Here we go again.
Two steps forward in September, now three steps back in October. The fall in GDP in the month revealed by the ONS continues a pattern that has haunted the British economy for two years. There is just no forward momentum.
A fascinating graph posted by Panmure Gordon economist Simon French illustrates it well. For every green bar of hope above the zero line showing monthly GDP growth there is a red bar of despair as output slips back again.
Jeremy Hunt’s job to get the economy going again is looking increasingly like the labour of Sisyphus, the king of Greek mythology fame condemned by the gods to roll a boulder uphill forever.
Even the normally chirpy Chancellor seemed downbeat in his comments today, saying it was “inevitable” that GDP would be subdued during a period of high interest rates.
Those rates should at least start coming down by the halfway mark of 2024, lifting some of the pressure off consumers and business.
But with the energies of Downing Street likely to be consumed by the endless Rwanda saga well into the New Year, the political focus on the bigger economic picture is likely to be blurred at best.
Rishi Sunak’s government has failed to give hope to a thoroughly dispirited electorate with a vision of how a post-Brexit Britain can thrive and prosper.
The UK economy may be bumping along the bottom more or less in line with its European peers, but were we not told that it would be better than that? Unshackling the UK from the sclerotic Brussels bureaucracy would liberate Britain and put it on a higher growth trajectory closer to US and Asian rates. So we were promised.
Instead we have ended up with EU levels of growth — essentially flatlining — with none of the benefits of the Single Market and other EU club membership perks.
It is a long, long way from what we were sold back in 2016.
