A reasonable way to predict future living standards in the UK is to look at what well-to-do people are doing today, and to suggest that more middle-of-the-road people will be doing that in future.

Forget Anas Sarwar -  the SNP has discovered a new arch-enemy: cats. And no, I’m not talking about the ill-fated Cats film adaptation - though that might actually be worth banning.

Thanks to a healthy combination of private sector innovation and pragmatic public health policy, the UK had, for a long time, led the way in reducing smoking rates. Over the past decade, they have plummeted from 20% in 2012 to just 14.7% in 2021.