There's a reason why George Osborne looks this smug

Britain has put the financial crisis behind it and will be the fastest growing major economy in the developed world this year, the International Monetary Fund has said.

The IMF revealed in their World Economic Outlook for October that Britain’s growth, which was outstripping the rest of the G7 including the US, Germany and France, was strong enough to consign the effects of the financial crisis to the past.

Among advanced economies, the United States and the United Kingdom in particular are leaving the crisis behind and achieving decent growth,

• IMF world economic outlook

But it warned that interest rates may have to rise quickly if house prices continued to increase, and that unemployment would fall more slowly in 2015 than it had this year.

Nonetheless the conclusion was welcomed last night by the Chancellor, George Osborne, and sat in stark contrast to warnings from the institution that austerity policies could be dangerous.

It forecast growth of 3.2 per cent in Britain in 2014 is up 0.3 points from the IMF’s April assessment and the fastest of any G7 nation.

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