Is the recession "over"

There is much speculation in the media that the UK is experiencing small positive increases in GDP and so the Recession is over. This is of course b****cks, we have a lot more pain to come. As Edmund Conway writes in The Telegraph:

"The recession may be over but the pain has just begun... we have not dealt with the massive overhang of debt racked up by individuals and governments over the past decade or so. In the 1930s, the flipside of mass bankruptcy, bank failures and record unemployment was that in a relatively short time private debt levels dropped back down to manageable levels. This time, we have avoided the bankruptcy; the consequence is that we still need to repay the debt.... As George Osborne pointed out in his speech to the Association of British Insurers this week, the biggest challenge in the coming decade is how to bring down the national debt. Britain has three options: default on the debt (fatal for our long-term prospects), inflate it away (near fatal, but feasible) or pay it back through a long period of austerity. The latter course is by no means easy. The Tories insist it can be done through spending cuts, but they will almost certainly also have to raise taxes to get the books back in order. Don't be surprised if VAT is higher than 17.5 per cent before long. This week, London has been crippled by Tube strikes that presage the next few years, which will be peppered with clashes between heavily unionised public-sector workers and a government with no choice but to bring down costs. It really is 1979 all over again – and perhaps even worse. I don't know whether that is something David Cameron is relishing or dreading, but I hope he knows what he's in for. "

Thanks Gordon, thanks Tony; thanks for f***ing up the UK economy so badly that I and Mrs NotaSheep will have to go through a decade or more of financial pain because of your incompetent/reckless mismanagement of the economy. Thanks and I hope you both choke on your gold-plated publicly funded final salary pension schemes.