Deep dives
The flagship topic reads the UK economy as a live classroom. Budget choices, borrowing, inflation and household pressure are not treated as disconnected headlines; they become ways to test fiscal space, distributional effects and the politics of living standards.
Can John Healey make a dent in the cost of living crisis in his first budget? | Budget 2026 | The Guardian
Energy appears as both a price story and a security story. The selection returns to gas, grids and winter bills because they expose the supply-side constraints behind inflation and the limits of last-minute policymaking.
Britain’s gas security needs reinforcement. Last-minute deals with Belgium are not a proper fix | Nils Pratley | The Guardian
Regional regeneration gives the topic a grounded edge. Posts on town centres, unfinished levelling-up projects and local job creation turn macroeconomics away from abstractions and toward places where policy either lands or fails to land.
Can a £5.8bn scheme help revive Grimsby and other town centres? | Regeneration | The Guardian
The microeconomics topic is strongest where markets need rules. Water bills, energy switching, telecoms, app stores and takeovers are used to show students how regulation, incentives and market power shape everyday prices.
UK government to make unprecedented intervention in setting of water bills | Water industry | The Guardian
Competition is treated with a sceptical eye. Low prices, platform dominance and supermarket rivalry are not accepted at face value; they are tested for hidden costs, consumer harm and long-run welfare effects.
How Amazon's Low Prices Raised Prices | So Expensive
Externalities recur as practical cases rather than textbook diagrams. Vaping, mining, wastewater and environmental damage broaden the topic beyond firms and consumers into the social costs that markets often miss.
Revealed: VW, Ford and Tesla batteries linked to destructive deforestation of indigenous lands | Mining | The Guardian
The international economics topic follows trade as a political weapon. Tariffs, quotas and retaliation are framed through protectionism, supply chains and the costs imposed when domestic electoral incentives collide with global interdependence.
US lifts tariffs on some Canadian goods before midterm elections
Supply chains are made tangible through concrete examples. A toy moving from China to a US retailer becomes a way to explain exchange rates, logistics, margins and the fragility of seemingly simple consumer goods.
How a Chinese-made toy gets to a US retailer
Debt, development and global institutions give the topic moral weight. The selection tracks how borrowing costs, IMF warnings and financial architecture affect countries with far less room for policy error.
Global financial system is failing developing countries, says Ed Miliband | Ed Miliband | The Guardian
