Forecasting is a mug’s game – but I was right about the economic revival

‘Perhaps I should shift my prediction to 23 July 2014,’ I wrote in April 2012. ‘That’s the opening of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and we must all start thinking positively about it.’ I was talking about the moment when the nation would at last shake off its economic gloom, which I had previously pinned to the opening of the London Olympics. But that spring we fell back into negative GDP territory (avoiding a technical two-quarter ‘double dip’ only when the first-quarter result was revised upwards to zero) and I felt obliged to ‘elasticate my timetable’. Since the beginning of last year we have had 18 months of robust growth — but pundits less cheerful than me have continued to report a persistent absence of feelgood. Well, this week’s news nails the gloomsters at last, and right on cue: a respected forecaster called the EY Item Club (perhaps more respected than me) tells us that economic output has climbed back to pass its 2008 peak, so that ‘not only is the recession over but the recovery is technically over and we’re now moving into a period of expansion’.