Is Britain heading for the worst economic hit in Europe?

It’s odd to read headlines today saying that the UK has officially entered recession. We’ve known this for months: shops were closed, restaurants shuttered. You couldn’t get a cup of coffee or a haircut, offices were closed and millions furloughed. These were not normal times – but we knew that then, as we know it now. What we didn’t know was how far the economy had contracted, and how much this could be remedied by ending lockdown. The big news today, revealed by official figures released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, starts to answer this.

It turns out that our economic hit was one of the hardest in Europe. UK GDP fell 20.4 per cent in the second quarter of the year (ie, April, May and June), its largest quarterly slump, and worst recession, on record. No part of the economy was spared but the services sector fared particularly badly, falling by 20 per cent, with the worst hit to accommodation and food services.