Money to burn, but who takes the credit?

THAT faint smell of burning you might have noticed is probably the heat from the nation’s credit cards. Seems we have been reaching for the plastic in a credit splurge that’s not entirely linked to the Christmas sales.

It is more to do with the seismic shocks that rattled throughout 2016, Brexit being a big one.

I managed to slip to the pub earlier this week and there was plenty of talk about Brexit at the bar.

It was not about trade deals or repatriating our laws and no one regarded it as the ‘material change in circumstances’ requiring another miserable schlep through the SnP’s false prospectus for independence.

no, the chat was about the cost of a holiday in Europe rising if the pound stays weak. yet no one was declaring that their suitcases would remain unpacked this summer. The mood was a bullish: ‘I’m not wrecking the family holiday just to save a few quid.’

Collectively – and in complete contrast to politicians, far too many of whom seem to think the sky will fall because we have bid adieu, adios, arrivederci and auf wiedersehen to the EU – we are all in a sanguine ‘let’s crack on’ frame of mind.

Maybe that’s why the over-55 Baby Boomers, who have lived through lots of turbulence, are largely behind an increase in unsecured lending that has seen the UK average rise to £1,904 per person, 15 per cent higher than a year ago.

Credit card debt, says Aviva, is up to an average £648 per person from £456 last Christmas. Analysts suggest rising inflation and the chronic performance of savings are forcing us into the red. yes, some of the ‘Jams’ (just about managing) are using tick to get by.

But I also think more of us see no point in sticking modest savings in the bank, and so we’re living a little, grabbing good times when we can, given that no one is certain of what lies ahead.

Even politicians are at it. Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget will drive borrowing to stratospheric levels.

If the nationalists could monetise sanctimony, we would be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. As it is, their po-faced tut-tutting about Mr Hammond is undermined by the news that the Scottish Government will soon be £800million in hock as it maxes out the public credit card for the first time since the Act of Union.

After a slew of Christmas cards from friends and relatives last week, the first thing the postie brought to my house this week was a bill from the bank. yes, we will all have to pay for our excesses.

yet our borrowing is arguably helping to keep business afloat and us in jobs. What a pity our Finance Secretary, wee, sleekit, cowering, timorous Derek Mackay, caved in to the class-warrior wing of the SnP and decided to use his shiny new Holyrood tax powers to take more out of our pockets when he could have done his bit to boost the economy by rewarding hard work for a change.

But if 2016 taught us one thing, it was that sometimes the inevitable does not arrive while the improbable does. In these uncertain times, no wonder we are taking comfort where and when we find it – even if we’re paying for it on the never-never.