Don. Frankly I don't. I could as well point out that that the Conservatives left office in 1964, with a balance of trade deficit of £800,000,000. That sounds chickenfeed by today's standards, I know, but just think how many pints it could have bought 50 years ago. Come to that, I remember the horrendous inflation which erupted in this country shortly after Maggie took office. Unlike the previous bout under Labour, that one didn't reflect world economic trends, so much as the politics of monetarism.

The point however, is that we're now talking about a global crisis, not a national one, and it has very little to do with profligate governments of the right or of the left. Neither Labour nor the Tories caused the present furore in Greece or Spain. Yet their economies are disappearing down the pan just the same.