As we batten down the hatches and face year after year of cuts to local government, it is becoming clear that we are not going to be out of the woods by the next election.

There is now a clear prospect of a ‘lost decade' of retrenchment. Ipsos MORI's End of the year review suggests challenges for generations to come. Only 23% of Britons say their children will have a higher quality of life than they have, while 35% think it will be lower. This is a striking turnaround from 2003, during the boom, when the optimists outweighed pessimists by 43% to 12%.