Dear Listener

There was a clear winner of the election this week – the exit poll which, despite all the caution and in some cases disdain with which it was greeted at 10pm on Thursday night, actually got the final result to within a cat’s whisker. But as thousands of people are having the words ‘but I didn’t vote for him’ added to their ‘I agree with Nick’ T-shirts a handful of senior politicians are playing a fateful game of Countdown.

‘Two big ones, Rachel, one from the middle, and three small ones.’

‘OK Dave, Gordon, Nick and others, your target is …. 326.’

As they negotiate with each other to reach that magic number this weekend – I’ll help you with the letters if you’ll help me with my big conundrum – there is a real danger they will forget about some much larger numbers. First, £163,000,000,000 which is the extra we will have to borrow this year to keep on spending more than our income. Second, £952,000,000,000 – the Government debt by the end of the tax year. Which seems almost tiny compared to the £1,400,000,000,000 (approaching one and a half trillion pounds) planned debt by the end of March 2015. Or third the £42,000,000,000 which is the cost of interest on that debt – rising to £68 billion in five years. OK it’s not Greece yet. But it certainly isn’t Germany.

We’ll be discussing that in Money Box on Saturday, plus

What will a hung parliament mean for your own personal finances? Tax rises? Spending cuts? Frozen pay? Jobs lost? Or not much at all as politicians argue about electoral reform?

Will the Greek rescue deal hold? Is €110 billion enough? Markets don’t seem to think so as share prices plunge around the world. And if it doesn’t what will it mean for us?

Outside the election we’ll be looking at getting a credit record when you don’t have one, especially when you come back to the UK from another country.

Should customers really moan about giving up traditions like queuing up in a branch to get our own money out or paying bills by writing numbers on a piece of paper? Or should they embrace changes that ultimately make life easier?

We will be trying to get that disparate bunch of stories together to agree at least that Money Box is on air at noon on Saturday, at nine pm on Sunday, or at any time on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say on one of these topics. 

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday – this week live from Westminster!

e-mail Paul Lewis