Hillary - while I am inclined to remain optimistic like yourself, I have to agree with Paul - the British economy has never been in such a bad state and it is a pretty sorry situation, set to get worse as unemployment and repossessions soar.

Crime figures are already up. However, this only takes into account the situation in July and August last year, not when when the economic mess began to really bite in the last couple of months.

"The fact of the matter is that the UK Government is taking on ludicrous levels of debt that we will be paying off for decades."

No kidding. According to the Tories, every child born today is entering the world with £17,000 of Labour debt hanging over them. Whatever "solution" we come up with to the current crisis must address these issues long-term rather than just pushing the responsibility on to subsequent generations; however, given the relatively short shelf-life of most governments I expect we'll just get more quick fixes designed to keep current taxpayers (i.e. voters) happy.

I heard an expert on the radio claiming that the UK government was close to bankruptcy and that UK government bonds are now regarded as a risky investment.
This is a terrible situation for the UK. It seems that its banks are now in a worse state that those in the US. People have always claimed that the roots of the credit crunch are in the US. The situation in the UK and across Europe has exposed the fact that the origins of the global economic downturn are in fact more far reaching and complex than we could ever have thought.

Unfortunately Jomo, UK is well and truly in the brown stuff. A country financed by an unregulated banking industry was never sustainable and we are now experiencing the consequences. We wont be the fourth biggest economy for much longer.

The UK is going the way of Iceland - expect a big bankruptcy soon.

The government has already implicitly agreed to underwrite the enormous liabilities of our banks. It's simple – the UK is fast running out of money and the government is slowly losing control.

I think the sterling is already now regarded as totally worthless by the rest of the world. Neither is it a currency that is trusted - governed as it is by a totally reckless government that believes in short term solutions to long term problems.

Won't be long before the Euro plummets. Ireland, Italy and Greece are in bad shape