Further fixture list delays possible as key question remains: where is the money coming from for premierisation?

Sherlock Holmes once cried impatiently: "Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay."

Unfortunately, as Arthur Conan Doyle's hero would no doubt have recognised, the wrong sort of data can result in that brick landing rather painfully on one's toes.

The Office for National Statistics found that out recently when "richer data" it had received demonstrated the UK economy had made a much stronger recovery after Covid than had previously been thought, provoking much political score-settling.