Last updated 11:26, Monday, 24 November 2008

As Chancellor Alistair Darling prepared for delivery of his pre-Budget report, he must have been keenly aware of more than one missing link in his attack on recession.

He has been reduced to nibbling at the edges of crisis – cutting pennies from VAT, promising repayment by the highest earners are unlikely to encourage spending a way out of economic slump.

But having invested public money so heavily in a banking system that is still failing to meet its own end of the bargain with a return to lending, there’s little to cheer householders faced with repossession, borrowers coming out of fixed rate mortgages to find little or no hope of affordable loans, businesses with their backs against the wall and thousands staring into the abyss of a new year without work.

The Prime Minister has insisted he wants money pumped back into the economy as a matter of urgency. Opposition critics warn anything he does now will have to be paid for painfully later.

They’re not wrong.

But significantly even they have to admit they have no alternative options for quick, safe recovery.

We were promised no more boom and bust but that seems a long time ago now. Those who remember the last downward spiral know there is no painless magic for a quick fix return to days of plenty.