News from the habitually miserable UK economy has been really rather better of late.

Indeed we are rather chipper about the outlook.

Hence I do not give a jot about Jimmy Carr’s tax returns nor really that NatWest’s ability to upgrade software is on a par with my own.

That’s because the cheap dosh for lending plan should feed through into lower mortgage rates quite quickly and should provide liquidity for the crucial SME part of the economy.

And we all tend to forget that when cycles turn, they create their own momentum.

Greater investment leads to higher employment, which in turn supports consumer expenditure and house prices. This in turn drives confidence and greater investment.

We will see the size of the state shrink across the developed worlds as over-leveraged governments retrench. The slack will eventually be taken up by the private sectors and a new cycle of growth will emerge.

Financial markets have priced equities and bonds for utter misery for decades to come.

Yet we said very purposefully in January that 2012 would be a year in which portfolios should produce much better returns. We remain absolutely adamant that will be proved to be right, primarily because asset prices are predicting a significantly worse economic scenario than we still think will happen.