It's amazing how gambling can divide people. As far as I'm concerned, today's announcement that the new Vegas-style 'Super Casino' will be sited in Manchester is bad news for all. Not that I particularly care where it's sited, I just don't want it anywhere. If you look at some of the reports and comments about it today, though, you'd think that it was going to do nothing but good for the local and national economy.

To me gambling is more than just a waste of money - it's the source of personal, family and societal ruin and is generally a really sad way of occupying one's time. I've never seen anything remotely glamorous in it (just look through the windows of a local Ladbrook's when the racing is on and all you see is a bunch of tatty, tired-looking blokes staring at screens). I have far better ways of wasting money than hanging around an airless, windowless cavern surrounded by people in sweatpants losing their hard-earned cash at roulette and Black Jack tables.

Also, as a nation in close to £1.3 billion of debt (nearly 3 billion of it non-mortgage debt) I think we need more opportunities to gamble like we need a hole in the head. Already 4 million people gamble online every month and that's not counting the millions who gamble on horses and anything else that moves. Come September when online gambling will be thoroughly endorsed in this country there will be more millions falling under its spell. It's nasty, it's addictive, it destroys lives, families and futures. I don't see how anyone could rejoice in yet more opportunities to be miserable.

But the Nationwide, among others, seems to be. In a press release that I've just had sent to me they say "This could be good news for house prices in Manchester. It will bring new jobs to the city and the decision clearly represents a vote of confidence in Manchester's infrastructure and the city's ability to support a new super-casino. New jobs will lead to an increased need for housing which will support local demand and house prices." Maybe. But while some may get a job or see a few extra thousand on the price of their house, many more will be losing their homes, their families, their self-respect.

What makes me angriest is the fact that this Government (like the Tories) is blatantly encouraging the increase in ways to make people miserable and destitute. The 'Culture' Secretary Tessa Jowell says the government has modernised and tightened the laws on gambling, which would now be "the most protective legislation in the world". Yeh right - protective of all the lovely tax revenue it will be getting from the casinos and the online gambling companies that will be welcomed with open arms onto our shores.

Reviews

I've just read in the New York Times (brought it back with me this morning) that there's a new business around called Sponsoredreviews.com which pays bloggers to review products and services. This is not new apparently - there's already PayPerPost.com and Reviewme.com which pay bloggers to review/recommend stuff. The difference with the new kid on the block is that with them you can name your price rather than just take the few dollars that you're offered.

Of course it was only a matter of time before commerce got involved in what is supposed to be a straightforward platform for people's genuine views, but it really goes against the spirit of the thing. As I sit here with my bottle of 'Fruito' - a genuinely refreshing and uplifting drink with at least 10% of all the vitamins you could need in one day - I wonder what will be next. Thank goodness I'm sitting in my ergonomically-designed 'Matello' chair, comfortably contouring every part of my body to support me in all the right places (and at a truly astounding price of just $999 too) because without that I might fall over with shock.

You certainly wouldn't catch me picking up payolla for blog reviews and then placing it in my 'Voton' hand-stitched, real leather and snakeskin embossed wallet, available at Selfridges, Harrods and Sachs Fifth Avenue. Oh no. If you want that, I'm sorry but you'll just have to go somewhere else!

the big inheritance tax time bomb...

So, according to Scottish Widows four in ten families will now have to pay inheritance tax because the threshold (currently £285,000) is far too low. OK, the threshold is going up to £325,000 in a couple of years time but even that is nowhere near high enough to stop families with very ordinary properties having to pay 40% tax on anything over that amount. Last year, only a third of householders were liable for death duties, but more and more families are being affected as house prices go up.

Thing about tax is that it has to be paid somehow - we have to get the money in for health, education, infrastructure etc (together with all the unbelievably wasteful projects this government has come up with) - the question is what is the fairest way to do it. The point of inheritance tax (IHT) was that it only taxed the rich who were inheriting large piles in the country. Now, though, it's taxing all kinds of people. Even if you have a two-bed semi in Croydon you're likely to be over the threshold.

Not only does Britain have, proportionately one of the highest levels of inheritance tax, compared to most industrialized countries, but it is fast being left in the cold by te number of developed nations that are abandoning any sort of inheritance or estate tax. In the United States, Bush (who is not only seriously rich himself but has a lot of very rich friends) is wiping out federal inheritance tax by 2010, following the lead shown by Canada which scrapped it more than 30 years ago.

Even Sweden, incredibly, abolished IHT last year, arguing that it will mean family businesses stay in family hands and the young are not punished. Also Cyprus, Italy and Estonia of all places have scrapped the tax. Portugal have done away with it in cases where the beneficiary is a close relative. France operates an inheritance tax rate up to a maximum of 40% over a threshold of £1.5million, while in Germany it's 30% over a threshold of £2 million.

I don't think that IHT should be completely abolished here - well, rather I just don't think it will happen under this Government. But I think it must be hiked way up to say, £800,000 - or even make it a round £1 million - so that only the genuinely rich would be hit. Something has to be done before too many people lose the homes they grew up in just because they can't afford to pay tax on their deceased parents' estates.

The Poorest Day, Inflation up, Debts Sky-High...let's not stay there!

I've just been on BBC News 24 talking about how today is the poorest day of the year (according to uSwitch's PR people anyway so of course it must be true).

Apparently our monthly disposable income falls from an average of £387 a month to around £270. thousands of people will default on bills in January and the end of the month will be particularly tough as many people were paid just before Christmas and will probably have run out of money by now.

I was also on Radio 5 and BBC Southern Counties radio yesterday talking about inflation going up to 3% and how some people's personal inflation rate is even higher than that.

It's all looking like a continuous wet weekend in Whitby for a lot of people, particularly parents, with bills of every sort going up and the days still drawing in far too early. So shall we all slit our wrists?

Nah...my feeling is that this is the perfect opportunity to turn everything around. Why not? As the song goes 'the only way is up'. I think this is a time to decide to spend less on useless rubbish, to be less lazy, to live more and to find ways of making more money (or getting more stuff for free) so that we get a bigger life rather than scrimping, saving, chasing bits of cash and feeling ground down all the time.

Frankly, economically it ain't gonna get much better for consumers this year. The macro economy will probably continue to flourish on the whole - although I'm glad I don't invest in retail stocks - but for individuals, prices and interest rates are going to carry on going up so now looks like a very good time to take control, turn things around and create some of our own sunshine. First good step would be to stop watching Big Brother and spend the time doing something more useful and fulfilling like picking the fluff out of your navel, sewing your lips together or lying on the floor, covering yourself with yellow post-it notes and pretending to be a field of rapeseed. Any other ideas???

As everyone is saying, today's interest-rate rise was a big surprise: not that they've done it, but that they've done it now. Most commentators - myself included - have predicted that there would be a rise in the early part of the year; I was saying February or, at the outside, March. But January? No one foresaw that.

January is the worst month in the year for debt, for belt-tightening, for dealing with the financial, emotional and physical fall-out of the Christmas bingeing. It's quite a wake-up slap for anyone who is borrowing in any form to get this sudden rise in rates.

Having said that, I'm basically in favour of it. Something has to stop house prices rising as fast and as stupidly as they are. I assume that this was the main reason for it, although we won't really know the reasoning for two weeks when the minutes of the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting are published. Personally, I think we, as a country, are still under a type of hypnotic spell that makes us think it is OK to borrow, borrow, borrow for anything. On the whole I am very much in favour of borrowing to invest in property but not at the volume we are doing now, not at the multiples of salary that are being offered and not as an alternative to easier investing like pensions and some stock market funds.

If it cools the housing market - or even creates a 'correction' (dip in value) - then I'll be rejoicing. I am already rejoicing for the millions of older people who live off their savings. They tend to be forgotten when interest rates move, but it really does make a material difference to their lives. As interest rates go up, so does their income...eventually. Yes, that's another thing. Let's see how long it takes for the banks to put their savings rates up...if they do it at all!