In a speech in October 1991 Chancellor Norman, now Lord, Lamont famously claimed that “the green shoots of economic spring are appearing once again” (sometimes misquoted as “the green shoots of recovery”). The statement is often cited as an example of a bad official forecast but this is unfair. The GDP low during the early 1990s recession was reached in the third quarter of 1991, just before Mr. Lamont’s remarks.

The problem with the statement was the implicit assumption that the end of the recession, or contraction in output, would coincide with the onset of “economic spring” or recovery. GDP was unchanged over the subsequent three quarters, returning to growth only in the third quarter of 1992. It was a further year before the economy was expanding at an above-trend pace.

The resuscitation period between the end of a recession and the start of a recovery is miserable, with a widening negative “output gap” reflected in rising unemployment and declines in capacity utilisation and profit margins. This “feel-bad factor” explains the exaggerated criticism of Mr. Lamont’s infelicitous statement.

As explained in a previous post, if the current recession were to follow a path based on an average of the last three GDP would hit bottom in the second quarter of 2009, move sideways over the following year and recover by 2.5% in the year from the second quarter of 2010. The end of the period of falling output would be foreshadowed by a significant improvement in leading indicators from spring 2009.

On this timetable, the equivalent month to October 1991 would be July 2009. Will Labour politicians next summer be tempted to “spin” less negative economic news as early signs of a recovery, perhaps in preparation for an autumn election? Mr. Lamont may have achieved notoriety for his premature optimism but his party went on to win at the polls just six months later.