No pandemic, no lockdown, but no economic growth either. Britain has slipped into recession, official figures confirm, as GDP shrank by a worse than expected 0.3 per cent in the three months from October to December, following a 0.1 per cent decline in the previous quarter.
Notwithstanding the fact that this represents one of the shallower recessions of recent times — certainly compared with the Covid contraction — it is a massive blow to Rishi Sunak, who made “grow the economy” one of his five pledges at the beginning of 2023.
