Cazenove's Jeffrey: The ominous signs behind the UK recovery

COMMENT

One of the more eye-catching pieces of news over the past month was the 0.8% rise in UK GDP in the third quarter.

This was the biggest quarterly increase for slightly over three years, and the year-on-year growth of 1.6% was the best since the first quarter of 2011. In a world in which good economic news has been quite hard to come by, the third quarter data were widely regarded as a new dawn, and the sighs of relief from within Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street were audible countrywide. I have long believed the economy has probably had rather more momentum than official numbers have been suggesting. I have no doubt, for instance, the increase in activity in 2012 was rather greater than the paltry 0.1...