The prospects for the global economy are declining so fast that it has prompted the updating of an IMF forecast released just last month.

The prospects for the UK now look decidedly gloomier to the IMF, which has revised its forecast of 0.1% fall in GDP to a fall of 1.3% for next year.

To put that in perspective, it is a deep as the drop in GDP in 1991 and suggests that the UK will be the worst performing of the “advanced” economies next year by some margin.

This casts yet another shadow over the prospects for UK construction.