Ok, you know that I describe my blog as a five minute brain to finger dump – and that is exactly what it is, no thought, no prep, just a quick type and click of the save button.

That sentence alone would be enough to put the chief whip in CCU, thank goodness he doesn’t read this!

Anyway, what follows once again isn’t thought through, but it’s just one of those thoughts that I am plagued by.

Tony Blair came to power, and Gordon Brown raided the pension funds at about the same time as the bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) began to realise their potential and grow.

Those four countries are growing at such a massively rapid rate that they are importing both raw materials and commodities from all over the world. They must be importing from us, surely?

Even if they aren’t importing much from us, but are from other countries, are our exports to those countries up because the brics are sucking in all they can produce, which I know is the case in some countries, such as South Africa?

Our economy is only growing at just over 2%.

If the bric countries weren’t growing and we weren’t exporting to them and their supplier countries, that’s on the assumed basis that we are, what would our growth be?

If the bric countries hadn’t done so well over the last decade, would we in fact be in a very serious recession?

Does our 2% growth actually have nothing to do with Gordon Brown but more to do with the successful leadership of other countries?

I have laid down parliamentary questions today with regard to the amount of exports to each of those countries on a year by year basis over the last ten years, and their supplier countries, this is bugging me!