The painkillers are wearing off, for many the real recession starts now

It is also worth noting that the Of?ce for National Statistics' ?rst estimates of output tend to understate the reality, particularly during the early stages of economic recovery. Norman Lamont was much mocked for his "green shoots" speech in the early 1990s; subsequent upward revisions to the data showed that the economy was indeed growing at the time he made his remarks.

Even so, there's no doubting the scale of the challenges facing the UK economy. It's now more than two years since the nadir of ?nancial crisis, and despite all the ?scal and monetary support, still UK output remains way below its pre-crisis levels. The economy is failing to show the same "bounce back" capacity it has after most other post-war recessions.

Ironically, that's in part because of the success policy action has achieved in shielding the population from the worst of the downturn. A combination of low interest rates and government spending has supported both consumption and employment, which haven't suffered nearly as badly as would be expected after a 6pc-plus contraction in activity.

This action has smoothed and spread the adjustment, but hasn't removed it; as is often the case after a ?nancial crisis, the process of recovery is proving long and drawn out. The painkillers are wearing off, and for many, the real recession starts here.

More worrying still, the economy is still showing only very limited signs of the hoped for rebalancing away from debt fueled consumption to investment and trade. Again, this is in contrast to what happened in the early 1990s, when both the budget and the current account de?cit quite rapidly came back into balance after Britain's enforced exit from the ERM.

At the start of the crisis, a senior UK policymaker, pointing to the paradox of a response that required an excess of debt to be fought with more debt, described it as based on the Augustinian principle of "Lord make me chaste, but not yet" - a phrase I've made use of in my columns since.

The austerity package marks the long put off imposition of chastity, but here's the disturbing bit; the Of?ce for Budget Responsibility's forecasts for growth rely heavily on the idea that there will be no chastity at all in the household sector. To the contrary, the OBR reckons that in order to maintain their lifestyles, households will reduce their savings and increase their borrowings further; indebtedness is forecast to grow from 160pc of disposable income to a record 175pc, or �2.1trillion, by 2015. Where's the rebalancing? If the Government's de?cit reduction is achieved only at the cost of increasing the indedtedness of the household sector, then you have to question its purpose.

As to the other aspect of rebalancing ? net trade ? that too is proving slow to take hold. Exports are growing, but not as strongly as some other European countries. What is more, the 20pc plus devaluation in the pound seems to be having virtually no impact on imports. As the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee said in minutes to its last meeting, it's possible "that domestic substitutes for some imported goods and services [are] not available".

Britain's manufacturing base is so depleted that the economy may no long be capable of responding to gains in competitiveness.

Whatever Wednesday's figures show, there's a long way to go before the UK economy can be judged out of the woods.

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