U.K.’s Bigger-Than-Forecast Slump Pressures Cameron: Economy
This article is for subscribers only.
The U.K. economy shrank the most since 2009 in the second quarter and more than economists forecast, increasing pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to abandon Britain’s biggest budget squeeze since World War II.
Gross domestic product fell 0.7 percent from the first quarter, when it dropped 0.3 percent, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. Economists forecast a 0.2 percent decline, according to the median of 36 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Second-quarter data were hurt by record rainfall and an extra public holiday which may have masked an underlying better performance, the ONS said.