Recession is a pretty normal state for me. After all, I graduated into a recession. In essence, I was poor for the three years that I was a student, I was dirt poor for the three years that I was a student politician, and then I was poor for at least another five years in my first two or three jobs.
In fact it wasn't until I left the grit and dust of the London Docklands Development Corporation to join Stanhope in dear old Bruton Street in 1988 that I began to taste a little luxury. I will never forget it. I left my soulless semi in Beckton and rented a room in a house with some posh girls near Chiswick Park. It was 1988 and I began to develop a taste for champagne. I bought a Russell and Bromley handbag. It was - I fondly imagine - a bit like coming out of some Eastern European state to live in San Tropez
So being poor is my norm really. Or at least it was. And I was very struck by a quite wonderful man who was at the local government gig with me on Monday. His name is Graham Burgess and he is chief executive of the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (yes, it is "with" rather than "and"; the acronym for his authority being BWD rather than the more obvious BAD).
