Will the UK experience a double-dip recession in 2021? Almost certainly

A recession is coming but damage this time from artificial hibernation by government diktat' may prove shortlived, say economists

Harold Wilson was prime minister and Margaret Thatcher the newly elected leader of the opposition. Lord's hosted the first cricket world cup final, David Bowie released Young Americans and inflation reached a post-war high of more than 25%. That was Britain in 1975, the last time the economy endured a double-dip recession.

Until now, in all likelihood. When the Office for National Statistics releases growth figures for November next Friday the data is expected to show UK on course to contract in the final three months of 2020. An economy that was already losing momentum in the early autumn was further hampered by the four-week lockdown in England that ended in early December.

Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the total value of activity in the economy over a given period of time.