Leader: Air traffic rise belies fact we're in it for the long haul

Chancellor George Osborne's admission that the economic recovery "will take longer and be harder than hoped" is well behind the curve of events in markets and a belated recognition of the perils we now face.

While there is some truth to his insistence that the government's austerity plan has helped protect the UK from the storms that have hit government debt markets across the Eurozone, there is growing concern that lower growth forecasts for this year and next will cause a worrying slippage in the coalition's deficit reduction targets.

Two problems now loom large as growth sputters. The first is that - as in the US and in the Eurozone - governments have run out of ammunition to boost a rate of recovery strong enough to generate the revenues necessary to bear down on the debt burden. The second is that, in pushing the prospect of recovery further out, serious questions will form over the patience of voters and politicians to stick with the austerity plans in the years ahead. A quick burst of spending cuts was dull prospect enough. The concern now is that many small firms will not have the financial muscle to see out a prolonged period of low growth. Voters could also come to find this prospect intolerable while the political will on the backbenches will be tested. The outlook, while sombre, is not without hope: the economy is still growing, as the further welcome uplift in Scottish airport traffic testifies. But our fate is now largely dependent on an early solution to the Eurozone crisis. And that does not look likely any time soon.