Picture the scene. It’s Friday or Saturday night in Oxford and you’re in a pub, or just lounging around at home with the people you like most.

You’ve known them for years – they remember the time you nicked the dressing gown from your hotel in Prague and the hotel manager came after you, and when you made a complete idiot of yourself on Facebook with your ex-boyfriend and his wife came after you.

In short, you tell each other pretty much anything.

So, imagine the conversation. Is it: a) “OMG, I hardly did a thing at work again this week. Well, unless you count trawling through asos.com because I still haven’t found anything decent to wear to that wedding next month. Obviously, I was up against the clock when I nipped out to get my nails done and things got busier later, when I decided to catch season two of Breaking Bad on my desk top but...”

Or perhaps b): “You wouldn’t believe my week. There was sod-all to do again, so I ended up buying sweets and phoning my mum, to kill time until it was time to go. My boss is really pleased, though, because we haven’t hit any of our targets again this month.”

Um, unlikely.

Most times I’m with friends, whenever work’s mentioned, the words “short-staffed”, “less people doing more work”, “can’t keep up with all the emails”, “stayed late again to catch up” or “didn’t stop for lunch again” tend to crop up.

So, excuse me if I smell a large rat at what’s being peddled by the experts running this country’s finances.

This week, one of those experts, Robert Chote, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (which measures and predicts how much we’re producing, earning and owing), was talking about UK borrowing and how it hasn’t come down as quickly as hoped, even though we’ve been doing the austerity thing forever.

That’s a bit like staying in to save cash for six months – no nipping out for a curry, to the flicks or a drink after work, then finding out you’re no better off than you were before you started.

Because we’re all earning less (wages haven’t gone up much in the past seven years), we’re paying less income tax, which means the Government’s raking in less money.

Mr Chote was asked if it would help if we were all paid a bit more (yay), then we could hand over more of it to the Government and everyone would be happy.

No, that wouldn’t work, he said.

And anyway, the real problem is “productivity is down”.

That’s geek speak for “When you lot are at work, you’re lazy sods who aren’t doing, making or selling enough”. Gosh, blindingly obvious when you think about it – it’s all our fault.

We’re all slackers. What a genius. Wish we had more experts like these in charge.

Anyway, must stop now – I’ve got a date with a sofa and season six of Breaking Bad...

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