One thing worries me more than this recession. It is what is going to happen afterwards. Okay, so we have VAT at 15%, interest rates really low and the banks being told to lend, lend, lend. We still have Her Majesty’s Grateful Government doing for the jobs market what Arthur Scargill did for mining and we have a raft of, er… measures to help us which on the face of it seem like a good idea but are, when you look at them, totally useless. Take this car thing, for example. If you have a 9 year old car, you can take it to a Government disposal place and get a £2,000 voucher off a new or a one year old car. Look, if I drive around in a 9 year old car, I sure as hell can’t afford a new one (or a year old one) – that’s why my present (faithful) Rover 216 is an “M” reg.

But why should I be more worried about next year when, hopefully, we shall start coming out of the recession? The bankers pissed all their own money up the wall, basically, so HMG gave them some more of our money and told them “You are very naughty. Now, take this taxpayers money and use it to pay your pension funds… er… we mean lend it to the Great British Public” This assumes that we want to borrow. But do we?

What is going to happen when this is over? Interest rates go to – what? 10%? 15%? VAT should go back to 17.5% but what happens of it suddenly goes to 20% (or worse?) What will happen to tax – especially if there is an election, out go Mr Brown’s lot, in comes Mr Cameron’s and says that we will all have to pay 60% income tax and neatly manages to blame it all on the last lot?

Spending, keeping the money flowing, is important. Now, we have not got it to spend it and no-one in their right mind will borrow it, to spend it because we do not know what is 12 months down the line – what horrors may await us. Capital expenditure (CapEx) is not a one year thing. For most of us it is a 3 or 5 year thing. We may have a good low rate now, but greater damage will be done if £300 a month suddenly becomes £1,300 a month – this could force more business onto the rocks than the recession itself.

What we need is mid-term security (3 to 5 years) not short term. If HMG cannot do this, then at least the Bank of England should give some guarantee. Business cannot get going without mid term security. Jo Public also needs to know. Rather than throwing money at the banks – arguably, good money after bad – perhaps it would have been/ would be better to give it to the small man – even if it goes into the “black” economy at least it is in the economy rather than shoreing up bank balance sheets which is all the present activities will do because, for reasons given above, people do not want to borrow. It’s a shame business has been left to Mandleson, the man who changed the Norman Tebbit Cycling Club into the Peter Mandleson Flying Club and who is really not interested in talking to anyone unless a) they have a yaucht and b) they invite him to a shindig on it.

What has all this got to do with travel? Business Travel is the first to go and may be the last to recover. As I say, the easiest way to save money in travel is not to travel in the first place and last month business travel dropped by almost one third. Business class cabins on routes where a year ago, you were lucky to get a seat (eg Singapore) are now running half empty; across the pond – pick any seat you like – Hell! No! Pick your whole cabin! Dubai? Who was it that said, “When the tide goes out, we can see who is swimming naked”? Leisure travel may not suffer as much, to begin with, because the concept of a holiday is pretty much enshrined in the British psyche – but my feeling is that “cheap” will be replaced by “best value” – though if the recession deepens and real HMG effort does not go in to putting pounds in people’s pockets rather than bank balance sheets then we have yet to see the effect that this will have on retail holiday sales – and leisure flights for that matter. Given that holidays at home cost more than a holiday overseas, there could be plenty of shocks yet to come.

Travel Agencies will suffer because the big ticket holidays will suffer. Selling travel is like playing Rugby, you score points by kicking goals but win matches by scoring tries. The goal kicking is the mickey-mouse, drossy stuff like cheap tickets and cheap holidays, the money lies in the “getting the result” : the Safari that you land or the 14 night Caribbean holiday for 6. The people that had that sort of money, lost it when Alpha-Dad Number 1’s (to be equal, or Alpha-Mum Number 1’s) hedge fund went pear-shaped. The question is, how long will it take, not just for that sort of salary to become the norm (again) but also how long before it becomes the norm AND Alpha-Dad Number 1 feels confident enough to loosen the purse strings?