
2 November 2026
Available for over a year
In recent decades the UK's growth has been deeply disappointing by its own historical standards. But some countries are booming. In the second episode of The Growth Conundrum BBC Verify's Policy and Analysis Correspondent, Ben Chu travels to Poland to find out how the once impoverished communist country is now achieving formidable economic growth rates and fast rising living standards. He talks to Polish businesses - big and small - about the opportunities growth creates and the entrepreneurial spirit behind their success. He speaks to Polish economic migrants, who left to work in the UK several years ago, but who have now returned, enticed by the greater opportunities in their homeland. And he meets Brits who see their future in Poland, including a Welsh plumber, now working in Krakow, who headed in the opposite direction to the many Polish plumbers who once moved to Britain. Ben asks what it's like to live in a rapidly growing economy - and what the UK can learn from Poland and other countries, such as Spain, which have turned their economies around?
Presenter: Ben Chu, Policy and Analysis Correspondent, BBC Verify
Producer: Caroline Bayley
Editor: Richard Vadon
Production Co-ordinators: Janet Staples and Katie Morrison
Sound Engineer: Neil Churchill
Credit: Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - S1 Ep.1 If I Were A Carpenter ITV Drama