This should have been the week Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak unveiled a shiny new economic policy to address the many serious challenges facing this country. Those challenges are as real as ever but you will never hear their joint statement – perhaps the speech writers are relieved at being spared such a tough task given that the PM and the former chancellor clearly disagreed profoundly on the way forward.

Instead, we had Sunak’s dramatic resignation which partly triggered last week’s political crisis and all the chaos that ensued. We had the sudden exodus of ministers and the hasty scrambling together of a caretaker administration, and now we have to wait while the leadership contest plays out, an unwelcome hiatus at a time when the country needs strong leadership and decisions made.

And businesses have decisions to make too, whether it is to launch a new project, make an investment or hire more people. But faced with unrelenting inflationary pressures and sluggish economic growth, it is hardly surprising many are holding back. Last month the British Chambers of Commerce downgraded its forecast for business investment for this year to 1.8%; previously it had been 3.5%.

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