UK After the shock came the arguments. No one expected the Office for National Statistics to say the economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in the third quarter; the survey data and early official data had been too strong.
Few were therefore minded on Friday to modify their entrenched positions about the economy, the policies needed to revive it or whether the figures contained any useful information. Stuck in the middle of these clashes, of course, was the ONS.
