Teachers, councillors, parents and teaching unions now fear that the same incompetence by ministers will spill over and have consequences when schools reopen. Headteachers say that the government has been so distracted by the exam farce that it has left schools in the dark, giving little guidance on reopening plans over recent weeks. Universities are wondering how they will handle the admissions chaos that has resulted in more students reaching their required grades than they have places to offer. 

For many people, including the prime minister, August was a month to try to get away from Covid-19. But September will be when reality strikes, and leadership is needed more than ever. The end of the holidays and the return to “normal” will be anything but. Many hundreds of thousands of working people are expected to be made redundant as the furlough scheme winds down. Any job opportunities there are in a shrinking economy will be fought over by ever larger numbers as graduates join the competition for employment.

The chancellor Rishi Sunak was expected to deliver an autumn budget next month, preparing for potential tax rises and to begin to pay the huge bills already incurred from Covid-19. But such is the anxiety over a second wave that it may be delayed until next year, when the true cost of Covid is known.

As winter approaches, the inadequate test-and-trace system will come under more pressure, exposing it as anything but the “world-beating” system ministers claim it to be.

To add to the uncertainty, Brexit battles with the EU will resume in earnest soon after MPs return to Westminster on 1 September, and fears will grow that the UK will end its transition period on 31 December without a deal, thereby inflicting more harm on the economy at the very point when it will least be able to afford it.

Making people’s homes cosy is the cheapest way to create jobs as the UK prepares to fight recession, a report says. 

Its authors say a job insulating homes would be much cheaper than creating a road maintenance job, for example.

Jobs in building roads are more costly to create, as the work is heavily mechanised.

The figures will be sent to the Treasury, which is reviewing a package of job stimulus measures for July.

The report’s authors say a job in home insulation can be created for £59,000 – that’s far less than a road maintenance job, which is estimated by the government to be more than £250,000.

Those figures include retrofitting 10 homes with insulation, and the road surface laid by a worker.

The report comes from a coalition of charities, businesses and pressure groups known as the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group (EEIG). 

Their aim is to upgrade the UK’s aged housing stock.

They say home insulation would create jobs in all areas of the UK as well as supporting the government’s aim of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

A collapse in overseas income has pushed the UK’s 2012 current account deficit – the gap between imports and exports – spiralling to its worst level for more than 20 years, according to official figures.

The worsening situation in the eurozone helped Britain to a £57.7bn current account deficit, amounting to 3.7% of GDP, the biggest shortfall as a proportion of national income since 1989.

The Office for National Statistics said 2012 ended on a low note after Britain registered a £14bn deficit in the last quarter, coming on top of a £15bn deficit in the previous quarter.

Analysts warned that a long-running sequence of balance of payments deficits, which goes back to 1984, had worsened with few signs of an upturn.

The figures will prove a huge disappointment to the coalition government, and especially business secretary Vince Cable, who pledged to rebalance the economy away from consumer spending and banking towards exports.

Household bills have risen four times faster than average earnings since the credit crisis began, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), leaving many families fearing worse to come from Budget 2013.

No wonder nearly three quarters of those questioned by comparison website uSwitch.com said they feel poorer since the Coalition Government came to power. Worse still, 85pc of respondents claim Chancellor George Osborne “does not understand the real fears of ordinary people”.

Personal finance rather than political theory seems to be driving disenchantment. Household bills have risen by an average of 25pc over the last five years, while national average earnings edged up by only 6pc, according to the ONS.

These official figures show average earnings increased from £24,900 a year in 2008 to £26,500 at the end of 2012. 

But the cost of living increased four times faster, causing the purchasing power or real value of wages to fall back to 2003 levels.  Nearly half of the 1,000 people questioned had received no pay rise at all this year and more than one in three have had their pay frozen for 12 months or more. One in eight – or 13pc – have had their pay cut.

Cabinet ministers have been warned to prepare for further sweeping budget cuts extending to 2016 as new figures showed another leap in public sector borrowing.

George Osborne told ministers attending yesterday’s Cabinet that they would have to do “more for less” and must start identifying savings across all areas of their departments ahead of next year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

The warning came as it emerged that the Government borrowed £15.4bn last month – £500m more than the same month the previous year. More bad news is expected later this week with the publication of official growth figures, which are expected to show that output contracted in the final quarter of 2012.

The source of my despondency is the worst sequence of macro-economic figures for the UK in over 50 years. The BBC trailed this phenomenon as follows:

The UK recession has deepened, latest official figures have shown, after the output of the economy fell by 0.7% between April and June.  The contraction was much bigger than expected and follows a 0.3% drop in the first three months of the year. The Office for National Statistics said the fall was largely due to a sharp slowdown in the construction sector. It said it was not yet sure of the size of the effect of the poor weather and the extra June bank holiday.

This means that these figures, which are the first estimate for what happened in the economy between April and June, are more uncertain than usual.

It explains: “Féilim Mac An Iomaire, who erected an advertising hoarding on the busy Merrion Road in south Dublin in an attempt to find a job, has said he has been overwhelmed by the response.

“The ad contains a picture of the 26-year-old marketing graduate facing a number of famous landmarks from Sydney, London and New York with the message: “Save me from emigration.”

“His ad has struck a chord across Ireland at a time when about 50,000 citizens, many of them young graduates, are expected to leave this year for work abroad. There are still up to 400,000 jobless workers in Ireland due to the property crash and the country’s fiscal crisis.”

This is a great idea but not everyone has the imagination to try it and if they did there is no scope to save them all.

It is worth remembering, lest in the rush to feel sorry for others we forget about those closer to home, that many rural dwellers in England face the prospect of local displacement due to the recession.

This decline in spending is having a major impact on local high streets. The recent appointment of “The Queen of Shops” to look at solutions to the problems of retail decline, often all the more noticeable in the small rural towns that serve very large hinterlands, offers a crumb of comfort.

I think there is a need however for a more detailed and dynamic debate about the future of England’s towns.

My good friend Professor John Shepherd is the best national thinker on this issue and this article makes me reflect on the importance of his work. If you would like to know more about what he knows and can offer in the context of this agenda, drop me a line.