Recession watch: slump brings opportunities

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But just as not everyone does well in a boom - there were more than 13,000 company failures in 2006, the last full year before the start of the credit crunch - so it is not all misery. Even if unemployment reaches 10 per cent, that's still 90 per cent in work. If, as forecast, 75,000 homes are repossessed, that's only just over one in 200 of all mortgage holders.

Life goes on. Those who feel worse off, or vulnerable to unemployment, still have to eat, drink and buy clothes.

The most pessimistic forecast suggests the London economy will contract by 3.4 per cent this year. The pain will be concentrated on the City and the property market. Other sectors will do better.

Hundreds of thousands of Londoners in work and on tracker mortgages will never have been better off.

There will be new opportunities. Capitalism is adaptable. New trends in consumer demand will be met by smaller, younger companies. Many will say this recession was when they made their breakthrough.