Claims made by the Chancellor three weeks ago are already in tatters.

[Mr Angry]

"Three weeks is a long time in economics. In his Autumn Statement on 3 December, the Chancellor presented “a forecast that shows the UK is the fastest-growing of any major advanced economy in the world”. He boasted: “A year ago, we expected GDP to grow by 2.4 per cent. In March we expected 2.7 per cent. Today, the British economy is forecast to grow by 3 per cent… And the growth we are now seeing is more balanced. Manufacturing is growing faster than any other sector; and investment is set to be up 11 per cent this year.”

Now all of those claims are in tatters. First, there were the data revisions to GDP. Growth in the most recent quarter was left unrevised at 0.7 per cent, but growth in each of the previous three quarters was revised down by 0.1 per cent, and the two before that were revised down by 0.2 per cent each. For the Chancellor’s claim that growth in 2014 will be 3 per cent to be true, it requires growth in the fourth quarter of 2.2 per cent, which, of course, won’t happen. So bang goes that claim."


The indy.