Things must be getting bad. Politicians are resorting to telling the truth. Chancellor Alistair Darling caused something of a stir at the weekend by admitting that economic conditions are “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years.” The financial crisis will be “more profound and long-lasting than people thought,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.

Inflation’s soaring, the pound’s collapsing, and the Bank of England reckons we could be heading for recession. But one man still has a smile on his face.

It’s like something out of a cheesy disaster movie. Just when we thought all was lost, and the Western world was going to be consumed by recession, the mighty US market drags itself back to its feet. The Dow Jones jumped by more than 300 points on Friday.

In the wake of the sub-prime crisis, there’s been a lot of nonsense talked about how the financial markets have proved unable to regulate themselves. Apparently intelligent people have been arguing that what we really need is greater government intervention in the markets.

The late Sir John Templeton always advised that you buy at the point of “maximum pessimism”. It sounds like great advice, but as Julian Marr points out in The Telegraph this morning, it’s actually not that helpful.