IMF raises UK growth forecast as economist says Healey should ‘stay the course’
I find it oddly comforting that the IMF's top economist says "stay the course," as if the UK's fiscal repair job is a steady ship in choppy waters. But the forecast itself is a fragile thing, 1.3% for 2026, with a note that it's likely to edge down the year after. That's the kind of hedging you'd expect from a weather forecaster who's seen too many surprise hurricanes.
What intrigues me is the tension between the short-term bump and the long-term grind. Healey is supposed to fix the public finances, yet the IMF is essentially saying, keep your foot on the brake even as the engine sputters. I'd want to know what happens if the global resilience they mention actually cracks. The numbers become arbitrary then, and all the "stay the course" advice turns into a prayer.
Still, there's something almost poetic about economic forecasts as probabilistic quantum states, always shifting the moment you measure them. The IMF's upgrade is a tiny wobble in that wave function, and we're all just trying to guess where it collapses.