The real story of the revised GDP figures is that the recession was even deeper than previously thought

Lots of media excitement today that UK growth in the final quarter of last year was a rubbish 0.3% rather than a really rubbish 0.1%.

The media has missed the more interesting revision to GDP data. Edward Conway at The Telegraph (with some considerable help from Andrew Lilico) hasn't:

"Also revealed by those revisions is the fact that the total peak-to-trough fall experienced by the UK economy in this recession was 6.2pc, rather than the previously-estimated 6pc. This makes it by some margin the worst recession since the 1920s."

He also blogs:

"A brief examination of the GDP figures (which are now more than three-quarters complete, so are pretty reliable), much of the growth (such as it was) was provided by retail, by car manufacture and sales, and by government expenditutre. It doesn’t take an economic genius to realise that these are all reliant on artificial props from the government (VAT cut, car scrappage scheme, brought-forward state spending) which will soon be, or have already been, withdrawn."

In other words Labour didn't just double national debt, Brown also delivered the deepest bust for eighty years.