I recently had occasion to drive down the A23 from the Elephant and Castle to Brighton.
The contrast with the quiet country roads of Cumbria could not be greater.
As I drive out of the street where I live onto the A69, I only rarely pause to let traffic by.
As an American friend of mine once characterised his town in New Hampshire 'We only have one stop light'.
The drive down the A23 was the drive through hell.
Sally Sat-Nav tells me when there is a speed camera ahead, she practically dinged herself hoarse poor thing.
Additionally, about every 100 to 200 yards overhead cameras hovered watchfully to be sure that you didn't inadvertently stray into a bus lane.
Big Brother was watching us closely the whole way along the tortured route.
But the Bus Lanes were cunningly marked with confusing messages and contradictory signage, so for a hundred yards or so, you could enter the bus lane at the time we were travelling, then suddenly you were forbidden, 1 00pm until 7 00pm became 1 00pm until 4 00pm or 10 until 1 00pm or whenever, whenever.
It became clear that this was a no win situation.
We were going to get a ticket for something whatever we did no matter how much care we took.
I am still watching the postman anxiously as he delivers my letters.
I was reminded of this journey during the Chancellor's autumn statement.
Not so much because of Bus Lanes and Speed Cameras and general surveillance but because every few minutes the Economic version of Sally Sat-Nav somewhere at the back of my tired seventy year old brain told me, hey! that's not true!
Then of course there was Mr Cable saying basically that whether you are the Chancellor or not you cannot have your cake and eat it.
There will either, be deep and savage cuts in public services or there will be tax rises, it's pretty simple really.
After all we know that the most of the jobs created have been low paid, temporary, zero hours contracts or self employment.
This is why tax receipts are down and no amount of jiggling the books will obscure the fact that the economy is not working in the interests of the majority of people who if they don't see that in the run up to Christmas will almost certainly notice when the credit card bills arrive early in the New Year.
Mr Cable sings from a different hymn sheet than his colleagues Mr Alexander, a fully signed up Tory-Lite Chief Secretary and Mr Clegg who appears to have gone AWOL.
So the Chancellor makes his statement, all that hardworking people stuff, all that our plan is working stuff, all that politicking over the Mansion Tax by fiddling around with Stamp Duty stuff.
But underlying all that, the great truth of it, we are being taken back to the future.
The Tory's with the support of the Lib-Dems are taking us back to a time when public investment was at its lowest as a share of GDP.
Back to the future.
Back to the thirties, back to the menfolk 'on the stones' and the womenfolk holding things together as best they can.
My father who remembered those times well used to tell a story, one of his many stories, about the man who, unable to afford to feed his dog, trained it to manage without food, just as he succeeded with the training, the dog died!
I imagine that if I tried in my imagination to drive backwards up the A23 from Brighton to the Elephant and Castle unwinding time as I did so, I might manage to unravel the complex nightmare that we have created for ourselves.
All that street furniture, all that Orwellian watching, all that imposing taxation in the form of fines for failing to understand the complex instructions give.
What I do not imagine will happen is that as the Chancellor and his Chief Secretary drive us backwards to the 1930"s that we will find ourselves in a kinder, more generous, more human place.
Rather we will find ourselves in a country we no longer recognise.
A country in which, it will become very clear, we have no desire to live.
The contrast with the quiet country roads of Cumbria could not be greater.
As I drive out of the street where I live onto the A69, I only rarely pause to let traffic by.
As an American friend of mine once characterised his town in New Hampshire 'We only have one stop light'.
The drive down the A23 was the drive through hell.
Sally Sat-Nav tells me when there is a speed camera ahead, she practically dinged herself hoarse poor thing.
Additionally, about every 100 to 200 yards overhead cameras hovered watchfully to be sure that you didn't inadvertently stray into a bus lane.
Big Brother was watching us closely the whole way along the tortured route.
But the Bus Lanes were cunningly marked with confusing messages and contradictory signage, so for a hundred yards or so, you could enter the bus lane at the time we were travelling, then suddenly you were forbidden, 1 00pm until 7 00pm became 1 00pm until 4 00pm or 10 until 1 00pm or whenever, whenever.
It became clear that this was a no win situation.
We were going to get a ticket for something whatever we did no matter how much care we took.
I am still watching the postman anxiously as he delivers my letters.
I was reminded of this journey during the Chancellor's autumn statement.
Not so much because of Bus Lanes and Speed Cameras and general surveillance but because every few minutes the Economic version of Sally Sat-Nav somewhere at the back of my tired seventy year old brain told me, hey! that's not true!
Then of course there was Mr Cable saying basically that whether you are the Chancellor or not you cannot have your cake and eat it.
There will either, be deep and savage cuts in public services or there will be tax rises, it's pretty simple really.
After all we know that the most of the jobs created have been low paid, temporary, zero hours contracts or self employment.
This is why tax receipts are down and no amount of jiggling the books will obscure the fact that the economy is not working in the interests of the majority of people who if they don't see that in the run up to Christmas will almost certainly notice when the credit card bills arrive early in the New Year.
Mr Cable sings from a different hymn sheet than his colleagues Mr Alexander, a fully signed up Tory-Lite Chief Secretary and Mr Clegg who appears to have gone AWOL.
So the Chancellor makes his statement, all that hardworking people stuff, all that our plan is working stuff, all that politicking over the Mansion Tax by fiddling around with Stamp Duty stuff.
But underlying all that, the great truth of it, we are being taken back to the future.
The Tory's with the support of the Lib-Dems are taking us back to a time when public investment was at its lowest as a share of GDP.
Back to the future.
Back to the thirties, back to the menfolk 'on the stones' and the womenfolk holding things together as best they can.
My father who remembered those times well used to tell a story, one of his many stories, about the man who, unable to afford to feed his dog, trained it to manage without food, just as he succeeded with the training, the dog died!
I imagine that if I tried in my imagination to drive backwards up the A23 from Brighton to the Elephant and Castle unwinding time as I did so, I might manage to unravel the complex nightmare that we have created for ourselves.
All that street furniture, all that Orwellian watching, all that imposing taxation in the form of fines for failing to understand the complex instructions give.
What I do not imagine will happen is that as the Chancellor and his Chief Secretary drive us backwards to the 1930"s that we will find ourselves in a kinder, more generous, more human place.
Rather we will find ourselves in a country we no longer recognise.
A country in which, it will become very clear, we have no desire to live.
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