Sometimes it is as well to look at what politicians have actually said rather than what an overexcited media says they have said. Anyone watching or listening to the BBC at the weekend would be forgiven for believing that Alistair Darling had predicted the UK was facing its deepest recession for 60 years. They would have been mistaken.

Instead, the chancellor of the exchequer said the present economic times – the combination of the global credit crunch and soaring international commodity prices – were as bad as they had been for more than half a century. He was echoing remarks made earlier in the summer by Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England. This is not the same as predicting that Britain faces a great depression.