Signs of UK recovery may be exaggerated | Business | The Guardian

The GDP data revealed a worrying 5.6% decline in business investment in the last quarter of 2011

Let’s hope the euphoria that greeted last week’s economic data lasts longer than the cheers England’s footballers can expect this summer when the European championships get underway. There is nothing more traditional than football supporters putting hope ahead of experience in the run-up to the competition’s first match – only to have those hopes dashed.

Were those economists who reached for their rattles and scarves after two months of better than expected figures similarly naive?

It certainly felt like a Mexican wave of cheering after the GDP numbers on Friday.

Strangely the second attempt to measure the economy’s output in the last three months of the year was no better than the first. The Office for National Statistics still came up with the same poor result – a 0.2% contraction. If anything the picture was gloomier after the ONS said the third quarter result should be downgraded. As a result growth for 2011 as a whole was 0.8%, registering one of the worst annual growth rates following a recession in the UK’s history.

A storming recovery it is not. So what was so cheering? …

via Signs of UK recovery may be exaggerated | Business | The Guardian.