"You can prove anything with facts"

Quite a few of my friends have political opinions. Most of them are just that, but it doesn't stop them spouting them as if they were true. Including me. Although I tend to be fairly intuitive with my diatribes and insights, that doesn't stop me from being right.

You can see where I'm getting this style from, can't you?

But seriously. The lies wash them down and the promises rust. Most of us instinctively distrust politicians. Why? Because our sub-conscious brains register their shifty eyes, the turn of their heads or downcast and sidelong glances when they are telling us lies, mis-truths or omissions.

Rhetoric and spin my friends, a diet our screens and airwaves cram down our willing and oblivious throats, and we are all too happy to shrug and move on with cries of "they're all a bunch of charlatans, but what can you do?"

I was thinking about the deficit today. Not that exciting as a source of amusement, but what I was mostly thinking about was that our TV experts really understand very little. That's because they are reading most of it, and my subconscious recognises when someone is talking to me like I'm an idiot. But my conscious "I used to work on the front-line of middle class goes south in the early 90s recession south-east London banking personal debt crisis" brain also knows its stuff.

So I know a few things about money and its rules. Of which there are two:

1. Don't spend more than you earn or sooner or later you will run out of cash and be in the shit.

2. It's generally better to know how and when the shit is coming, that way you may be able to prevent it. Keep honest records. At least for yourself.

So here's a question for you. How much is total public sector revenue this year? Or how about this one. Is the total public debt as a percentage of public revenue, going up or down?

I bet you don't know. I didn't. And you can bet your bottom euro, the politicians are not going to waive the numbers in your face. In fact I bet half the MPs in the House of Commons don't even know. Bet they believe their own lies. Governments don't have much influence because world forces shape our economy. And those are driven by the influence of capitalism.

So I went and did some digging around and found a website that has done the heavy lifting, and it allows you to create your own datasets. If you have a mortgage, chances are that when you took it out its total value was somewhere between 3-4 times your annual income, but over time as your income increased and the debt came down, that percentage would decrease.

All figs in billions GBP	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
revenue	488	519	549	536	516	555	577	593	585	648	670	690
spending	523	549	582	633	673	694	694	694	713	731	747	747
Annual surplus (deficit)	-35	-30	-33	-97	-157	-139	-117	-101	-128	-83	-77	-57
Total Public debt	420	490	530	620	760	910	1100	1185	1258	1355	1439	1497
GDP	1300	1405	1450	1407	1432	1499	1546	1575	1641	1729	1789	1860
debt as % of annual income	86%	94%	97%	116%	147%	164%	191%	200%	215%	209%	215%	217%
debt as % GDP	32%	35%	37%	44%	53%	61%	71%	75%	77%	78%	80%	80%

Not so our public debt. It's been rising faster over the last eight years than at any time since the second world war. That's not a partisan comment. I don't think governments of any political colour have the courage to take bold decisions, so in thrall are they to vested interests. The figures in blue are estimates of the future, which generally turn out to be bollocks.

The site also tells you that most of the spending goes on welfare, health and education, which to all intents and purposes are either politically untouchable or very hard to shift without mass starvation or riots on the streets. And that's just the over 50s.

So in a nutshell, unless we can make some very tough choices on spending, or start to improve incomes and hence tax revenues, we're in that proverbial. We have never faced anything like this before.

So you will hear lots of rhetoric and spin, but most of it will be guff. Which is why they are actually happy for the conversation to be all about immigration or terrorism. It's more simplistic and easy to appeal to all your opinions. Although quite frankly, without a big influx of young people in the next few years, I'm not sure who is going to pay for all my healthcare.

An answer? From me? Seriously? Well I wouldn't start from here for a start.

Here it is then.