Not dead yet

The UK economy keeps refusing to roll over and die, but the media stubbornly refuse to credit any good news that comes along.  I've written before about the continuing strength in the labour market, which is surely  incompatible with the declines in GDP that ONS has reported for the last three quarters.  Then again, ONS has now revised its estimate of the fall in GDP in Q2 from the original figure of 0.7% to "only" 0.5%.

That's still not a good number, but ONS itself had estimated even before the data were released that the extra holiday for the Queen's Jubilee would cut GDP by 0.5%.  So it seems as if the economy may at worst be stagnating rather than shrinking -- not that you'd be able to deduce that from the press coverage.

Yesterday Nationwide reported that its widely-followed house price index posted a 1.3% increase in August, the strongest monthly figure in two years.  The firm made the mistake of describing its own result as "surprising", and analysts were quick to follow, attributing the result to thin sales volumes, counselling against reading too much into one month's data (never a consideration when the data are bad!) and warning that the positive trend was unlikely to last.

The prize for the gloomiest take goes, as it so often seems to, to the business section of The Times. (Paywa££-protected).  The headline on its report: "Jump in house prices fails to dispel gloom".  Well, if that's how you report it, what do you expect?