Browsing on Airbnb this week I found a tent to rent in the Lake District next month for ￡163 a day. Before I had worked out what this would be for a week (￡1,141), it had gone, presumably to someone even readier than I was to pay over the odds for seven nights under canvas in England’s rainiest spot.

As we emerge from lockdown, the demand for domestic holidays is so strong that almost anything goes, at any price. I don’t blame the accommodation companies — campsites are a commercial operation not a public service. They can charge what they think the market will bear and there are clearly plenty of people willing to pay.

It suits the government for us to go out and spend. After all, there is an economic recovery to be fuelled, and nothing fuels a British recovery better than consumer spending, usually boosted by consumer credit. If the money goes into sectors trashed by the pandemic, such as hospitality (camping included), so much the better. The latest Bank of England quarterly credit report, published this week, shows loans flowing thick and fast, whether for mortgages or consumer purchases.