It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Chancellor would do well to take note. Her Spending Review revealed that Whitehall budgets would increase overall by 2.3%. Not once did she mention how any of this would be paid for. The next day, the Office for National Statistics released the latest Gross Domestic Product () figures that showed that the UK had shrunk by 0.3%. For a Chancellor who is pinning her hopes on growing the economy this is a devastating blow.

It looks like she will need to raise taxes later this year to fund her borrowing addiction. And if we continue at this rate, our economy will be trashed. Am I alone in fearing it is starting to feel like the 1970s all over again when, in 1976, Britain was forced to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a financial bailout? I suspect not.

Funnily enough, it was a Labour government attempting to manage the country's finances then when the plea for cash was made. Whilst the circumstances were slightly different back then, the essence of an economy heading towards crisis remains the same.

I grew up in the 1970s - a decade that was chaotic, both politically and culturally. There are some timely comparisons between then and now.

Back then, if you were watching the nightly news on your rented television with only three channels and certainly no remote control, you would have seen the kind of pictures that we have all seen recently in the last several days.

Petrol bombs, rioting and violence on the streets in Northern Ireland - this time not fuelled by Loyalist and Republican supporters, but instead in reaction to the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by two teenagers who needed a Romanian translator in court.

Additionally, you would have witnessed reporting on the uncollected piles of rotting rubbish across Britain as the Winter of Discontent took hold with mountains of detritus littering the streets. Scenes were not dissimilar to those currently being endured by the poor inhabitants of Birmingham with industrial action by refuse collectors entering its 15th week.

Both Labour and Conservative governments in the 1970s were facing significant challenges from the unions which our current administration is also having to fight.

Unions representing train drivers, doctors, nurses, teachers and civil servants are continuing to make grumbling noises this week over their dissatisfaction with pay, conditions and changes to working practices. Some are currently balloting their members over industrial action, whilst others have strikes in the pipeline.

The 1970s saw wealthy celebrities such as Sir Michael Caine and David Bowie quit Britain due to eye-watering levels of taxation. In 1976, the income tax rate for the highest rate earners was an eye-watering 83%.

Research from earlier this year revealed the UK lost 10,800 millionaires in 2024 and, predictions are, this trend will continue due to recent tax changes introduced by this government. We also read that unemployment is up, vacancies are down and wage growth in the private sector is stagnant. More deja vu.

It does feel that Britain is going through the 1970s all over again with a current political leadership that is finding government much tougher than it anticipated and unable to pull the country out of the rut it is stuck in and has partly created.

While it might be tempting to wallow in the current grimness and write off this country's future, we have been here before and managed to turn things around. But it takes courage, leadership and inspiration.

I'm going to the launch tomorrow of a new biography of Margaret Thatcher by Iain Dale. It outlines the rise and ideology of one this country's most successful prime ministers who manged to turn this country's fortunes around from 1979 onwards.

It was an often-lonely journey with plenty of tough decisions, but she managed to drag Britain by the scruff of its neck into a new way of thinking and working.

Of course she made mistakes along the way, but a dose of tough medicine was much needed by a country rudderless and in distress. Who is the modern-day equivalent of Mrs T?

Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are the obvious possibilities for now, but we are not yet fully clear on what they either of them really stand for.

They both need to outline a clear and realistic costed plan and vision - not just soundbites delivered from behind a lectern. Britain is not quite yet on the brink of insanity, but some days it does feel we are making the same mistakes of the 1970s all over again.