Austerity is a word we have heard much of over the last few years. It is derived from the word “austere” which my 1984 Collins dictionary defines as “stern”, “forbidding” or “showing strict self-discipline”.  Austerity itself  is defined as “tightened economy, as from shortages of goods”.

The reason the word is so familiar nowadays is that the Coalition Government used the term to describe the actions they would need to take (and, of course, did take) to deal with the country’s severe debt which existed when they came to power in 2010. The word is now used as a weapon by opponents of the Government’s economic policies.

In the run up to the general election barely a day has gone by without some politician or other appearing on our television screens to tell us that his or her political party is going to spend £10 billion on this or is going to save £12 billion on that. They rarely tell us how they going to afford to do so.

Even a child knows that if he wishes to buy a packet of sweets costing £1 and he only has 70 pence he will have to wait and find the extra 30 pence before he can buy those sweets. You cannot spend money that you haven’t got. A good lesson in life.

You can always borrow the money of course but you will have to pay it back at some stage. That is common sense, pure and simple. It’s a pity that it is lacking in so many of our politicians. Unless, of course, they are telling us a pack of lies – surely not?