But have you recognised that those that can pay have been getting well and truly clobbered in almost every conceivable way.

So, more is being raised on rents, but also more revenue is being collected from motorists and the court system; bigger fines and more costly licensing for just about everything that you can think of; cost cutting within the health service to the point of putting patients at risk and rationalisation everywhere, to cream off as much revenue as possible.

Did you know, for example, that for every pound that is paid to local councils, ALL of it goes to central government and only about 4p in the pound comes back to the community from which it was 'harvested'?

This, and all the usual taxes, are of course how the country raises the cash to run itself, but my point is, have you noticed how much more is going from your pocket...by stealth?

And why..? Well, who and how did you imagine the the cost of the Iraqi war and occupation, and the bombing of mountains in Afghanistan was being met? The trouble is, that even though most people probably think we should be out of these places, even if we were, those revenues will still to be collected...

And what was all this about abolishing the 10p rate..? That took our eyes off the ball didn't it? I wonder what we should have been paying attention to when this smokescreen went up? No doubt we'll find out ...to our cost.