Two recent articles have summed up pretty nicely the government's attitude to the rest of us.

Adair Turner, Labour peer, quangocrat supreme and soon to be head of the Financial Services Authority told the FT that high energy prices were a legitimate way to cut greenhouse emissions. So if your granny freezes to death this winter,  you have Mr Turner's word that what the government is going is entirely valid. This will probably make you feel better if you are of a green persuasion. You should probably be grateful, in fact.

Meanwhile your government tried to suppress a report which showed that fortnightly rubbish collections posed a health risk. This is because you are a bunch of ungrateful proles and are largely expendable.

Still, if they carry on like this, Labour might not even be the official opposition next time round (if they haven't gone bankrupt in the meantime), so all this pain might in fact be worth it.