A modern myth, which is unfortunately gaining circulation even around this wise Corner, is the idea that you cannot have economic growth without an increase in population, a proposition which would have been dodgy in, say, the 13th Century and, in an age where it is machines, not men that do much of the work, looks very difficult to sustain indeed.

Needless to say, a new report from the EU Commission, a bureaucracy that has always had its problems with wealth creation, has now endorsed this myth. The suggested solutions? More immigration (which has, for Brussels, the added advantage of diluting that stubborn sense of national identity that the Eurocrats so disdain) and, incredibly, even more of the workplace regulation (on this occasion supposedly designed to make it easier for young mothers to combine parenting and employment) that has so hit the economic productivity that is the real key to providing for an ageing continent’s financial future.

Oh dear.