The reduction to 2 per cent and 2.5 per cent of the Bank of England’s and European Central Bank’s respective official interest rates may be historically unprecedented, but it is the least the two central banks could have got away with. Their measured step-by-step approach falls below the level of events and makes me wish that the US Federal Reserve were in charge of policy on the European side of the Atlantic as well.

The Bank’s continued reluctance to resort to extreme measures makes it all the more unfortunate that the November 24 pre-Budget report turned out, at best, a damp squib and, at worst, counterproductive. Little of the discussion was on the fiscal stimulus but rather on the subsequent tax increases required “to pay for it”. If an old-school economist had deliberately tried to arrange a demonstration against fiscal policy, he could hardly have done better.