NORWAY, ICELAND AND SWITZERLAND SEEM FINE TOO:

It is less than two months since the historic victory for Vote Leave in the EU referendum and increasingly the gloomadon poppers are facing humiliation.

Economists polled by Reuters predicted a 9,500 jump in unemployment claims in July due to Brexit. But the number of unemployment claims fell by 8,600.

The Guardian described this as "a big surprise".

It will certainly come as a big surprise to George Osborne. Before the referendum he said that "a vote to leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy" which would "lead to an increase in unemployment of around 500,000."

There was more good news about retail sales in July: they were up 1.4% on June and 5.9% on July last year. While the BBC were filling the airwaves with messages of woe from "expert" remainers about the collapse of confidence, the rest of us were shopping.

The credit agency, Moody, predicts there will be no recession. It had downgraded the growth forecast for 2017 but has quietly nudged it back up.

The financial data firm Markit offers a cheering Household Finance Index (which measures economic confidence) for August. It has reversed July's plunge and edged above its level in June:

On June 23rd, the day of the EU referendum, the FTSE 250 closed at 17,333. It is now up to 17,846.

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