe. Britain is leading the European recovery, he argued in an article in the Daily Telegraph last month. The European Union's inflexibilities and lack of competitiveness are now fully exposed in the era of global competition. But there is a paradox Brown never mentions. The UK economy is certainly performing well, compared with its main European rivals, even if it relies too heavily on consumer borrowing and government spending. Its stock market, however, is ...