As world leaders were meeting to discuss the global economic “recovery” at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, official figures were released showing that the UK economy – far from being on the road to recovery – had shrunk by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2012. Adam Booth reports on the economic situation in Britain.

Far from heralding a new promise for the British economy, the 1% growth figure announced a month ago has already been buried by a pile of bad news. Few economists are looking towards 2013 with any real hope. Socialist Appeal editor Rob Sewell explains why.

The world economic crisis has led to such a deterioration of the health of public finances worldwide that the recent World Economic Outlook
(WEO) of the IMF has the apt title “Coping with High Debt and Sluggish
Growth”.