I've taken a week's break from posting because I've had to work unusually hard on other things. An New Year's Eve I was asked to do some extra unexpectedly and a couple of days later some work that I had already turned in came back from the editor requiring my comments. This 'freelance congestion' just has to be got used to though it's worrying to begin with because I'm thinking that it's all down to me and wondering if I'll get everything done on time.

Not surprisingly, there's not a lot to report on the personal front because I've been busy working.

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The news I've heard most of is the Israeli attack on Gaza. It looks as if it should be a disaster for Israel as far as world opinion is concerned but that Israel's leaders are keener to be feared on the world stage than admired. This, apparently, makes sense as far as the Israeli electorate is concerned but it seems open to some doubt that they'll be able to rely so heavily on the goodwill of the US as in the past. Not only will President Obama have his hands full with pressing domestic concerns but pro-Israel lobby groups may be less effective than normal if the downturn lasts for longer than expected. The one thing that seems to have been guaranteed is that the (pointless) attacks on the Israeli civilians will continue, if not in the form of rockets fired from Gaza, then by some other means.

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Speaking of the downturn, it's already looking as if the autumn's predictions that growth would return by the 3rd or 4th quarters of 2009 were too optimistic. All the measures taken so far haven't succeeded in re-starting bank lending. The UK government looks as if it has been out-manoeuvred by circumstances and this on its own means that the recession is going to go on for some months longer than expected. The should be able to crack the problem of bank lending to business by guaranteeing virtually all of it.

In fact, if it wasn't such a bad time to be a banker, guarantees like this would make it an extremely auspicious time to be one. After all, even in normal conditions banks expect to make some losses on their business loans. It's difficult to see how the government could make them pick up the normal amount of lending losses without confirming them in the view that it's best not to lend at all.

Gordon Brown was on the lunchtime news saying that the Conservatives are claiming that they could implement a loan guarantee scheme that would cost the taxpayer nothing.

In fact the political debate has a special air of unreality at the moment as if the two parties were in parallel universes. Because, of course, the Conservatives don't have to come up with any immediate solutions. They could, if they wanted, put their weight behind the government's crisis measures but they don't want to. So all they have to do is think creatively about what to do in Spring 2010.

It's not entirely clear with some Conservative proposals if they're designed for the parallel universe where they might be fighting the crisis themselves or are real plans for when they've won the next election. The announcement about the reduction in basic rate income tax on savings income and the increase in old age pensioners' tax allowances were made to seem like part of the answer to the crisis but as they can't be implemented for about 16 months they can't be. Nevertheless, they were an effective way of reminding savers that the Conservative Party is their friend.

Simon Wolfson, the Next Chief Executive, was on the radio last week, saying that the government should be doing more to save money (like the Conservatives recommend) but it's difficult to see how they can do that without making the unemployment problem even worse by laying off public sector workers - and that doesn't seem very likely.

In fact the Conservatives stress on saving is obviously wrong-headed. If the whole world starts saving, we'll really be in trouble and there are many parts of the world with better reason to save than UK citizens; the Chinese for example, who have to pay for their healthcare.

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While the Conservatives don't seem to have much vision but do seem to have a very powerful sense of entitlement, and have been a pretty rotten opposition over the last 11 years, there are a couple of areas where savings could be made. First on my list would be the identity card scheme. I'd been hoping that government incompetence with IT projects would put paid to this idea but now there's talk of a government store of all the e-mails we send so it looks as if surveillance is still a core belief for the government. My guess is that millions find this a very sinister idea but ther's no one courageous enough to champion the cause.