How bad will the recession get?

It is going to get pretty ugly. The closest the Treasury came to a precise estimate of its expected peak-to-trough loss of output was its forecast that gross domestic product would fall from £641bn in the first half of 2008 to £630bn in the first half of 2009. This implies a 1.7 per cent loss of output. The forecast compares favourably with the recessions of the early 1990s and the early 1980s when the economy contracted by 2.5 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.