Minimum sales prices for alcohol are a startlingly bad idea. As with excise duties, the effects are regressive.

There are two completely different Britains. There's London, and there's the rest of Britain.

Our feeling is that the status quo often gets a boost and this is the new status quo.

Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika - three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do.

And what is the reaction of the British politcal class? Well the Lib Dems, still think that the Euro is a success! I don't quiet think where Cleggy gets this from, I don't know. Prehaps he is cosidering an alternative career, as a stand up comedian, once he's out of politics.

If an idea is indeed sensible, it will eventually become just part of the accepted wisdom.

In Britain, what we've done is say to 485 million people, 'You can all come, every one of you. You're unemployed? You've got a criminal record? Please come. You've got 19 children? Please come.' We've lost any sense of perspective on this.