Could we be heading for a second Covid recession?

The political story for the moment is the cost of living crisis. But by the end of the year could we be talking about a recession instead? We shouldn’t read too much into one year’s economic growth figures, especially given how often they are revised upwards or downwards. But February’s figures, published this morning, have caught many people unawares. They show that the economy just about ratcheted upwards in February, growing by 0.1 per cent. That’s compared with healthy growth of 0.8 per cent in January, as the country emerged from the Omicron scare.

Notably, in two areas the economy contracted: construction fell by 0.1 per cent and production by 0.6 per cent. It was only the services sector, where growth was 0.2 per cent, which kept the economy’s head above water, and much of that was down to a rebound in foreign holidays. While the economy as a whole is now 1.5