In the final three months of last year the economy grew just 0.1%. It was the same story in the quarter before that. In January this year, things got even worse. Growth ground to a complete halt. A bit fat zero. Rachel Reeves will already be rifling through the excuses. Expect plenty of attempts to gaslight us about global uncertainty, difficult conditions and forces beyond her control. Don’t believe a word of it. This morning’s dreadful figure belongs to her.

And here’s the really alarming part. January’s data predates the war in Iran. That conflict now threatens to rain hellfire on the global economy, with the UK among the hardest hit. Reeves will no doubt hide behind it in the coming months. But today’s numbers show the truth. The damage was already done. She’s a human missile aimed right at the heart of the British economy.

Perhaps drone is the better word, given the way she keeps repeating the same robotic line about having “fixed the foundations”. In truth, she’s blown them to pieces.

Last year’s Budget spooked the country. Businesses slammed on the brakes while they waited to see which sector the Chancellor would target next. Investment stalled. Hiring collapsed. Unemployment rocketed. Consumers hunkered down. Everything froze.

That Budget was like a drone circling the economy, everybody watching, waiting to see where it would hit.

This result was even worse than expected. Economists had pencilled in growth of 0.2% for January. Not much, but something at least. Instead we got nothing. What worries me most is how normal this is starting to feel.

Voters are so used to stagnation that they barely react. A flatlining economy is now accepted as the new normal. Labour seems to have abandoned the idea of growth altogether.

The route out of this mess is to U-turn on Labour’s taxes to restore confidence, put money into people’s pockets, and encourage businesses to invest and hire again. That won’t happen under Reeves. She’s levied the life out of the economy and funnelled the proceeds into welfare and our unproductive public sector.

Now the Iran war arrives to make a bad situation dramatically worse. We won’t see the impact until March figures are published in May. They could be grim, and will get worse.

Reeves didn’t start that conflict, and Sir Keir Starmer is clearly desperate to keep Britain out of it. But if the war drags on and oil prices surge, inflation will follow and the cost-of-living crisis will be back with a vengeance. Capital Economics has already warned the UK could grow by just 0.1% across the entirety of 2026. Recession is a very real risk.

Yet the most depressing part is that the British economy was shot down before this crisis even began. This morning Reeves insisted: “Our economic plan is the right one.” Another of her many, many whoppers. If her plan was the right one, the economy would be growing. It isn’t. Now it’s going to get worse. This isn’t down to the Iran war. It’s down to the human missile who’s blasting the British economy to pieces.