With so much going on in politics, the economy has benefited from being out of the spotlight. Not only have the figures been a lot stronger than expected but, until it hit some political turbulence of its own towards the end of last week, sterling had rallied significantly.

There are more green shoots around and we analyse them in greater detail opposite. But a few brief points are worth making. First, while it would be premature to say the recession is over — given that we will almost certainly see a further, though smaller, drop in gross domestic product in the current quarter — a return to growth is in sight during the second half of the year.

Alistair Darling has had more to think about than his economic forecasts recently but, for all the mocking they received, there is a good chance that his budget predictions will turn out to be right.

Second, for all that excitable “Britain is a basket case” talk, and accepting this is a bad recession for everybody, the UK economy is doing no worse, and in some cases better, than others. Chris Williamson of Markit, which produces the monthly purchasing managers’ surveys, thinks Britain will pull out of recession three months earlier than the eurozone, having suffered less than Europe in the first quarter.

Third, there is a risk that the economic bounce we will see later this year will not be sustained. Instead of a V-shaped recession, we could get a “W”, in which there is another downward lurch before a sustained recovery, a “square-root” recovery (think of the sign from school), in which the initial bounce is followed by stagnation, or even a series of “W” episodes, bumping along the bottom.

Treasury officials fear that a strong upturn in the final months of this year, prompted by spending ahead of Vat being raised back to its normal level next year, could be followed by a relapse. Others warn that a combination of fiscal and monetary tightening, both of which will be necessary, will nip any recovery in the bud.

For me, one of the central questions is whether a pick-up in growth can be sustained even when bank lending remains weak. Amid the flurry of stronger news last week was some downbeat evidence from the Bank of England on lending.

Lending to households rose a modest 0.2% in April, the Bank said, and was up by 3.4% on a year earlier. But lending to nonfinancial companies fell by 0.9% and was a tiny 0.8% up on a year earlier.

This chimed with a survey from the Engineering Employers’ Federation, which showed that 45% of firms had seen an increase in the cost of their finance and only 4% had seen an improvement in credit availability in the latest three months. It is a familiar story throughout business.

Charlie Bean, the Bank’s deputy governor, buys into the story of a resumption in growth before the end of the year, but he also warned in a recent speech that bank lending was likely to remain subdued, at best, for some time.

“We are still some way from having banks feel sufficiently secure that they can lend normally, and from investors that have enough confidence in the banks to provide them with sufficient funds,” he said.

The government’s October banking measures were a straightforward rescue operation but its subsequent actions, particularly in January, have been intended to get lending flowing again. Quantitative easing, confirmed last week at £125 billion for now, was intended to boost lending and, while it is early days, is not doing so.

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