In Britain a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

It’s said that this definition was deliberately put about by advisers to President Johnson in the 1960s to allow him wriggle room when events were not neat and symmetrical — which is the the most likely case.

For example, if within a six-month period one month bucks the trend and shows a slight positive number, it can’t be a recession no matter how bad conditions are across the economy.

However, we know that because of population and productivity growth, the UK needs to expand by about 2pc just to keep unemployment from rising.

We should forget the official definition because even flat growth is negative for the economy and almost everybody in it, and that means less than 2pc.

Everything points to conditions being much worse than that right now.

We could just as easily define it as six months of high gold prices — just like the present.

Ronald Reagan had a stab with, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.”

Ominously he added, “A depression is when you lose your’s.”