“We now have the worst of both worlds – not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of ‘stagflation’ situation.” With these words in 1965, Iain Macleod, the-then UK Conservative economy spokesman, coined the term stagflation.

Inflation was 4.4 per cent and growth was 2.5 per cent – not so bad, you might think, but Britain’s economic performance was so poor over the following 20 years that few disputed the “sick man of Europe” badge pinned to the country.