Brown’s bleak economy

Just press here folks.  Stephanie Flanders has the analysis that Brown will not want to read:

The forecasts for the public finances are pegged to a slightly more conservative forecast of a decline on 3.75%. But I'm reliably informed that in preparing the Budget in April, the Treasury civil servants wanted a gloomier forecast, to allow for the possibility of a 2% decline in GDP in the first quarter (they got that initial first quarter estimate, hours after the chancellor sat down).

No 10 had a different view, and in the end, the forecast was for a decline of 3.25-3.75% this year. For a while it looked as though the data were moving the prime minister's way. Not any more.

Ironically, Brown may not have to spend all his waking hours worrying about the economy for much longer