Slowing growth is a blow for Osborne

The last major economic data release before the general election proved a disappointment for the government.

The last major economic data release before the general election proved a disappointment for the government. The economy grew by 0.3% in the first three months of this year, half the pace of the previous quarter. Industrial production and construction slipped, while the services sector, which accounts for over 75% of the economy, grew more slowly than anticipated.

The GDP figure for January to March was the lowest quarterly figure since the end of 2012, when the economy shrank. The annual growth rate is now 2.4%. With the eurozone recovering, its quarterly growth figure could have outstripped the UK's for the first time since 2011. Eurozone GDP data are released in mid-May.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.