The holiday season will soon be over, and the political parties will be resuming their build-up to the next election. One battleground will be the post-election public expenditure cuts that will inevitably affect all of us.

There has been talk of a 10 per cent reduction in spending, with warnings of fewer policemen on the streets, nurses in hospitals and teachers in schools. It is at this point that anyone who runs their own business wonders what planet the politicians and civil servants inhabit.