Little economic pain from Jubilee

The Jubilee slump for Britain's manufacturers has done less damage to the overall economy than originally feared, official figures showed yesterday.

The extra holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee sent manufacturing output sliding 2.9 per cent, far less than expected by the City and the Office for National Statistics .

It means the 0.7 per cent second-quarter contraction the ONS estimated for the economy is almost certain to be revised up slightly, to a 0.6 per cent decline. Overall production — which includes utilities, mining and oil and gas industries — fell 2.5 per cent.