A.J.P. Taylor liked to talk about the Great Depression of the Thirties. ‘It was all right for some, such as myself,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘With a nice, safe job as a university don, I was sitting pretty. Prices were stable or going down. Don’t let anyone tell you deflation is a bad thing. It’s a jolly good thing for the middle classes with salaried jobs and savings. Life was good to us. Empty roads. You often had a railway carriage to yourself. You didn’t have to book a hotel room. Or a restaurant. Everyone glad to see you — service with a smile. You could buy a three-bedroom house for £600, new. If it hadn’t been for the rise of Hitler, I’d say it was the best time of my life, personally. Ha ha! Have I shocked you, old Catholic-Puritan Paul?’
What shocks me now is not cynicism and selfishness, which is no worse than usual. Better, if anything, but the way the country is rushing into insolvency. I was annoyed when Nick Sarkozy, the Hungarian operator and courreur des dames who is currently running France, told people: ‘England is finished. Bankrupt. No industry left. Currency no good. Caput’ — or words to that effect. What made it particularly galling is that everything he said is true. The National Debt is now £2,000,000,000,000, I believe, and is rising fast. That is already £30,000 for each of us. It will soon be nearly 60 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. We are adding to it at the rate of £200,000,000,000 a year. That is what is meant by Alistair Darling when he says exultantly: ‘We shall spend our way out of recession.’ Supposing Mr Micawber had said: ‘I shall spend my way out of insolvency.’ Not even Dickens made him talk such nonsense.
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