Still searching for green shoots
While the - with the jury still out on Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget forecast that growth will return in the current (Q3) quarter - other European economies that have not gone in for quite the degree of fiscal stimulus or monetary easing of which Gordon Brown is so proud are already showing signs of recovery. 
France and Germany have just announced that they're now out of recession, with in Q2 (April-June) of this year (during which the UK economy declined by another 0.8%). So while we still search for signs of a few green shoots, France and Germany already have plants to water and feed.
There is no doubt that there is a growing sense that the worst is over for the global economy and that recovery is taking root, especially in the Far East. As Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist, : "All around the world, economies seem to be turning a corner, moving out of a period of this global recession in which the good news was just that things were getting bad more slowly into one in which things are actually getting better. Exports are picking up, order books are getting fatter, production is starting to rise in America, China, Germany, Japan and even Britain."
Mr Brown's main problem is simple: will there be enough of a recovery between now and an election next May for the government to take the credit and win a fourth term? Recovery certainly won't be visible by the Labour conference, when the PM hopes to launch his fight back to the election, because we won't have the Q3 growth figures by end-September when Labour gathers in Brighton.
But even if there is growth by late autumn and into the winter it might merely be an "economists' recovery" i.e only economists will notice it. And even if there is robust recovery (which few expect) voters might still not be inclined to give the government the credit. After all, John Major headed into the 1997 election with the economy recovering quite nicely but still the Tories got a drubbing because voters wanted revenge for perceived previous incompetence.
Mr Brown could face the same problem, especially since unemployment - - looks set to rise inexorably in the run up to the next election - and unemployment is the key economic indicator for many voters, whatever economic commentators say about GDP growth and other more intangible measures.
Peter Mandleson has been peddling the official line this week that unemployment would be so much worse but for the government's fiscal and monetary stimuli, telling the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and others that this action has saved "at least, probably far in excess of, 500,000 jobs".
But the Treasury has already let it be known that 500,000 is the very top end of its estimates (not the minimum) and it is being extremely coy about the basis of its calculations. I understand that its sums are based primarily on the impact of the cut in interest rates, in which case it will be hard for the government to take much credit - every government, left, right and centre, has slashed rates in the past 12 months.
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