inside business

Britain may have avoided recession – but we shouldn’t be celebrating just yet

Boris Johnson bounce? These figures are still pitiful, says James Moore

Monday 11 November 2019 17:36 GMT
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Manufacturing stagnated as the UK economy spluttered ahead by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2019
Manufacturing stagnated as the UK economy spluttered ahead by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2019

Britain has officially avoided a recession in 2019, according to the first set of figures released by the Office for National Statistics. It speaks to just how extreme the level of bulls*** in British political discourse has got that this was being characterised as a “Boris Johnson bounce” before the numbers were even out.

For the record, both the City’s consensus and the Bank England’s forecast called for 0.4 per cent growth during the third quarter of 2019, an improvement over the 0.2 per cent contraction in the second. The official figures, which came in at 0.3, once again undershot that. Economists being overly optimistic has become something of a theme of late.

But even had they got it right, it would have represented a pitiful performance. UK plc basically looked like you or I would were we to struggle into work with one of those vicious little cold viruses that have been doing the rounds of late.

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