BALANCING the books has become a national obsession. On the national stage our millionaire leaders shed crocodile tears and trot out the old line “this is hurting me more than it is hurting you”, as we kiss goodbye to another essential service.

On the domestic front, economies are smaller in scale but just as painful for those contemplating them.

We shop differently now and you rarely pick up a paper without reading about the irresistible rise of discount supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl.

I remember predicting this to a couple of friends a few years back and they laughed at me. Now they won’t shop anywhere else.

They can’t afford to.

Behind the hype about the massive growth of cheap supermarkets – their market share remains in single figures – the discounters have benefited from our new cautious approach to cash.

It’s the same with other areas of consumer spending. The first questions car dealers get these days are about road tax and fuel consumption, rather than all those optional extras that used to sucker us in.

Maybe it’s a good thing. The supermarket discounters can cut prices because they offer far fewer lines – around 1,000 to the 30,000 on offer at a top-of-the-range outlet.

Now you might disagree, but civilisation jogged along for several millennia without five different flavours of mini poppodoms to choose from. I think we might just continue to scrape by.

Equally, if we’re buying cars with our brains, not our eyes, the environment might benefit as well as our bank balance.

But there are limits. Trading down from Waitrose to Aldi might be an inconvenience, even for some people, an embarrassment.

But it isn’t a tragedy. What worries me are the people who have traded down from the discounters to the food banks, because that isn’t a sign of a big society, but a sick one.

The same goes for choice and variety. I don’t care if my supermarket doesn’t stock organic ice cream chock full of cream from this or that farm in deepest Devon. It will never taste as good as the stuff you got from the van when you were ten years old.

But when a local authority has to announce that libraries, swimming pools, children’s centres and a host of other facilities are “discontinued products” then it is time for us as consumers, citizens and serviceusers to complain to the management. And by that I mean we go right to the top, to the politicians in Whitehall who can no longer wash their hands of the consequences of austerity.

Considering their scale, I think councils have done a reasonable job managing the cuts. Our doors, and most of our counters, are still open. The daily jobs essential to civilised urban life are still getting done.

Staff who have seen their job security disappear and their wages cut, still have enthusiasm and ideas and can even plan for an uncertain future, because they know, their services in some form or other, will be needed five, ten and 50 years down the line.

But it gets harder every day and everyone in public service knows that ultimately the quality of our product will suffer and maybe even one day the shelves will be empty.

In the days of rampant consumerism, we all thought a spot of retail therapy would cure all ills. We’re poorer but wiser now. But maybe a bit of public service therapy would do us all a bit of good. If we don’t get it soon, society is going to be on the critical list.