Osborne is storing up a heap of trouble for the UK economy

Rising house prices do not offset the fact that manufacturing and construction shrank in the last three months of 2015

Last summer, a brief recovery in the manufacturing sector was already running out of steam. The construction sector followed the same path. Affected by a slowdown in global trade, the high value of the pound, and possibly the government's determination to impose another five years of austerity, businesses became more circumspect about expanding output.

Now, official figures for GDP growth in the final three months of 2015 show that these backbone of the economy activities, the stuff of making and building things, actually shrank.

Related: UK economic growth slows in 2015: what the economists are saying