IT’S time to give thanks to David Cameron and George Osborne. This might seem an unlikely turn of events for this column, but hang around and all will be explained.

The run-up to yesterday’s Budget saw the Government issue a flurry of mini-spoilers. These tasters included, in the order in which your columnist can recall them, a plan to pay public-sector workers less in poorer regions; a suggestion that rules safeguarding the environment should be axed; a plan for shops to be allowed to stay open for longer on Sundays during the Olympics; and the handing over of our roads to private companies.

That is why I wish to thank Call Me Dave and Don’t Call Me Gideon. I was beginning to forget just how much I disliked this government until they started to splurge out another round of daft right-wing ideas.

First to dislodge a grumble was George Osborne’s plan to pay public-sector workers less in poorer areas, in other words the regional, non-London-y bits of the country. The logic is that this will bring public-sector wages in line with the private sector (or so say the Dastardly Brothers).

Also, it costs more to live in London, so national pay rates are unfair, or something like that. Well, I thought London weighting took care of that, and anyway, this idea will only entrench regional differences, widen the north-south gap, and give all the best public servants an excuse to disappear off to the more prosperous south; won’t it?

Now let’s address the assorted environmental rules that could be cut in order to “save billions for business”. Are we really now so desperate to earn a buck that the environment is no longer to be protected? Will such deregulation achieve anything apart from shooting a few more holes through the environment? And what happened to the “greenest government ever” (copyright David Cameron back in his don’t-scare-the-voters phase).

It is time to trudge off to those shops now. At present, large stores are only allowed to open for six hours on a Sunday. And thank heavens for that. Well, I don’t send my praise up towards that place of eternal rest because I don’t believe in such a location. But even an agnostic type can see that Sunday should be left a teeny bit spiritual.

Here is a personal digression. When we moved to York more than 20 years ago, the shops were nearly all shut on a Sunday. How pleasant it was to walk round the centre of a city that had yet to surrender to wall-to-wall commercialism. I like a bit of shopping myself, but since that blessed hushed hiatus on a Sunday was banished, we have lost more than we have gained.

Few will agree, I know. And I do respect George Osborne’s belief that we all have to shop that little bit harder and longer on a Sunday to help the nation and maybe even buy some of his family firm’s expensive wallpaper. And if you can’t afford to buy anything, close your eyes and think of England (but not your credit card bill).

Incidentally, do we even spend any more when the shops are open longer or does the money just spread thinner? I do hope this suggested temporary arrangement never becomes permanent. Shopping is fine; but so too is not shopping occasionally.

As for privatising roads, or whatever ungraspable form of words David Cameron prefers, this is just another way for huge corporations to be guaranteed a healthy profit courtesy of the dumb old taxpayer.

Here, for what it’s worth, is my guess about what would happen if the country were dissected by toll-extracting motorways (at present there is only a short, expensive and under-used stretch of the M6). The wealthy would cruise down empty private motorways in their Jags and everyone else would swerve off in their rusty Fords to bump their way along badly maintained but free roads.

It is possible these ideas will not materialise, but the direction of travel is gloomily familiar.