Ratings agencies in general are not the flavour of the month, seen as harming recovery not helping it with poorly timed EU down grades but they have now placed the UK on what is termed " Negative Outlook".

Currently we have a triple A rating and the implication is that a potential downgrade is on the cards with the next 18 month period.

At the moment, the UK is seen as a safe haven for spare cash and this allows the UK to fund borrowing at comparatively low cost. The lower the country's rating the more they have to pay to borrow through the bond markets, as is the case with Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal etc.

Seeing one quarter of negative growth and one more rings the "recession" bell, the benefit of the Bank of England's recent injection of £50 billion Quantative Easing (QE), remains to be seen but may just head off what could be a short sharp shallow recession AND a future downgrade.