The official "guess GDP change in Q1 2011" thread

[Wodewick]

+1%

[AtW]

+0.1%, just enough to avoid a technical recession

0% (no change) would be enough to achieve that.

[OwlHoot]

Here are the last four quarters' results, pinched from a reply to a BBC article, so don't blame me if they're wrong

2010 Q1 GDP - 0.3% (revised up from 0.2%)
2010 Q2 GDP - 1.2% (revised up from 1.1%)
2010 Q3 GDP - 0.7% (revised down from 0.8%)
2010 Q4 GDP - -0.5% (yet to be revised)

If you allow for Labour engineering an artificially high value of 1.2% prior to the election, and the snow last winter maybe reducing the Q4 figure by 0.2, it looks like a downward trend, like that U boat in Das Boot diving with the bow planes jammed.

So I'd guess -0.5% again


edit: It was widely expected that the VAT rate rise from 17.5% to 20% at the start of this year would stimulate demand towards the end of last year. So if the result was -0.5%, one assumes there wasn't enough incentive to spend then and presumably even less now it is 20% !

[Cliphead]

-0.4

[Paddy]

+ 0.009