Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 12 August 2026
source“Iran war threatens to crush UK economy: Treasury officials warn growth could slow to just 0.3%”
R5/ 10
Selective
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Daily Mail's claim that Iran war will "crush" the UK economy a 5/10 because the underlying Treasury forecast, reported by Bloomberg, is a conditional worst-case scenario still showing 0.3% growth, not contraction, and the headline drops the "if" that makes the whole number contingent.
The Verdict
Selective. The 0.3% figure and the gap to the OBR's 1.6% forecast are real and properly sourced, but "crush" is a loaded verb for a scenario that still shows positive growth, and the headline strips out the conditional trigger, that the Strait of Hormuz stays "effectively closed for the rest of this year", turning a hypothetical internal briefing into a flat prediction.
What actually happened
An internal Treasury forecast, reported by Bloomberg, modelled UK growth slowing to 0.3% in 2027 if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed due to the ongoing Iran war. That is well short of the Office for Budget Responsibility's existing 1.6% projection for 2027, and the same briefing flagged inflation potentially rising from 2.6% to 4.3% in early 2027. The story lands alongside separate concerns about heatwave damage to UK output and a widely expected weak Q2 growth reading.
Key facts
- Treasury scenario: growth slows to 0.3% in 2027 if the Strait of Hormuz stays "effectively closed" for the rest of the year, per the article's sourcing of a Bloomberg report.
- That compares with the OBR's standing forecast of 1.6% growth for 2027, a figure independently corroborated elsewhere: reporting on the OBR's own forecasts confirms growth was "set to be higher than anticipated in both 2027 and 2028 at 1.6%."
- Inflation risk: the internal forecast flags a rise from 2.6% to 4.3% in Q1 2027.
- Wider context: the OECD separately downgraded 2026 UK growth to 0.7% from 1.2%, calling it the worst hit of any G20 economy from the war, and projected 2026 inflation at 4%.
- The 0.3% figure would mark the worst performance since 2023, per the article, not a contraction.
What to watch for
Watch whether this "leaked" 0.3% scenario becomes an actual published Treasury or OBR forecast, or whether it quietly disappears if the Strait reopens. Also watch how much of any real Q2/Q3 slowdown gets attributed to the war versus the separately cited heatwave damage (estimated at £3bn to £4.4bn by different analysts), since the headline conflates both drags into one crisis narrative.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
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