(PTI): Britain is in its longest recession since 1955, confounding expectations for a return to growth in the third quarter of the fiscal year, government data shows.

Gross domestic product (GDP) unexpectedly slumped 0.4 percent between July and September compared with a fall of 0.6 percent in the second quarter, the Office for National Statistics announced.

Economists had widely expected Britain to exit recession in the third quarter with a return to growth of 0.2 percent after five quarters of shrinking GDP.

Reacting to Friday’s data, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling recalled that the Labour government had predicted a return to growth only “at the turn of year.”

But the main opposition Conservatives, expected to win the general elections due by June, described the contraction as “deeply disappointing.”

“It’s clear (Prime Minister) Gordon Brown’s recession plan has not worked, there is no economic leadership in this country and we urgently need a change of direction to get this country working again,” the Conservatives’ economic spokesman George Osborne told Sky News television.

Britain’s economic recovery is expected to be far from rosy ahead of the general election, given the nation’s massive and mounting debt and unemployment.

The country’s public deficit ballooned to a record high in September as the state purse buckled under the weight of a recession that began in the second quarter of 2008.

Economists are warning that public borrowing this year would easily breach the government’s official target of 175 billion pounds (285 billion dollars).

The number of unemployed in Britain climbed to 2.47 million in the three months leading to July — the highest level since May 1995.