You’ve posted an economics blog! You lovely man! I’m forever banging on at people about the fact that our governments, post 1979, have either displayed an ineptitude verging on the criminal when dealing with the economy or been very successful in using the general public’s general ignorance of economics to hide their real agenda. Or maybe a mixture of both.

It started with Thatcher’s ‘I’m a housewife and mother and therefore know how to manage a household budget’ spiel and is continued with endless talk of ‘responsible attitudes’ and Osbourne’s ‘it’s just like having a credit card’ nonsense.

None of the comparisons between domestic household finances and the national economy make any sense. At its most basic, I can’t go into my basement and print the money to pay off my credit card!!

Of course all the talk of deficits and debt has steered the conversation away from what governments used to talk about when I was younger: the balance of payments; the balance of trade and ‘export drives’. These are real things about the real economy whereas now all the talk is of money, as 70+% of our GDP now comes from the service sector, largely dominated by financial services.

If people understood more that there is a debate around these issues, they are not fixed ‘laws’ and that economic policy is the tool of political ideology, not the inevitable driver of our daily lives, then we might have more people waking up and seeing that the Emperor has no new clothes, after all.