Faisal Islam: Why the UK economy is surprisingly resilient

Detailed summary

The UK is seeing impressive growth, but will it last?

The UK economy grew at its fastest rate for more than two years in the three months to September.

"Top gear" and "strikingly strong" were among the descriptions of the 0.7% growth offered by the economists who track every minor murmur of Britain's economy.

It is an upgrade on "solid" and "resilient", and in turn a world away from "hardest hit by the Iran War".

Against the backdrop of the world's biggest disruption to energy flows, rising market borrowing costs - and the cruel summers since the pandemic - it is impressive growth.

The UK's economic growth has averaged less than 0.1% in the four Q3s [ie July to September] since the pandemic.

The average prediction just months ago for this July to September was just 0.1%.

Even the UK's official forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) effectively pencilled in 0.3% at the Budget just 3 weeks ago.

This figure has not been exceeded outside the pandemic since 2017. It puts the UK on course to be the second fastest growing economy after the US across the major G7 countries which also includes Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy and France.

It is tempting to think about what the economy would have done if the Iran War hadn't happened. If interest rates had been cut instead of their recent rise.

Opening of the article, excerpted from BBC Business. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.