Gordon Brown's hopes of fighting the general election on the back of a clear economic recovery suffered a severe blow today when government figures showed that Britain is experiencing its worst recession since the mid-1950s.
To the disappointment of ministers, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a shock 0.4% fall in gross domestic product in the third quarter of the year.
The figures, which stoked tensions between No 10 and the Treasury ahead of the pre-budget report later this year, were seized on by the Tories as evidence that Brown was wrong to claim that Britain was best placed to weather the recession.
If he had fixed that, no one would have suspected as it was totally anticipated that there would be a small rise in output (and still possible given the likely revisions to the provisional number).
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