AP Photo

At the time, I was minded to dismiss the suggestion as unduly alarmist. As the years pass, however, the forecast is if anything beginning to look on the over optimistic side. Indeed, according to a first attempt by the Office for National Statistics this week to measure "national well being", we are already well on the way, with net national income per head falling by 13.2pc in real terms since the start of the crisis in 2008