Politics isn't something that I usually get into discussions about, after all these types of discussions nearly always turn into arguments because people tend to have very strong thoughts on the subject and very rarely change their mind. However, on this occasion I will make an exception because I really do need to say something about the current state of the British Economy.

You might not know much about our current government but they never won the last election with a big enough majority to govern in their own right but instead had to form a coalition with the country's third largest party in order to form a government. Our current Prime Minister comes from an upper class family, he was privately educated and his wife is an heiress so has no understanding of how a young family coping on a minimum wage or benefits live.

I know that it's not just Britain that is having a problem with their economy in fact it could almost be described as a worldwide epidemic and each country is dealing with it in their own way. I'm no expert on this and maybe all the other leaders are messing this up too after all at the moment Britain does still have it's Triple A credit rating when most others have lost theirs. Having said that I'm not sure if we will hold onto it for much longer as we have now been put on some kind of alert by the ratings agency. What I do know though is that unemployment has never been higher, and there are so many young people who have never had a job and at present have no prospect of employment in the near future. Public sector jobs have been cut, businesses are going into administration and small businesses have laid off staff because they can't afford to employ them. People without a job have no disposable income and without that they don't spend any money in the shops, more shops close and more people finish up on unemployment benefits. A viscous circle, a downward spiral with no way out!

The government's response was a measure called "quantitative easing", pumping money into the economy to boost customer spending. The money was given to banks to lend to people and small businesses. People buy things, businesses expand and create more jobs, sounds good until the banks decided not to lend the money after all which, not surprisingly, resulted in no boost at all to the economy, just more of the same downward spiral and higher unemployment!

Well the government are now going to do the same thing again! Now we all know what they say about people that keep doing the same thing expecting to get a different result!

Can we do better? Well here's my idea! There are over 60,000,000 people in the UK, so instead of pumping £75,000,000 into the banking system why not just give everyone over the age of 16 £1,000 to spend. I know that some might not need it but perhaps the lucky few could donate their's to charity but the majority of it would be very much needed. If you've been living hand to mouth for the last few years and you suddenly get a windfall you will go out a buy that new sofa, washing machine or microwave oven. I realise that quite a few might jet off abroad on holiday but travel agents have been having a tough time too, and they will probably buy a bikini or two to take with them. Yes a few more might waste it down the pub, but with a record number of local pubs going out of business, perhaps they might actually be saving another one or two from going to the wall!

As I said at the start I don't know much about politics but to me this appears to be a much better solution than just giving more to the banks! What do you think?