One way to be a loser is not to have the wit to realise when you are winning. Being a winner but not knowing it isn't all that gratifying.

That's why it's worth making a fuss about the news that, with the economy's growth of 0.5 per cent during the three months to June, we have now completed 25 years of continuous economic growth.

This is the first time we have been able to say that since regular measurement of gross domestic product began at the end of the 1950s.

No other developed country can make the same claim over the past 25 years. Indeed, few if any have experienced such a protracted period of continuous growth at any time.