{"id":92281,"date":"2026-05-14T07:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=92281"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:43:11","slug":"gdp-data-is-providing-comfort-to-media-in-denial-of-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/05\/14\/gdp-data-is-providing-comfort-to-media-in-denial-of-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"GDP data is providing comfort to media in denial of reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

As The Telegraph reports<\/a> in an email this morning:<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.6pc in the first quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics.<\/p>\n

It was in line with analyst forecasts and up from 0.1pc in the final quarter of 2025.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As The Telegraph reports in an email this morning: Britain\u2019s economy expanded in the first three months of the year despite the outbreak of the
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-neoliberalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92282,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92281\/revisions\/92282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}