Growth is back and it is confounding the gloomy predictions of a few months ago. Better still, there are reasons to believe it will last, as David Smith reports
One of the big themes of 2013 has been the return of growth. From very unpromising beginnings – you will remember all those scary ‘triple dip’ warnings at the start of the year – the economy has revived.
Gross domestic product figures for the third quarter released on 25 October showed a rise of 0.8%. This was in line with expectations and would have been even stronger if not for a sharp drop in gas and electricity production which probably resulted from the hot summer. This followed increases of 0.7% in the April–June quarter and 0.4% in the first three months of the...
