You wouldn’t credit it to see the queues of traffic coming into London on Boxing Day morning, but post Christmas retail spending seems to have got off to a poor start, with footfall well down on the year before. Ridiculous though it might be to judge the outlook for the coming year on just one day’s experience, the numbers appear to have set the tone; forecasters are generally expecting another downbeat year for the UK economy.

The case for such gloom is easily made. The post-referendum spike in inflation may be largely over, but in the round, wage growth still lags price increases, and will likely continue that way for much of next year.

To date, households have compensated for this shortfall by borrowing more and saving less; even for the famously spendthrift British consumer, the thinking goes, there must be a limit to this propensity. Bank of England action to clamp down on unrestrained growth in consumer borrowing adds another dampener.

What is more, the post crisis jobs boom may finally be running out of steam, removing another potent source of increased spending power.

Mix in the effects on business investment of Brexit and political uncertainty, and as I say, it is easy to make the pessimistic case.