Being Patriotic.

Decisions, decisions! What should we do? Should we spend, or should we save? Our Prime Minister is imploring us to throw caution to the wind, and borrow shedloads of money, and spend it. If I don't, I'll be sneered at as a heartless, 'doing-nothing', irresponsible person, not suitable for public office. He tells me that I shouldn't worry about repaying the borrowing, because we have 4 children to whom we can bequeath the debts. "Look at me", says Gordon Brown. "No Prime Minister in history has ever borrowed as much as me. I must therefore be the greatest.". And I daresay he could add that if my bank were to ask too many questions, I should fiddle - sorry adjust - my farm accounts to keep some of my larger borrowings off the balance sheet. And then I could tell my bank manager that all my neighbours borrow far more than I do, so he shouldn't worry - whether its true or not. He'll add that if I say it often enough, my bank will swallow it.

So I've just been looking at websites of treadmill and fitness equipment suppliers. I must spend, but also do my bit to justify all these Government millions that have been spent on a massive advertising campaign to combat obesity. I saw a two page spread in yesterday's Mail on Sunday, and thought it was an utterly daft and pointless waste of public money. And then I need to do something special in 2009 to help the Government meet its carbon footprint reduction target. Being a responsible citizen in Brown's Britain is very complicated. If I go ahead and order, I'll be delivering for Britain on three fronts - spending recklessly, providing justification for pointless advertising and cutting back on car use by ending our visits to fitness centres - hope it doesn't put it out of business!

I was on the point of ordering when I read this on the BBC website. David Cameron sees virtue in 'saving'. I used to agree with this myself, but have tried to avoid using this word for months, because I didn't want our Prime Minister accusing me of being 'unpatriotic'. The more I've read about what David Cameron has been saying, the more I like it. Those things which I thought important, and have tried to pass on to our children as virtuous could be coming back into fashion. Encouraging people to save rather than spend everything. Being responsible about budgeting and not always looking to Government for the answer. Letting people keep more of their own money, so that they can decide how to spend it themselves. Government spending being restrained to sustainable levels, not expanding exponentially, squeezing out the private sector. And then there's this thing called a National Loan Guarantee Scheme (and £50 billion is big money) which will enable my bank to consider whether it should lend me the money I need. Plus lots of other things to get the economy moving. In fact its made me feel so much better that I may buy myself a treadmill to celebrate.