Beware the buoyant economic figures – Brexit will bring them back down by the end of 2020

December may have rebounded from the November slump, and recent surveys have been optimistic, but the dead hand of our EU exit still holds the reins, write James Moore

Sajid Javid has little reason to be optimistic during this fog of uncertainty (Getty)

There were things for Boris Johnson and Sajid Javid to cheer about in the latest GDP numbers, although a couple of pairs of rose-tinted spectacles wouldn’t have gone amiss.

While the headline numbers showed no growth in the fourth quarter, they rebounded from the November slump in December, which recorded a 0.3 per cent bump.

The second and third quarters were upgraded, and the Office for National Statistics’ first crack at a number for 2019 had the UK expanding by 1.4 per cent, up a teensy bit the previous year’s 1.3 per cent.