As The Telegraph reports in an email this morning:
Britain's economy expanded in the first three months of the year despite the outbreak of the Iran war at the end of February, official figures show.
The UK's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.6pc in the first quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It was in line with analyst forecasts and up from 0.1pc in the final quarter of 2025.
This framing is quite ridiculous. Maybe they have already forgotten, but the impact of events like war takes time to work through into the real economy.
Maybe they will also have forgotten that by the end of March, almost no one in mainstream media had realised the full implications of this war, or the scale of the shortages it will create, or the economic mayhem it will cause. At the end of March, the general expectation was that the Strait of Hormuz might reopen again soon, even though there was no evidence of that, and some of us were saying that mayhem was likely. So, of course, this war had caused little economic damage by then.
It has now. Although mainstream media is still in denial about the mayhem heading our way very soon, there are reports of consumer confidence collapsing and business supply lines looking perilous.
The damage is happening now, and it is going to be very much worse, but the Telegraph has chosen to adopt the "so far, so good" line. That is their right. The only problem is that there is no evidence to back it.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
The Daily Hackograph long stopped being a real newspaper sometime ago.
A contemptible rag if there ever was one – a fossil of newspaper FWIW.
My immediate comment might be what impact did inflation have?
Apologies for the extended metaphor, but collectively we have exited the window and are accelerating rapidly towards a hard and immovable reality. “So far, so good” is fine for a short time, but it ends with a bloody mess. Is the government taking any action to cushion the impact? Or will they wait until it is too late, and then try to reconstruct the broken pieces, or just sweep up?
A carpenter came to see me yesterday afternoon – a skilled, pleasant fellow. He specialises in fitting woodwork (rafters, staircases, that sort of thing) to new builds and he said that contracts are getting shorter and harder to find. He seemed very aware that things will suddenly get more difficult and he explained that materials shortages are already affecting him and other sub-contractors in the new-build market. Thankfully, he doesn’t have all of his eggs in one basket, but expects his income to decrease just as the inflationary pressures in the economy escalate.
I think he is right
This is the view from the Mile End Road
It would appear that the public are more aware of what is to come than the MSM heads-in-sand brigade.
Correct
They usually are
There was an economics professor from Imperial College and a member of the Bank of England interest rate committee on BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning who glibly brushed aside the danger of the economic carnage that will ensure from the continued blockage of the Hormuz straightd. What sort of universe do these privileged and remote from reality are these supposed experts living in!? He also trumpeted the supposed 0.6% increase in GDP as if this is going to save our bacon and everything is hunky dory!
I’m really surprised the Telegraph can bring itself to report the increase in GDP, even though it is not really reflective of any world events. Are they not concerned that some credit might accrue to the gov due to mentioning this?
Serious reporting of facts has been absent from this newspaper for a very long time.
I wonder if they mention the ‘Farage £5 million bung’ in today’s edition?
No mention of the bung in Telegraph, Express, Mail or GB News. I wasn’t surprised.
Now that Starmer might be under threat, I wonder if the above news outlets will suddenly see him in a better light. The spectre of a left- leaning PM might frighten them sufficiently to do just that.
I think my carpenter will be fine in the long run as he has useful, adaptable, skills suitable for the slowly emerging local economy. As here Trouble at the Top | Chatting about Localism
We will need, very soon I think, a return to this Eating Out With Tommy Trinder (1941)
The BBC News website carried this as a lead story, the comments were full of “Hurrah Starmer everything is great” and implications/accusations that anyone who thought otherwise was a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Personally I think the combination of proxy wars and our own demographic will prove tricky and fairly soon.
The BBC commentary is economically illiterate and wholly backward looking
Surely any good economist knows that the Straits of Hormuz can be reopened quite simply by raising interest rates?