Better than expected and Labour’s double-dip talk is looking increasingly desperate but it’s not all good news. The Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index released this morning has Britain lingering at an unlucky thirteenth in the world, with little chance of breaking into the top ten anytime soon. Mandy has returned to the airwaves from nowhere to “talk-down Britain”, as he would have put it during the election…

UPDATE : The GDP figures have really messed up the opposition’s narrative:

First thing this morning the headline on the BBC website was:

UK economic recovery ‘to show sharp slowdown’
The economic recovery in Britain is expected to show a sharp slowdown when figures are released later on Tuesday.

The data release at 0930 forced a headline change:

UK economy grows a faster-than-expected 0.8%
The UK’s economy grew at 0.8% between July and September, official figures show, suggesting the economy is recovering faster than expected. It follows 1.2% growth in the second quarter of the year, and is double the 0.4% expected by analysts… The pound jumped on the news, which lowered expectations that the Bank of England will engage in further quantitative easing in the near future.

But…

The gross domestic product (GDP) figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is only a first estimate, and may be revised.

The numbers must be wrong, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, says the BBC…