I managed to get to the second half of this year’s MJ Future Forum in search of inspiration from one uncommon commoner (Paul Johnson) and two lords-a-leaping (Bob Kerslake and Michael Bichard).

In their different ways, all three worked hard to provide the morning-after-the-night-before audience with best value (ironic really, as their input took place on the day Eric Pickles signed the order that finally killed off the Audit Commission).

Paul Johnson tried to make the state of the nation’s finances sound both interesting and comprehensible. He succeeded on the former, for sure. On the latter, all I can recall is that we are like individual wage earners, both better and worse off than in 2010; as local government officers, still less than half way through deficit reduction; and, irrespective of guise, we shouldn’t believe a word anyone tells us about the deficit/spending/borrowing in five years’ time.