Budget day has arrived — I just hope I’ll be able to sleep tonight

I HOPE you get a good night’s sleep tonight. I have an awful feeling this is going to be a bad day, and that not a lot of good will come of it.

I’ve had an uneasy feeling for a while now that we’re all going to be in a bigger mess by the end of the day than we are right now.

I’m just about old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the air of foreboding there was when we all heard that John F Kennedy was going to address the nation. In fact he spoke to the world, and even though I didn’t really understand a lot of what he said (I was 12), I can still remember that sense that a clock had started ticking as soon as his speech finished.