Beneath the bonnet of the UK economy, there are plenty of faults | Larry Elliott

Manufacturing is struggling, growth is unbalanced - and solving Brexit won't fix our woes

Judged by what is happening in the rest of Europe, Britain's economic performance in late 2018 was reasonably good. France was paralysed by the gilets jaunes protests, while Germany and Italy flirted with recession. The UK is likely to have grown by 0.3% in the final three months of 2018, and by contrast with the other major European economies that's not too shabby.

Look beneath the bonnet of the economy, though, and things don't look quite so good. It is not really that growth halved between the third and fourth quarters, because activity was unusually high in the summer and early autumn as a result of the World Cup, a heatwave and a bounce back from the weather-related hit to growth earlier in the year.

Related: UK GDP growth slows to 0.3% as manufacturing stalls