Rishi Sunak isn’t gloating about the UK’s economic recovery. He is wise not to

The Treasury understands that shutdowns and reopenings can seriously distort growth and joblessness figures

There's a scene in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia when the clever, media-hungry English don, Bernard, thinks he has got one over on his rival by discovering something new about Lord Byron. He plans to publish his findings in a suitably august academic journal, where he promises the write-up will be absolutely gloat-free".

Rishi Sunak's response to the barrage of good news that has been emerging about the UK economy in the past few weeks has also been gloat-free. The chancellor of the exchequer has expressed modest pleasure at official figures showing a pick-up in activity and a fall in the jobless rate, but he certainly hasn't been banging the drum for boom-boom Britain.

Many businesses have little or no working capital; insolvencies have been kept artificially low; the furlough comes to an end in September