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It was the recession that no one would own up to - even when the economy was already deep in it.
Almost exactly a year to the day since Bank of England Governor Mervyn King finally conceded that the R-word was unavoidable following the near collapse of the banking system, Britain learnt today it is still in recession.
The fourth recession since the Second World War has been arguably the worst for a lifetime with a 5.6 per cent fall in GDP. The damage inflicted on the economy has been comparable to the early Eighties downturn and certainly far more severe than in the early Nineties and the mid-Seventies.
For many Londoners the recession - defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP - began long before the official start in April last year.
The first storm clouds began to gather as early as the summer of 2007 when the credit crunch started to bite and property prices fell.
For those in jobs - still the vast majority - and with tracker mortgages the recession has brought an unexpected windfall in the form of lower home-loan bills. They - and the tourists attracted to London by the weaker pound - have helped to keep tills in central London ringing.
But for graduates and school-leavers the medium-term prospects remain bleak, whatever the statistics say today about GDP.
Almost one in five under-25s not in full-time education is classified as unemployed. In some parts of east London unemployment has crept back to the dreaded one in 10 and across the capital as a whole more than 350,000 people are without work.
The services sector, which stretches from banks to hotels and accounts for the lion's share of the economy, has stabilised in recent weeks as sales help persuade consumers to keep spending. The manufacturing sector too, helped by the fall in sterling, has also brightened.
Even if the recession has ended, there are fears of a double-dip after Christmas when a new era of higher taxes will be signalled by the return of VAT to its former level of 17.5 per cent.
We asked a cross-section of Londoners whether their personal recessions are now over and if not, when the recovery might finally arrive.
Reader views (1)
Good.They expect far too much for precious little in return.
- Steve, London, 23/10/2009 14:21
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