HOW skint?

January is the month when the tax receipts come in from all the businesses who have enough sense not to pay bills before they are due. Therefore it's the one month of the year when the government has never needed to borrow any money. Never.

Until now.

Even with all that tax money arriving at once, The Gorgon's Magnificent Spending Machine needed to borrow an extra four point three billion quid just to keep ticking over in January.

Imagine you get your pay once a year instead of once a week, or month. As the year wears on, you need to borrow money because nothing's coming in. Then the annual payday arrives, you pay back most, if not all, of the money you borrowed and you're solvent for that month at least.

Not this government. They have spent all this year's tax take already because they took it all last year as 'tax on account'. Now all they have is the tax on next year's projected bills and those are all pretty dire. There's no money coming in. They've taken it and spent it all already.

It's so bad that Cameron is getting scared. He'll have to make massive cuts just to cover the interest on those loans and is, by now, on a ten-a-day underwear changing regime. He's going to get the blame and the Tories can vote him out with ease. He wants to change their rules to make it harder to kick him out.

In his place, I'd have picked a sucker and handed over control already. Like Blair did. Or simply resigned and run for the hills, as many others are already doing.

We have not yet seen the depths of the mess Labour have landed this country in. Even Eyebrows McDarling has been keeping well out of sight. He's no good at lying. The Gorgon imagines it's all fine and dandy and thinks he's going to win the election by promising to fix the mess he's created. He'll say he's going to fix it by spending more money we don't have and the total cretins who vote for this party will cheer. Even when France extends its territory to Newcastle by buying up the country on the cheap, they'll still be cheering.

There are many who will vote for him. There are a lot of drooling imbeciles who still think it's all Thatcher's fault. She left power a long time ago but they'll pretend she's responsible for every Labour cock-up for the next century. They actually believe that the Gorgon inherited a massive deficit and fixed it! They genuinely believe this! The reality is that he inherited a fortune and spent it but you cannot penetrate a wall of stupidity that dense. Not even with a uranium tipped shell. Although it has to be worth a try.

The thin and barely detectable silver lining is that it might cause the Gorgon to try for an earlier election date, before the kilograms of sample I tested today make contact with the windmill across the road. Go for it, Gorgon. I will make time to vote whenever you choose.

Why am I working so late? What's the point? They've already spent the tax on what I'm earning now and they're spending the tax on what I might earn next. I might as well shut up shop, claim benefits and demand repayment of that tax on account because with no business, no tax.

I'm going to delay every bill until after April 5th, even if it means beans on toast every day for the last month. Then I can see what the Tories plan to do before I decide.

If Labour win, hand me the Burberry hat and the six pack of Stella. Nobody else will have any income at all.