Economic resilience gives hope numbers can defy Iran war forecastspublished at 08:28 BST
Faisal Islam
Economics editor
These are a
very solid, and dare I say it, good set of GDP figures in the circumstances,
that need to be noted before some inevitable caveats.
Growth at 0.6% gets us back to
normal numbers and exceeds sluggish recent history. It already includes a month
of Iran War turmoil in which the UK economy continued to chug along.
In per capita terms this growth
is the strongest quarter for four years. And, importantly, in international terms
this is the fastest performance in the quarter of all G7 countries so far, and
likely to be top when Japan reports its number, estimated to be 0.4%.
There is significant underrated
resilience in the economy. That will give hope that the numbers can defy some
of the forecasts that the Iran War effect will hit the UK hardest. There is
little evidence of that so far, but it is early days.
Later data from last month and
this month will show more of a hit from rising market interest rates and the
rising cost of living. The baseline however was some rather underrated
resilience, though there is a pattern in the data of Q1 starting well and then
fading.
Delivering the strongest set of
economic figures in the life of the Government, is quite the backdrop for a
leadership challenge.
