Editorial: You can't skimp on essentials

We are a small and relatively isolated country, adrift in a world where the effects of someone sneezing on Wall St or slipping on a damp wad of Spanish currency at the World Bank will ripple our way.

For our size, and that isolation, we effectively punch above our weight in terms of providing a stable place to live.

But it is tough on a lot of people out there, and organisations such as the foodbanks and budget advisory services are having to cope with a rising number of people who are genuinely finding it tough to get by.

Budgeting is an essential part of life - more so in these times of global financial uncertainty.

I read recently how some factories in China had been forced to lay off staff due to export declines.

When that happens in the economy that seems to build everything, well that's when you know things are getting a bit dodgy.

"Can we afford that?" is as much a part of today's vocabulary as "let's get one of those" was back in the booming 70s.

It's like the old saying ... you cut your cloth to fit.

Which is all well and good, but in recent months I have thought about something my late father used to say about spending money.

His attitude was black and white. He had no qualms about paying tax as long as the people paying it got something back.

That they got looked after.

He had a sort of untouchable trinity of things you did not skimp on.

Health, education and law and order.

The essentials of a fair and pleasant life.

Unfortunately Dad never entered politics to cement his (and many others' for that matter) simple philosophy.

All three are under the financial cosh.

But you can't blame them individually for they are simply responding to constraints placed on them by a Government which is in turn responding to what they are left with as global markets expand and contract overnight.

Police services are getting shuffled about and there's talk about pruning wages because their budget has a cap on it. It should not.

And health services are stretched. Although if some bloke gets stuck and then rescued from the wilderness, and if some people take the insane risk of drinking and speeding and then crashing, they get rushed to surgery. No waiting lists for them.

I know three people whose lifestyles are painfully affected because they are on a "waiting list" for crucial surgery.

One, close to the family, just keeps getting it put off, and off, and off.

Because the health budget has a cap on it. It should not.

Education?

Well, we've just recently seen what's on the political agenda there, although a rare backdown due to people pressure rattled that cage.

There's a lot of money coming in, but I suspect a lot of it is going out in the wrong directions.

Police, schools and hospitals having to watch the pennies?

Dad would be terribly dismayed.