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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Patrick Gibbons, and today I'm joined by our new economics editor, Michael Simmons, and James Heal, who's newly promoted to Deputy Political Editor. Congratulations to you both. Thank you. Thanks, Patrick.

Now, Michael, I'd like to come to you first. As you discussed in the Spectators' Economics newsletter this morning, the UK economy

shrunk by 0.1% in January, according to new figures published by the ONS. Here's the Chancellor

reacting to the news this morning. This government is determined to turn around the poor performance

of more than a decade when it comes to growth. And we need to go further and faster in growing our economy,

in ensuring that we boost our national security and defence and reforming our public services.

So just how much of a shock will this be to Rachel Reeves? It comes only a few weeks after her

growth speech. Well, most economists and analysts had actually been predicting

that the year was going to start with growth. They'd forecast very, very minor growth of

0.1% for January, but the actual figure has come in as a contraction of 0.1%. So in a way,

you know, that's not a huge shock because 0.1% like either side is basically

saying that the the economy is just flatlining as it has been doing for a long time now.

But I think it's it's very bad for Reeves because she needed, January was a month where

she started, you know, talking about her growth initiatives.

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