Merryn Somerset Webb

Let's start.

Listen, the starting point is not as anyone would wish.

Growth is too low.

Inflation is too high.

And the fiscal position is far too precarious.

That is why...

When the world sneezes, the UK catches a cold.

And this year has been another example of that being the case.

We are a high beta leveraged bet on the global economy.

This year has demonstrated that as if we needed proof.

Nonetheless, and all matters fiscal, I agree with you.

We are in straightened fiscal times.

Our debt stock relative to national income has trebled over the course of this century.

We have yet to run a fiscal surplus this century.

And we're shelling out now north of £100 billion each year just in interest payments.

So I would say there is very little, if any, fiscal space left for

unless some hard choices are made about cutting spending.

I think we are taxed out as a nation.

We are maxed out when it comes to borrowing.

So the knife must fall on public spending if we are to chisel out some more room for defense spending, which surely we must, which surely we must in these insecure times.