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Amid the flurry of forecasts, projections and numbers we have heard from the Bank of England and other economic bodies in recent months, it is easy sometimes to lose track.

So let's strip this down to the bare bones.

The Bank now expects the UK economy to grow by a mere 1.2% this year.

Clearly that does not denote a recession, but it would be the weakest annual growth rate for Britain since the financial crisis ten years ago.

Weaker than during the euro crisis; weaker than in the aftermath of the recession.

And here's the thing: this isn't a projection based on a no-deal Brexit.

It is a forecast based on the assumption of, as the Bank puts it, a "smooth adjustment to the average of a range of outcomes for the UK's eventual trading relationship with the EU."

This is not, in short, a worst case scenario, or anything like it.

Instead it is, according to the Bank, simply evidence of the fact that the economy is really flagging at the moment.

Brexit is not the only explanation: in many parts of the world - especially the eurozone - growth is flagging. China is facing major economic challenges. Those are part of the explanation.

But, says the Bank, the other key factor is Brexit uncertainty, which it believes is weighing on growth.

It is holding back business investment as companies curtail their spending and activate their no-deal contingency plans.

Indeed, the Bank's own survey found that around half of all firms had put such plans into action - up from around a third before Christmas.

It is weighing on business activity and, if surveys are to be believed, is encouraging them to stockpile ahead of Brexit day.

Again, it is important to emphasise: we are no longer in the territory of scenarios or worst case scenarios: this is the Bank's actual annual growth forecast, and it is the weakest in a decade.

But here is the good news: as far as the Bank is concerned, most of this "lost" growth is not really lost.

Were there to be a sudden improvement in clarity and confidence; were it to become clear what kind of Brexit Britain was heading for, growth could be rather strong in the coming years.

Rather than being only 1.2% this year, the economy could grow by a rather more solid 1.6% if the fog of uncertainty lifts.

Rather than being only 1.5% next year, the growth forecast could be a punchy 2.2%, followed by 2.3% in 2021.

The problem is, when one looks at Downing Street and Brussels, the one thing that seems relatively predictable is that Britain's eventual course will remain shrouded in mystery and political disagreement for quite some time.

Still, a forecast is a forecast and the one thing we do know is that, as former governor Mervyn King liked to say, the forecast will be wrong.

The point is that it is foolhardy to treat these numbers as tablets of stone, which will be absolutely on the button; that has never been the way the Bank itself views it.

So today there will be lots of focus on the 1.2% growth projection for 2019.

But note that this number is simply a median figure in the middle of a very broad projection of probable outcomes for the coming year.

Dig into the spreadsheets accompanying the Bank's Inflation Report and you find that while the Bank expects, by the third quarter of this year, a 54% chance that annual growth is somewhere between zero and 2%, it also thinks there is a 23% chance that growth is below zero. In other words a recession.

In other words, the Bank thinks there is a near one in four probability of a recession.

And that probability is the highest it has been since the financial crisis.

It is another way of looking at the figures today - though it is no more cheery. And with the economic outlook quite so weak, the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee is in absolutely no hurry to raise interest rates any time soon.