Apparently figures have today been released that show Britain has finally left recession status. Good news at first glance undoubtedly.
However a cynic may be excused for thinking that given the “reliability “ of official figures that this latest statement is little more than a desperate throw of the dice by an incumbent administration facing political Armageddon.
And the in trend of eye lense colour is Rose
I expect that the figures are correct.
What the figures actually mean will be spun in different directions by all and sundry.
Clearly it is good we are out of recession.
Should we have been in recession at all?
How has the Gov affected growth?
How has Brexit affected growth?
Having asked those questions, and hopefully found answers…(more in hope than expectation)
What should we/the Gov do next?
They don’t control everything but do have levers to pull, and for years their planned “austerity” has proven to be a bad idea.
I thought it had only been a “technical recession”? Admittedly I’m not an economist, but it’s hard to get overly concerned when “growth” is being measured by tenths of a percentage.
The Govt telling us everything is not only fine…but better ? 
Then backing the claim up with stats?
To sum up…
Politicians telling us we are out of recession,.taking credit and basking in it…in the same year they are about as popular as Jimmy Saville,.AND in an election year .
Aye…of course I believe them.
I also am no economist, but have found reading around the subject fascinating.
Calling it a “technical recession” sounds like someone being “technically pregnant”. More to do with words than the bare facts.
Would the same spin doctors who say “technical recession” be happy if they were told it is now just a “technical recovery”?
I’ll bet they would say “But it is a real one”!
The Gov does have power in making or breaking the economy.
The deliberate “austerity” programme has been a major hindrance to the UK for many years.
What is most blatant is Sunak and others saying that high inflation is nothing at all to do with the Gov, but taking full credit for low inflation.
It seems to have a lot to do with definitions of a recession, apparently “two quarters of modest declines, which in the U.K. is defined as a recession” says The Independent. Do other countries have the same definition? I don’t know but I would expect goalposts to vary across the world.
Similarly “being overdrawn” can be dependent on definitions: My bank has a standing “uncharged overdraft” facility, if I go OD by any amount from 1p right up to £250, they message me I’m using my overdraft, but I am not being charged for it, so it’s less of being “in the red” and more “in the pink”. I don’t count my “pink zone” as debt, others might do.
A recession, is a recession, is a recession.
Never good news, but not always devastating.
If there are two quarters of 0.1% negative growth, bracketed by a multiple Qs of 5% growth, that is not so bad. However 2 Qs of negative, bracketed by single months of low growth and single Qs of negative growth, seems much worse to me.
It is a handy metric, but as with all stats (as I am sure you know) we need to understand what they mean as much as what they say.
The recession we have just had follows years of growth lower than under previous Govs and lower than our economic peers.
It is just another way of showing what we probably all knew anyway.
The ONS had a blog on the definition of recession in 2022 Uncertainty and the ‘r’ word: What exactly is a ‘recession’? | National Statistical
One thing I am certain of, the issue of whether we are in a recession, whether technical or overt, or not is not a topic that keeps me awake at night. If we are doing less well than our economic peers, I think there’s a fairly obvious and non-accidental probable-cause why that should be the case
By definition a deindustrialised basket case, reliant on false income from services and warehousing and shopkeeping and retailing imported stuff, paid for with printed and borrowed cash, just ain’t going to get out of recession.
While Labour is all about redistribution of what’s left not fixing the problem.