For most of my career in economic policy, no one asked much about trade data – about developments with imports and exports. The subject just wasn’t that controversial.

That’s all changed since 2016. Brexit has made trade data great again – at least in the sense of reinserting it into the centre of politics. But so far that attention is creating political heat, not the greater understanding we need of where the UK’s economy is, and is not, performing.

The House of Commons recently debated UK trade performance. The trade........

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