In 2020, the UK was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Unprecedented pressures on healthcare have forced the government to impose very strict lockdowns, which have cost a lot of money.
Unprecedentedly bad
All the growth in the years since 2013 has been wiped out in one fell swoop by historic deflation. The second quarter in particular was exciting. The UK economy then contracted by up to 19 percent compared to the previous quarter. The British performed worse than Spain (-17.9%) and Italy (-13%).
The British economy had not contracted so much since 1709. And that was also a year to quickly forget. While soldiers scattered across Europe were killing each other en masse to prevent France from becoming too great, the winter was extremely cold. The Great Frost, as the British called it, caused crops to fail and livestock to die. This led to a major economic downturn.
pile
As bad as 2020's numbers are, they still offer a little hope. Growth has been recorded in the last two quarters. In the third quarter, the economy grew by 16 percent. That was the time when many measures were relaxed. But a small amount of growth was also recorded in the fourth quarter: 1 percent.
Meanwhile, the British are making significant progress in vaccinating the population, which provides additional optimism that life can resume to some degree of normality in the foreseeable future. The country's central bank had previously predicted that the economy could quickly recover to its previous level if vaccination bore fruit.
£250bn ready to be spent
The Bank of England's chief economist, Andy Haldane, added to that today in the Daily Mail. According to him, British households deliberately saved 250 billion pounds (285 billion euros) in June 2021, and he expects a large portion of this to be spent quickly when it is possible again.
Haldane therefore takes into account economic growth exceeding 10% after one year.
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