Britain is facing a Brexit recession made in Downing Street

The last of the three monthly Purchasing Managers Index numbers released by IHS Markit/Cips showed that Britain’s dominant services sector just about grew in August.

But the biggest part of the UK economy, which encompasses everything from your local coffee shop to the City’s great banks, limped in to record a figure 50.6, with anything above 50 representing growth.

The number was both below expectations and in decline compared with the previous month (51). The same is true of construction, 45 down from 45.3, and manufacturing, 47.4 down from 48. The difference is the latter two sectors are now shrinking, as is business activity overall. UK plc only avoided a cricketing hat-trick because the video replay umpire didn’t overturn a marginal LBW decision made on the field after the third ball.

Business expectations are at their lowest for three years, with economists starting to pencil in the first recession since the financial crisis, unless there is a dramatic pick up in September. It’s hard to see where the fairy dust might come from.

These are the sort of figures that should be of deep concern to any sane and sensible government of whatever hue, all the more so to a Conservative government with its much ballyhooed, and largely undeserved, reputation for economic competence. In more normal times, they’d scare the pants off it.

But these are not normal times and this is not a normal government. It is run by a party that has completely lost its marbles, having been dragged to the edge of a cliff by gangsters who have just one policy of note.

The global situation mightn’t be terribly cheery, but the contraction that is getting underway in Britain is an entirely self created one, a squeeze manufactured in Downing Street.

And remember, this could just be a taste of what’s to come, a red balloon or two of warning of what Johnnywise the dancing clown of Downing Street could yet brings down on us as he emerges from his sinister house.

This brings us to another set of figures published this morning. They concern household debt and come courtesy of the TUC ahead of its annual Congress.

They give voice to the disturbing level of unsecured borrowing engaged in by the average Briton before one even starts to consider things such as mortgages.

The union analysis relies upon official data. It shows unsecured debt per household rose to £15,880 in the first quarter of 2019, up a staggering £1,160 on a year earlier.

Credit card debt is its biggest component, followed by overdrafts, personal loans and car finance.

Unsurprisingly young people are more likely to be downing in it than are their elders.

The consequences of the bad economy we have now, for those labouring under the weight of it, are bad enough. Imagine what’s going to happen if, when, job losses, traditionally a lagging indictor when an economy goes into reverse, get going.

The “bumps in the road” – food and medicine shortages combined with price rises – so contemptuously dismissed by no deal planner Michael Gove will come as earthquakes to an army of Britons, who are just about managing on low wages, and perhaps worse.

The situation may not improve unless the lamentable Mr Gove and his colleagues find themselves among the queues of people outside the local Jobcentre Plus they will bear a heavy responsibility for. Of course, that’s not a situation he or his cabinet colleagues are ever likely to find themselves in, even if they’re kicked out of office. More’s the pity.