The Bank of England’s one-point cut in interest rates on Thursday – bringing them down to 2 per cent, a rate not seen for 57 years – is an attempt to breathe life back into a struggling economy.

Kevin Daly of Goldman Sachs has a rule of thumb that in normal times a 1 percentage point cut in rates should boost the economy by 0.3 per cent in the long run. The Bank’s model suggests a similar result.