Ask any main political party how they plan to sustain public services in the medium-term, and their answer will be to grow the economy. Ask the Tories or Labour how they might be more generous in the future – able to offer up more tax cuts, or higher public sector pay settlements – their answer will be to grow the economy.
Those parties got a rude awakening this morning, when the Office for National Statistics revealed that there was no economic growth in April. After better-than-expected growth in the first quarter of the year, which lifted the UK out of recession, the economy flatlined at the start of the second quarter, setting the country up for a more sluggish spring.
Services output grew by 0.2
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