Is Britain now in recession... and does that really matter?

The possibility of recession is never a good look for a government, but Rishi Sunak may just manage to fulfil his pledge to ‘grow the economy’ in 2023 after all. Sean O’Grady examines the latest ONS figures, and what they mean for a party whose prospects as we enter an election year are already looking grim

Has Rishi Sunak managed to achieve his promise to grow the economy in spite of the latest figures? (PA Wire)

The latest growth figures show that the British economy shrank marginally during the third quarter of 2023. This means that, on this latest, revised, estimate produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), by the end of September the economy was producing 0.1 per cent less in the way of goods and services than it was at the beginning of July. This is a little worse than previously thought (in an earlier estimate of change).

With one such quarter having produced so-called “negative growth”, in the oxymoronic economic jargon, the possibility now arises that the UK may be in a second one currently, and might thus even now be in a shallow, mild, “technical” recession, but a recession nonetheless. That is to say, a “recession” by the customary definition of two successive quarters of economic “negative growth”, ie decline. In other words, the nation as a whole is getting poorer.

The new figures pose some interesting questions...