Deficit or debt?

It seems most people don’t realise that all of these austerity measures we face will simply clear the budget deficit in five years. Put simply, by removing the deficit, the overall national debt will cease to rise, but that debt will still be in place – and it’s currently set at around £900bn, and rising. That means, come 2015, we will collectively owe over £1trn, a staggering sum when you consider as recently as 2004 the national debt stood at just £350bn.

This national debt isn’t some kind of magic figure we don’t need to concern ourselves with: apparently the interest payable on this debt each year equates to the entire education budget, so instead of using that money to improve services we effectively flush it down the drain.

Yet, it appears that – just like the question of over-population – the national debt is something to be brushed under the carpet, something we can leave for our children. I can but hope they treat us with the contempt we deserve when we hand them the bill. We just collectively be ashamed of ourselves.

Time, or lack of it

I don’t blog half as much as I used to, which is still probably twice as much as I should. I can’t honestly remember if I ever bemoaned the lack of time I felt I had since Harri arrived on the scene. Trying to cram in a website and various money making ideas with no actual up-front cash involved left me feeling like life was lived in the margins, particularly when tending the allotment felt like a chore (it still does) rather than a break from it all.

Well, seven weeks into Amelia Alice’s life and I’d like to punch my slightly younger self in the face. I had all the flipping time in the world before Amelia arrived on the scene, and as for all that time I had before Harri was born, what the hell did I do to fill it?

The money making schemes are practically dead in the dust, but the allotment goes on (and on, and on – every 48 hours. It may only be a six-minute walk, but I still resent it most nights). Everything is crammed into everything else, and yet after a fraught few weeks – normal with a newborn, and it only took me six weeks to realise this, although to be fair I’ve blanked the first six weeks of Harri’s life – I feel incredibly lucky, blessed and fortunate to be in this position, with no time to call my own, a bad back, occasional spats with the missus and an allotment that would turn to dust if I wasn’t down there watering the plants every two days. Quite an achievement, considering how crap 2010 has been (Amelia Alice’s arrival notwithstanding)…