Let's remember whose side we're on, in the end

There seems to be a growing sense, which I've only noticed in the past week – and partly, I think, because of The Independent's cheer-leading for a property crash – that we are all buggered, not to put too fine a point on it.

Like most panics which start in the press, this is almost certainly not true. But there is no doubt that cutting public spending by 10-20 per cent will have a huge impact on the economy.

I'm not a deficit hawk, but I do believe that the government is vastly inefficient, a...