Remember the austerity of 2010s? Early 2020s are expected to be far worse | Richard Partington

Britain is in a low-growth bind and too many policies have political rather than economic goals

The prospects are bleak. For more than 70 years the British economy has grown steadily, if not always spectacularly. There have been setbacks - not least the 1970s energy shock, 1990s property crash, and 2008 financial crisis - before eventual recoveries took hold. This time is different.

Should last week's forecasts from the Bank of England come to pass, Britain is heading for the weakest sustained period of economic growth of the postwar age, and quite possibly of the past century or more.