Survival of Euro is critical to UK dragging itself out of depression

James Mitchell says today's GDP figures show that the European Central Bank's promise to save the Euro is critical to the UK's hope that it can drag itself out of the longest "depression" in living memory. Today's GDP figures show the UK economy suffered a 0.3 per cent contraction in the final quarter of 2012. The Warwick Business School Professor of Economic Modelling and Forecasting believes stability in the Eurozone could spark growth in 2013 if exports to Europe pick-up. Mitchell said: "The economy continues to go sideways and it does raise fears that we are heading for an unprecedented triple-dip recession. "Taking a long-term view, and not reading too much into one quarter's data, what is clear is that UK living standards remain lower today than they were before the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2007 - in fact 3 per cent lower." "The traditional approach is to say a 'depression' is a really bad recession. But today's figures show that the economy is still depressed below its pre-crisis level of GDP. On this basis, we are living through the longest depression in living memory, including relative to the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.