{"id":406313,"date":"2026-04-19T07:57:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T07:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406313\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T07:57:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T07:57:48","slug":"uk-economy-surged-unexpectedly-ahead-of-iran-war-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406313\/","title":{"rendered":"UK economy surged unexpectedly ahead of Iran war \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Britain\u2019s economy surged unexpectedly in February, suggesting it was in \u200cslightly better shape before the start of the Iran war than many economists had feared, official \u200bfigures showed on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product rose by 0.5 per cent month-on-month in February, the biggest increase since January 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Economists polled by \u200bReuters had forecast 0.2 per cent growth in gross domestic product for February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cGrowth increased further in \u2060the three months to February led by broad-based increases across services,\u201d \u200cONS chief \u200ceconomist \u200bGrant Fitzner said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cMeanwhile car production recovered from the effects of the autumn cyber incident.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">While the data \u2060are likely to please \u200bfinance minister Rachel Reeves, economists said \u200bBritain\u2019s economy remained vulnerable to the fallout from the Middle East conflict, \u200cbeing highly dependent on imported natural \u200bgas and prone to higher inflation than peers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/>Has the fuel protest shown that the loudest lobby generally gets what they want?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cUnfortunately, the latest energy \u2060price shock has likely pulled \u2060the rug \u200bon this momentum, with another year of above-target inflation and a softening labour market likely to come,\u201d said Fergus Jiminez-England, associate economist from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Economic growth for the three months to February was 0.5 per cent, the ONS said, putting Britain\u2019s economy on track for a conspicuously \u200cstrong first quarter, \u2060for a third year running.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">That pattern has led to suspicions among some economists that the ONS\u2019 process of seasonal \u200cadjustment has gone awry following unusually large swings in output during the COVID-19 pandemic &#8211; \u200bsomething the ONS rejects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe\u2019re confident in our \u200bfigures and seasonal adjustment processes,\u201d an ONS spokesperson said on Thursday. &#8211; Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s economy surged unexpectedly in February, suggesting it was in \u200cslightly better shape before the start of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6242,15046,72,113,123534,61,2535,60,178745,43,115074,2096],"class_list":{"0":"post-406313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-street","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-general-view","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-imf","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-macro-economics","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-pedestrians","19":"tag-people"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}