Well, thank you for agreeing Iains but I must point out that my name is not gnome. My name is Dave. The tag 'the Gnome' was one I used in self deprecation and to differentiate myself from the many other Daves on here. If you find Dave the Gnome too long to type I suggest you do what I do and use the initials DtG. Now, back to the show.

The public purse is a finite resource and not all decisions on expanding or curtailing expenditure turn out to be the right ones. The problem is finding a way to make the correct decisions.

There you have the fundamental economic problem. How to fill unlimited needs with finite resources. It is the problem that has perplexed politicians and economists alike probably from the dawn of time. It can never be solved of course but we can look back on past mistakes and try to tweak things to make them better. At the start of the 20th century workers rights were non existant. By the 1960s that had been tweaked but that resulted in too much power going to the trade unions and that power was widely abused. The swing of power then went to finance and we have seen the result of derestricting the banks.

This is, as I am sure you will appreciate, an over simplification but in our lifetimes we have seen too much emphasis on both sides of the economic balance, labour in the 60s and 70s, capital in the 80s and 90s and a mish mash of policies that have made policies all look alike since!

I do not have the answers but it is obviously time to try something else. Responsible capitalism? Limited socialism? Probably a compromise between the two. Whatever it is though should not involve the running down of our excellent health service nor should it entail increasing profits only to line the pockets of the few. It will not happen in my lifetime but hopefully, before long, the people that hold the real power will see that the greed that has created today's divisions between haves and have nots is no good for anyone.

We can but hope.

DtG