Before the omicron variant struck, although the demand for office space had undoubtedly suffered, it seemed pretty clear that the office wasn’t going to die and, similarly, cities were going to remain attractive hubs for human activity. 

The scale of supply shortages came as a surprise. Admittedly, shortages and disruption because of Brexit had been well heralded by the Remainer camp.

But in the event Brexit played a relatively minor role, as evidenced by the similar scenarios across the world, ranging from continental Europe to the US and China. It was Covid that did the serious damage.

The strength of the UK labour market has been really surprising. At the beginning of the year it was widely believed the unemployment rate would go up from 5pc to over 7pc. It has fallen relentlessly and now stands at 4.2pc. 

Given the strength of aggregate demand, boosted by huge state spending and borrowing – financed and thereby monetised by the Bank of England – it is hardly surprising that inflation picked up. Yet many observers, including the Bank, were caught out by just how much. 

At the beginning of the year inflation stood at 0.7pc. By November, it had reached 5.1pc. Nevertheless, in the prevailing economic circumstances, it was no surprise that the Bank kept interest rates at the record low of 0.1pc until it felt obliged by surging inflation to increase to 0.25pc last week. But even after this rise, real rates, which adjust for inflation, are still negative to the tune of nearly 5pc.

As anticipated, the Government continued to pump out massive amounts of bonds to finance its deficit, although the rapid economic recovery brought the rate of new borrowing down appreciably. Huge debt issuance has been absorbed remarkably easily, helped of course by the Bank hoovering up bonds under its programme of Quantitative Easing.

True, gilt yields have moved up a bit, but not by much. The 10-year gilt yield has only risen from 0.2pc to about 0.7pc. So, the implied short-term real yield on these bonds is heavily in negative territory, at minus 4.4pc. The explicit real yield on 10-year index-linked gilts is minus 3.2pc.

Rapid money creation and extremely low interest rates and bond yields, running negative in real terms, are surely at the root of one of the most notable features of 2021, namely the strength of most asset prices.

Over the year, the UK’s main equity index, the FTSE 100, has risen by some 11pc. This is low in comparison to the increase in equity prices in many other countries, especially the US.