UK GDP growth shows consumers spending despite Brexit worries | Larry Elliott

George Osborne has been proved wrong in his forecasts of doom – the economy has stayed afloat thanks to the service sectorIt was supposed to be the moment of truth. Had the economy performed as George Osborne predicted it would in the fevered days before the referendum, late January 2017 would have been the moment when official data showed that output in the UK had contracted in both the third and fourth quarters of 2016 – the technical definition of a recession.Instead, Philip Hammo