The Treasury building is in flames

It has been reported that fires have broken out at various locations inside the Treasury building this morning.

In as separate development, the Office of National Statistics has reported that the UK economy shrank 1.9% in the first three months of 2009.  The BBC reports:

The worse-than-expected figure casts doubt on the chancellor's prediction that GDP for the whole of 2009 would only shrink by 3.5%.

"A contraction of at least 4% is much more likely," said Benjamin Williamson at the Centre for Economic and Business Research.

"Our latest forecast is for a 4.5% contraction this year, making 2009 the steepest single year contraction in economic activity since the 5.1% fall in 1931."

It is not known at the present time if the fires have been caused by the Treasury’s own forecasts produced for the Budget being set alight.  A spokesperson for the fire service has been quoted as saying, “there is a hell of a lot of rubbish inside the building”.