Last year ended well for the mortgage industry.

The number of loan approvals for house purchase was 70,837 in December, compared with the average of 69,462 over the previous six months.

The number of approvals for remortgaging was 41,708, compared to the average of 39,540 over the previous six months.

All the figures are seasonally adjusted, meaning that the Bank of England has to warn that “this series may not equal the sum of its components”, which appears to mean that the sums don’t add up.

If the sums don’t add up, shouldn’t the Bank be ditching the tired old ‘seasonally adjusted’ nonsense?