In their recent mea culpa to the Queen, apologising for a collective failure to predict the world’s recent spot of financial bother, a group of eminent British economists note that “many people did foresee the crisis”, but add, “What matters in such circumstances is not just to predict the nature of the problem but also its timing.”

I don’t agree. In fact, the reason that economists are now getting pilloried is precisely because they let people believe their job is to predict the future, and then ensure nothing bad happens. The detailed and specific forecasts produced by mathematical models – on which economists have lavished much time and love – are misused when they give the quite mistaken impression that this is possible.