You’ve never had it so bad

The UK’s latest headlines could hardly be less flattering to Gordon Brown, the prime minister. The UK is not top of the league, as Brown has often boasted, but bottom. The 2.8% GDP contraction the International Monetary Fund forecasts for 2009 gives the UK the largest fall of any major economy. Yet this means as little as the pole position of which Brown often boasted. Export-oriented Germany is forecast to do almost as badly. More important are the underlying trends, which the Institute for F...