UK GDP growth – beware the march of the spenders

George Osborne once pledged a balanced economy, with growth based on a march of the makers but instead a shocking imbalance of payments looms

Let's hear it for the British consumer. The trade figures are dire. Business investment is looking a bit wobbly. Manufacturing is in a slump. But out there in the high street or in the private world of online shopping, it is spend, spend, spend.

That's the inescapable message from the government's second stab at estimating the growth rate of the economy in the first three months of 2016. The headline figure - gross domestic product was up 0.4% on the final three months of 2015 - was unchanged. But the breakdown was deeply troubling.