While Westminster bluffs and blusters, a UK recession looms | Aditya Chakrabortty

Politicians and pundits may be distracted, but economists are already talking about another financial crisis

God bless Britain's political class, for in their capacity for happy self-absorption they are as reliably easy to please as a puppy. Just chuck them the right chew toy.

Who won last night's head-to-head, Boris or Jeremy? Gnaw gnaw. What is George Osborne playing at? Snuffle, snuffle. Doesn't young Matt Hancock look tortured these days? Slobber, slobber. And so politicians and pundits paw away, the existential questions facing an entire country somehow never quite as rousing as the latest gossip from Versailles.

In the construction sector, which has just had its worst month since the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, they now talk of 'quicksand'

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