Those hunting for ugly economic facts will find a surfeit of them in Britain. Tuesday’s consumer price inflation figures showed a rise of 3 per cent year-on-year in April: worse than expected and perhaps enough to prevent the Bank of England from cutting rates. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors also published its most pessimistic house price survey since measurement began in 1978.

Could the real horror show be the public finances? Net borrowing is high relative to most big economies. It was 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2007-08 and, according to Treasury forecasts, will be 2.9 per cent for this fiscal year and 2.5 per cent the next year. If the last downturn is anything to go by, UK governments can get their sums spectacularly wrong. In 1990, a hallucinatory Conservative-run Treasury projected the books would balance in 1993-94. After a brutal recession the actual deficit turned out to be 8 per cent of GDP.