Bleak economic outlook

Coming up with a coherent political narrative for dealing with the economy is proving tricky for our leading politicians.

Labour leader Ed Miliband and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg are both using speeches in the north-east of England to outline their own cautious visions of the future prospects for Britain's economy.

Both are struggling against the fact that there is very little by way of concrete proposals on offer from either, however.

GDP figures for the final quarter of 2010 showed a contraction of 0.5%.

As that came before the VAT hike to 20% was implemented, there is a real possibility Britain could slip into the double-dip recession feared by many commentators.