What to make of the UK? It’s an economy supposedly in the throes of a “cost of living crisis” and yet consumer demand remains resilient enough that the central bank has now raised interest rates 13 times in a row to try to reduce stubbornly high inflation.

It’s not as if no one is struggling. Food bank use has surged. Shop owners have started to add security tags to products such as steaks, butter and cheese amid the highest levels of theft in a decade. But plenty of people still seem willing and able to keep spending money on goods and services in spite of high inflation and tighter monetary policy. Official data last week showed significant increases in the cost of air fares, package holidays and live music events, while retail sales rose 0.3 per cent between April and May, confounding economists’ expectations of a 0.2 per cent fall. What’s going on?

The housing market offers some clues. One of the most direct ways that monetary policy affects demand is through the rates people pay on their mortgages. But unlike in the late 1980s, when about 40 per cent of all households in England had mortgages, by 2021/22 the proportion was just 30 per cent.