So this is the scenario: we are emerging from recession, the economy is on the mend, an election looms with the likelihood of a coalition, the deficit is enormous so tough spending decisions need to be taken but details have yet to be spelled out although they are complicated by the ring-fencing of education and health budgets.

I am talking not of now but of five years ago, March 2010. The similarities between then and now are worrying. In hindsight we see that the depth of the recession was indeed in the last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 when GDP fell by 3.6%.

In the whole of 2008 GDP fell by 4.7% and in 2009 by 0.5% but in 2010 it was up by 1.5%. We know of course that plugging the deficit was the next government’s big challenge and the coalition subsequently made deficit reduction its raison d’etre just as the next government will make it theirs.