Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson believe it is our patriotic duty to splurge at the shops to keep the economy afloat, writes Julia Stephenson

The Prime Minister has slashed VAT to keep the tills ringing while London’s Mayor has just written an article berating himself for giving chutney to his nearest and dearest when he should have gone to the shops to boost the economy.

But many commentators disagree. Will Self argues that consumerism isn’t the answer and that `those who live by the mantra of globalisation die by it’. He writes that the British have been on a decade-long shopping binge fuelled by rising property prices and funny money alone. `We didn’t save, we borrowed and we didn’t buy British, we bought from anyone who would sell to us cheaply because they paid their workers peanuts’.

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