And what about people like my brother? Running their own company, puts in an invoice for around 75K to his biggest customer and the customer tells him to go forth and multiply, they are pulling out of the UK market and making the UK division insolvent!

Shouldn't they have though twice about spending 75K on a recruitment agency before realising they were insolvent?

According to Working Lunch, the Beeb's lunchtime business and finance show yesterday, people have been paying off their debts in this country faster than ever before.

So, yes, while we as a country are staggeringly indebted, it seems the message of the recession has hit home and people are trying to pay their loans and credit cards off as quickly as they can.

Apparently, unsecured debt has been repaid to the tune of £579m last month. That's the biggest drop in consumer debt since records began in 1993.