There are two key stories in the news today and my question is this. Why does no-one see the connection between one and the other?

How can a government that continues to spend a greater and greater proportion of the money it takes from the productive by force find it surprising that they then decrease their discretionary expenditure? By the time most British families have paid income tax, council tax, housing costs, utility bills and food, they just don't have enough left to provide for a comfortable retirement.

Big government and its lavish bribery of its payroll vote is at the root of this problem. People are not saving for their own pensions because their money is being taken by force to pay for those of the state's thugs and cronies.

One thing that is not surprising is the government's response; the use of force. Force is, ultimately, all the gangster state has to offer those of us outside the gang.

With only a gun in its hand to shape its self-serving ends, all of us in the private sector look like nothing more than targets. What amazes me, with the corvée in Britain now standing at 208 days for the average worker, is that no-one is shooting back.