James Forsyth James Forsyth

If Britain hasn’t returned to growth by the end of the year, will it still be ‘no time for a novice’?

Looking at the OECD’s latest economic forecast it seems that the UK—unlike the US and the Euro-Zone–will not return to growth by the end of this year. (Although, one can’t help but wonder if Brown will start heralding zero percent growth in the fourth growth). Indeed, the OECD projects that the UK economy will shrink by 4.7 percent over this year as a whole—although the worst appears to be behind us with the rate of shrinkage slowing since the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year.  

As Kevin Maguire suggests today, Labour’s election strategy is likely to be that Britain is not out of the woods yet and so it is still no time for a novice. So politically the perception that the rest of the world is recovering faster and stronger than Britain could be a real problem for Brown.

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