I have advised many businesses, many of them in deep trouble at the time I arrived. It looks like Sir Philip Green has too. And when you encounter that situation you batten down the hatches, cut all costs to the bone and hope the patient survives whilst not giving much thought to the impact on those whose jobs you cut, those suppliers whose terms you abuse and the stress this causes.

Well that’s fine for business. But countries are not businesses. When a country adopts the sort of policy Si Philip is recommending it remains responsible for the business failures it causes, the people made redundant, the stress that is translated into more demand on the NHS, and the loss of profit and reduced cash flow for the private sector whose ability to compete, and produce the new employment we desperately need is severely impaired as a result. In other words, what might be fine for a business is quite wrong for the UK — especially at a time when the private sector is already in the doldrums.

It has to be said that Sir Philip is the wrong man with the wrong mindset producing the wrong solution at the wrong time for the UK. And the person to blame for that is David Cameron: he appointed him.