Half-way through his book launch last week, the ever-cheerful economist Paul Johnson was asked ‘are you an optimist?' to which he replied: ‘I don't feel super-optimistic since I believe it can't get much worse. I guess that makes me an optimist.'

A regular speaker at The MJ's Future Forum events, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and media pundit on the public finances Paul has now written a readable, entertaining book, Follow The Money, whose conclusions on how we tax and spend are pretty bleak.

The years since the 2007 recession in which the economy and household incomes have stagnated mean fewer taxes are available to meet the rising demand for public spending. As he said at his book launch: ‘If we had the growth over the last 13 years that we had in the previous 50, the world would be a very different place.'

The loss of billions of pounds in tax revenue due to below average economic growth over 15 years at a time when demand for public services, especially from an ageing population, continues to rise has plunged the public finances into permacrisis.

Rocketing inflation has further eroded already stagnant public sector pay. As Paul concludes: ‘We enter the middle years of the 2020s in worse economic straits than at any time I can recall.'

He does, however, propose answers as we are, after all, still spending £1trn on public services.

He wants more spending on education, especially for early years and decries the closure of Sure Start centres. He calls for more infrastructure investment in energy, transport and broadband and believes the cuts in capital projects post-2010 were a mistake.

His big bugbear is the shambolic tax system. The system for taxing housing he regards as ‘an expensive and costly disaster' blaming high levels of stamp duty and ‘a regressive council tax system' and he is critical of corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and business rates for creating perverse incentives.

He wants to ‘sort out' the planning system so that houses are built where there are high-paying jobs and has little time for the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBYs) and Tory backbench rebels.

This, of course, ignores political realities to which his riposte is ‘we are putting a very high value on the desires of those who are benefited by the current system.'

Paul devotes an entire chapter to levelling up and devolution, both of which he supports. He praises local authorities for their ‘astonishing resilience' in the face of spending cuts since 2010 many of which are now ‘shadows of their former selves.' Austerity hit those very areas which are now in line for levelling up.

He regards council tax as regressive and unfair and in wealthy areas having no bearing on real property values. Again, politics has stymied any attempts at reform.

As we have seen with the long-delayed fair funding review, changes to local government funding mean losers as well as winners, while any idea that a Government will incur the wrath of wealthier voters with a council tax revaluation is for the birds.

Paul regards the current local government structure as ‘inconsistent' and devolution deals confusing to residents because they are negotiated on a case-by-case basis with different powers.

He wants the structure overhauled with a layer of devolved Government that is ‘below Whitehall but covering bigger areas and bigger populations than most of our current local authorities.'

However, the current patchwork quilt is precisely because central Government wants to avoid the political battles that inevitably occur from wholesale reorganisation: memories of the 1990s when the first unitaries were created amid bitter fights between districts and counties and their respective MPs are still vivid among both local and national politicians.

Paul is positively puce about Government failures to reform social care, especially the latest ditched plans, which he calls ‘unforgiveable', while recognising that restoring access to care to 2010 levels will cost £10bn a year and won't happen.

He is also critical of the way the problem is shunted onto councils with the result that they have become almost entirely devoted to providing social care to children and adults. There is, he adds, ‘no correlation between what councils can raise from their own resources and what they have to spend on social care.'

He is less forthcoming on solutions, although he seems to regard the Dilnot proposals, almost enacted in 2015, with an insurance-backed system as the best answer to a problem that will only get more acute.

Follow the Money by Paul Johnson is published by Abacus Books