Everyone knows that one month’s GDP figure is of limited significance. The chancellor’s critics should not make too much of the publication of an estimate for May that is 0.1 per cent lower than the previous month. There is an element of random walk in the monthly statistics, which in any case are subject to revision.
But Rachel Reeves’s opponents have been encouraged to try to make more of the numbers by her overclaiming when the random walk wandered in the opposite direction. It was only two months ago that Ms Reeves claimed that the economy is “beginning to turn a corner” on the basis of figures that suggested the economy grew faster than the US, Canada, France, Italy and Germany in the first quarter of this year.
