Oh to be a fly on the wall as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) gets to work on its economic and fiscal forecasts for Philip Hammond’s first Autumn Statement later this year.

As is now abundantly clear, the immediate post referendum shock to the economy wasn’t nearly as bad as many forecasters, including the Treasury, the Bank of England and the great bulk of City economists, feared it might be.

Thanks in part to a sharp devaluation in the pound, even the manufacturing sector seems to have weathered the storm in much better shape than generally anticipated. The litmus test will be this week’s Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the much bigger services sector, but anecdotal evidence already suggests that this too will look reasonably encouraging. Only in construction can we be sure of a bad set of numbers.