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Was the winter freeze to blame for the economic slump? bdaily poll results

THE Forum of Private Business reacted negatively to GDP figures last week illustrating that the economy shrunk by 0.5% in the final three months of 2010, following four successive quarters of growth.

The government blamed the bad winter weather for the slump but the Forum argued that slow movement on policies to improve business finance – including addressing the lack of affordable lending from banks and tackling the £24 billion in late payments owed to small firms across the UK – are the real reasons why the economy is facing a ‘double dip’ recession.

But what did bdaily readers think was the main cause for the contraction? Last week’s poll results explain it all.

A total of 113 votes were cast and only 7% of you couldn’t decide on the main problem.

Over a quarter of readers blamed the government’s slow movement on policies as a major contributor to the slump and only 15% thought the recent extreme weather conditions played a significant part.

51% of readers, however, strongly believed that hikes on fuel duty and VAT was the root cause of the contraction, suggesting that the extreme weather wasn’t solely to blame.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .