No sign of a robust rebound that would make us all feel better
Unfurl the bunting by all means - but not for the economy. Just as in 1981, a royal couple will walk up to the altar against a sombre post-recessionary backdrop of high unemployment and painful spending cuts.
Today's 0.5 per cent GDP growth suggests that this recovery is one of the slowest and most feeble on record. The bounce-back in the years after previous downturns over the past century has averaged three per cent, according to analysis from Deutsche Bank. This time we will be lucky to manage half that rate.
Even worse, while in many major economies, including America and Canada, GDP is now above the peak levels, ours is still four per cent below. All that is before the impact of the tax rises - except VAT- and spending cuts that kicked in this month.
Even the cheering silver lining that is the royal wedding and back-to-back four-day bank holiday weekends has its own little cloud to go with it. City economists now fear that second quarter GDP growth will be depressed by production lost to the extra time off from work. In the month of the last royal holiday, for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in June 2002, output fell by five per cent.
It is not all bad. Inflation is not rising as fast as feared, unemployment seems to have peaked - for now - at around 2.5 million, much lower than the worst forecasts and, of course, the Bank of England's interest rate is still at its all-time low.
But for hundreds of thousands of Londoners, living standards are falling at a rate they will not have experienced in their working lifetimes with no sign of the sort of robust economic rebound that would make us all feel better. No wonder even Primark, for years the recession-proof star of the high street, was warning today of a profits squeeze.
Once the street parties are over Britain will go properly back to work. Then the grim reality of smaller pay packets and higher shop prices will really kick in for millions. Thank goodness we have the Olympics to look forward to.
