Early January is always a time of predictions and resolutions for what we want to throughout the year. For instance, after the excess of Christmas we often vow to get fit and do all the things we put off the previous year.
Politicians, despite what some cynics may argue are human and, having spent time with their families and friends, usually come back from the Christmas break with increased vigour and making commitments about what they believe the forthcoming year will bring.
Given that we are effectively into the campaign for the general election we are seeing the evolution of policies that will define the position of the main parties when we go to the polls in 2015.
And at the heart of these policies is the question of what is best for the population economically in the period that will take us up to end of the decade.
But as any of us know, making any sort of predictions is always going to be difficult given the world is as turbulent ever.
So what we are hearing at present is a debate about which party will be able to ensure that economic recovery is best sustained - for which there are no guarantees - and questions of immigration and continued membership of the EU.
So let's look at the some facts.
The informed wisdom is the economy is improving; the economic data on growth suggests as much.
The reality of our recent recovery and growth, we should be aware, gives cause for concern. What it is based on largely includes increased consumer spending and there is too much faith in rising property prices for my liking.
Anyone who been shopping in the last month or so will tell you that the majority of the major stores have been engaged in a discount war from which there have been winners - notably The John Lewis Partnership - and losers most especially Morrisons, Tesco and Marks & Spencer all of which recently posted trading statements for the Christmas period showing disappointing figures.
Whilst there are undoubtedly a lucky few whose increased income has allowed them to spend well, for the majority in the so called 'squeezed middle' it remains a struggle to balance static income with expenditure on a range of vital items and services that have gone up significantly in the past year.
So, if there have been winners over Christmas in the retail sector, mainly discounters and 'upmarket' stores, they probably achieved this by getting people to increase their personal debt.
Therefore, given that we have been in a period of historically low interest rates for almost five few years it raises the appalling vista of what will happen when rates do inevitably go up though Friday's ONS November figures showing that construction output fell by 4% and manufacturing remained flat means this won't happen anytime soon.
House prices, that barometer of 'feelgood' (certainly among those that own them), are once again spiralling upwards.
That this rise is due in no small part to tax-payers' money seems somewhat ironic and will mean that that those buying in the near future, especially first-time buyers - usually the young - are bound to be even more squeezed when interest rates go up.
The thing that appears to override everything else for the Conservatives at the moment is garnering sufficient votes to win an outright majority.
However, George Osborne told us that we face continued tough times which will mean another £12billion being lopped off welfare and a reduction of £13billion from to local government and Whitehall department budgets if the Tories win the next election.
As he stressed on Monday when he visited a local manufacturer, "There are no easy options."
There is no argument that there is a need to reduce the national debt that stands at an eye-watering almost £1.5trillion.
However, the announcement by David Cameron and George Osborne that if re-elected they will "triple-lock" pensions should be seen as pandering to those most likely to vote Conservative ; the old.
As many commentators point out, what we are witnessing is significant.
The cost of austerity caused by the hubris of the over-paid gamblers, the "casino bankers", is being disproportionately borne by the young and middle-aged.
However, if you are poor you will feel especially punished by the present government's policies and is bound to get worse.
Immigrants from Eastern Europe provide another useful group of scapegoats.
If we are to believe the headlines in some of the newspapers that are rightwing by inclination, our supposed economic recovery is in danger of being wiped out by the hordes of immigrants arriving from Bulgaria and Romania who now enjoy free movement in the EU and, we are told, are only coming because they can live on our generous welfare benefits and enjoy subsidised housing.
If there are indeed such people they must surely be unaware of the issues facing those indigenous people on benefit who struggle to cope on benefit or wages so low that they require urgent assistance from charities to feed themselves and their families.
In what looks like turning into an extremely nasty election campaign the questions of immigration and whether there will be a referendum on our continued membership of the EU - an institution that those rightwing papers believe to be thorough corrupt - plays well to an electorate largely uninterested in facts and is exhorted to fear or resent outsiders (foreigners).
Immigration has been a feature of this island-country for millennia. Look at the development of the English language.
Many of the great businesses we know today were founded by immigrants. Probably the best-known example is Marks & Spencer.
And let's not forget that many senior politicians are descended from immigrants.
If there are some immigrants who do come to this country purely to avail of the benefits they will be a minute proportion of those who are attracted to jobs though many are so poorly paid that the unemployed already here see no incentive in working.
As research carried out by Christian Dustmann of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration shows, the overall effects of migrants is positive in that they contribute more to the economy than they take out.
Some may even create the sort of businesses that will become the successful enterprises of tomorrow.
What we need - especially in this region - are more of the sort of relatively well-paid skilled jobs that are offered by the likes of Jaguar Land Rover which is foreign-owned and has just announced spectacular global sales figures of 425,006 vehicles for 2013; up by 19% on 2012.
Investors and manufacturers come to the UK for the skills offered by our workforce coupled with the creativity of entrepreneurs.
Nick Clegg - not everyone's favourite politician - was making precisely the point when he was doing the rounds of interviews of television and radio on Sunday telling us that our economic recovery is more likely if we receive continued investment from abroad, particularly Europe, and that turning ourselves into an island-nation is not conducive to this objective.
Besides, as anyone listening to Radio Four will have heard last week, there are a number of emergent economies that will potentially attract investment and where there is an abundance of workers willing to work for even lower pay. These are the so called 'MINT' countries consisting of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
When George Osborne stated that there are no easy options he was correct.
He should realise that pandering to the right wing of his party and pursuing policies resulting in a society even more polarised by inequality through access to inherited property wealth (not taxed) and in which the poor are excluded from decent education is most certainly not the way forward.
Ask anyone who teaches and they will tell you that the raft of bureaucracy and tests coupled with surveillance from OFSTED has largely not achieved the intended objective of raising the standards of children in disadvantaged areas.
Indeed, standards have fallen and such children find it even harder to break out of the cycle of poverty that blights their chances of progress that was far easier only a generation ago.
Our politicians urgently need to work together and think about what is really important for future growth and development of manufacturing and creative industry producing output of real economic value.
Sadly I fear we'll continue to hear the usual balderdash from our leaders based on petty party-political divisions.
We deserve better.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
