We have become a nation of shysters

Power cuts and uncollected rubbish form most people’s memories of the economic debacle that was the 1970s. But for me, a quite different story sums up the lack of business sense that distinguished the British at the time. My mother had gone into a village shop in Kent to buy some bacon, which the affable shoplady found some pretext to give to her for free. While she was there another customer came in and tried to buy a tin-opener. ‘Oh, you don’t want one of them, they’re rubbish,’ said the shoplady, scathingly. ‘Why don’t you borrow mine? If you go upstairs it’s in my kitchen drawer. But do please shut the kitchen door when you go out.’

I do wonder whether she ever took a penny. Of course, Britain is not like that any more. Mrs Thatcher instilled in us an entrepreneurial spirit. Now, we all watch The Apprentice and want to make a million by the time we are 30. Our dusty nationalised industries have gone, replaced by thrusting businesses which actually make a profit. We have got some of the world’s leading software-designers, fashion houses, bespoke engineering manufacturers, green technology companies, telecommunications businesses, derivative salesmen, car-clamping firms, property investment scams…

You will detect the pattern. The great revival of enterprise in Britain has not been wholly for the good. For every honest entrepreneur out to make a fortune by providing a useful service valued by his customers there is someone else trying to fleece you. Maybe the ratio is not quite 50-50, but as the credit crunch leads to the unwinding of increasing numbers of dodgy businesses, the more one asks just what our economy has been built on during the boom years.