It is difficult to plough through the Bank of England’s recent inflation report and associated Monetary Policy Committee minutes without being reminded of a slogan current in the last years of the Habsburg empire: “The situation is hopeless but not desperate.” Or was it the other way around? In any case, the main message of the report is that the outlook is gloomy and the risks are on the downside, but nothing much can be done about it.

I ended my first extended essay on economic policy, more decades ago than I like to think back, by remarking: “The unKeynesian belief of some leading Treasury men that there is little the government can do to secure full employment in the face of adverse world forces is not encouraging.” All I would have to do now is to add the BoE, which has become more of an independent influence on policy, to the critique. As the UK is now a much smaller part of the world economy than when I first wrote these words, it should be easier to chart an independent course – but apparently not if you are a British policy maker.

The growth of real gross domestic product is expected to be below its trend average until well into 2015, even allowing for the much-vaunted Funding for Lending scheme. As we are starting from a very depressed level, output in that year is expected to be below its pre-crisis 2007-2008 level. If that is not stagnation, I do not know what is. I do not claim to have any idea what Keynes would be saying today but I can hear him turning in his grave.