The budget, everyone will be a little less well off

I was with friends for dinner at the weekend with a politically mixed group of friends, it is clear from the conversations around the table that everyone understands the need for the government to balance the books and reduce the deficit.

What is also clear is that no one seems to think that it will be them that will be effected in any significant way. The scale of the financial hole left to us by Brown is bigger than any a government has had to deal with in the past and the only way to sort it out is to make some serious changes to the way we deal with money. For serious changes read less money in the wallets of almost everyone in the country.

There is an argument about whether it should be through taxation or by spending reduction or both. I suspect it will be both and I suspect it will be more than most people suspect.

No one like taking bitter medicine but unless we want a bigger spoonful later we had better all get used to it.