Last week the coalition government basked for a second or two in the glow of a piece of good news: a quarterly growth figure that was twice as strong as the City was expecting. The cause, it seemed, was a booming construction sector. Hang on, did you say "booming construction sector"? Well it is booming according to the Office for National Statistics. The ONS says construction output has risen 13.5% in six months - an annualised growth of 27%, which is twice as rapid as any year since the end of the war. It now sits just shy of the peak of output recorded in early 2008.
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