Deborah Orr: Now is not the time to be frugal, apparently

Lots of economists have taken it upon themselves to warn that tax cuts won't stimulate consumer spending, because people will save their windfalls, understanding that they'll have to pay them back later.

Will they really? Maybe in some cases, but since recent consumer spending has been fuelled by debt rather that disposable income, many people are far more likely to use any extra cash – including savings on household budgets and redundancy payments – to get their creditors off their backs, or pay their mortgages.

This would be wise, of course, since the Government is also exhorting finance companies to pass on slashed interest rates, making it sensible to clear any debt that can possibly be cleared. Cheap money may have caused our problems, but the remedy now can only be more of it.

You have to laugh. Yes, it is necessary to cut taxes and cut interest rates, just as it was necessary to bail out the banks in the first place. But in the short term, at least, the banks will be inevitably be a big beneficiary of any monetary or fiscal lever that can possibly be tugged.

One can only hope, then, that the banks will start lending their loot again – and this time slightly more wisely – sooner rather than later. That in turn means that the consumer will be obliged to start borrowing more wisely too, which is the real stumbling block in all those blithe, foolish hopes that we can somehow return quite easily to the halcyon days of extravagant consumer-driven economic growth in the West.

Back in July, in the midst of a steep rise in food prices, a cabinet review of food policy prompted Gordon Brown to exhort us to be less wasteful. The UK, the report said, throws away an annual 4.1 million tons of edible goods, the equivalent of £420 per home per year. We must, Brown advised, try to curb our excesses.

Now, we have done what was asked of us. The most recent consumer figures confirmed that for the first time in 20 years, the amount of food purchased in Britain has fallen. Yet this is a cause for anxiety, not celebration, and Brown's great concern is how to get us spending again, instead of saving. The important thing is for consumers to buy things, directs this wisdom, whether they are actually consuming them or just chucking them away, and whether they are using their own money, or the bank's. And that went belly up? Astounding.

Could a Barack-Obama-style figure become prime minister of Britain? This is a question that a number of people have been asking. Hardly, chaps. Child protection officers may be ambivalent about neglect. But they do know that smoking is a sign of depravity. Obama still likes a fag when he's playing poker, so some would prefer him to run aground in an attempt to become a foster parent. Father of this nation seems a stretch under the circumstances.

You think you've had a hard week...

The lovely Cheryl Cole may have made her name on 'Popstars: The Rivals'. She may have burnished it by marrying a footballer, then forgiving him when he cheated on her. But it is being a judge on 'The X Factor' that has consolidated her fame, and secured her appeal.

Cole is said to be utterly devastated because her protégée Laura got booted off the talent show last Saturday, and has been photographed making tearful phone calls, allegedly in connection with this tragedy. Or maybe that's her brother, Andrew Tweedy, on the blower.

Cole is so big now that even her brother's insalubrious life and hefty criminal record are under media scrutiny. I'm tempted to suggest that the girl should be given a break. But even her own family must now be wondering if she might have had enough breaks already.