This Christmas will cost the British economy £21 billion

Rioting Christmas trees, originally uploaded by Edgley Cesar.

So said Steven Alambritis, spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, explained this evening.

This begs some important questions, such as how should the economy be measured, what is the economy for and who in Britain will bear this cost?

The trouble is that the questions are not asked, and governments pursue policies whose main purposes is to increase the size of the Gross National Product. Unfortunately, that which the GNP measures has little direct relationship with that which creates in people a sense of pleasure and well-being.

It was Oscar Wilde who famously said, "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". If he was right, it would mean that we are now in the age of cynicism, which I do not believe. I just get the impression that collectively, we have lost our ability to see the wood for the trees. That is plain stupidity. But until clarity of vision is recovered, the economy will continue to be an all-devouring monster that is destroying the planet and everything on it, whilst adding little to the sum total of human happiness.