The new mantra.

There is a phrase being spouted by politicians. It isn't a new one, in fact I'd say it's been making regular appearances in the circle of professional politics for the last five months but in the run up to this weeks budget, it is everywhere - "Open for business." 

The three-word mantra is the basis for the bulk of the legislative agenda being hurriedly pushed through this year and will serve as a bedding for more to come. 

If you think this is the ramblings on an inebriated malcontent then watch this weeks news coverage, read the soundbites of every politician this week and you're guaranteed to hear something along the lines of: "taxation must be cut to show foreign investors that we are open for business", or "in order to boost the economy, we must do away with red tape, so that Britain can be seen as open for business.' The cosmic quality of that chant is that it justifies ideas and decisions that previously, would have been questioned and quite possibly would have met their death in early committee meetings. But its real power is that it shouts from the rooftops that everything is "for sale" and by everything, we mean all things public, schools, health services and soon roads and motorways.

I read an article in The Telegraph by a clergyman, he expressed concern over the governments decision to temporarily suspend Sunday trading laws. The root of his concern was that such an experiment was merely a litmus test for the eventual eradication of Sunday trading laws, something he believed would result in society spending the Lord's Day worshiping in retail dungeons, lapping up buckets of Costa lattes while shopping for boat shoes and iPads. What hit home about his frustrations was his dismay for the idolatry of 'the economy', the slightly confused patriotism of throwing all political motivations into being 'open for business'. 

As I watch the Budget announcements on Wednesday and read the final draft of the NHS bill, I'll take stock of the clergyman's anxieties. Hopefully others do too.