of construction is increasing and secondly that there is a delay in the impact that we are yet to feel. It is not a foregone certainty that we will see an increase in construction job losses in coming quarters. But if we start to see job losses in construction rack up it should not come as a shock. More importantly policy makers should not be complacent about the construction employment levels they currently see in the ONS data. An exchange of letters between Mervyn King at the Bank of England and George Osborne at the Treasury is causing a bit of excitement among economists and also among in-the-know construction folk. They see a chink of light in the black cloud that is Government capital spending intentions, as the Treasury gets a cash boost of some 20 billion, 30 billion maybe more from the excess cash in the Quantitative Easing pot. It's an accounting trick that's raising more than a few eyebrows. So how did this come about? Basically (very basically because arcane accounting rules relating to novel monetary policy is not my strong suit), the Bank of England electronically generated cash (375 billion) and with it bought assets, almost all being Gilts. Buying these Gilts raises the demand and so the price goes up (that brings down interest rates and theoretically frees cash to be leant elsewhere in the system, which is rather the point of QE). There are costs. There are coupons paid on the Gilts. But overall the