New figures from the UK Insolvency Service show company insolvencies have reached their highest level since 2009, when the global economy was in meltdown. Insolvencies in Q3 this year were 10% higher than last year – 37,722 companies were in “critical financial distress” and 480,000 were in “significant” distress. Meanwhile Hunt’s dangling spectral tax cuts ahead of the Autumn Statement and refusing to extend full expensing for companies…

Construction and real estate sectors have taken the strongest hit, with services and wholesale & retail trade behind. The number of creditors’ voluntary liquidations has reached levels not seen since the 1960s when data was first collected. Death by a thousand bankruptcies…