What Christmas really shows is that consumer capitalism is doing a cracking job: it’s the rest of the economy that’s a mess. If food prices had kept pace with house prices since the 1970s, six bananas would now cost £9.50. In 1973, a colour TV cost more than 10 per cent of average annual income; it’s now 0.8 per cent. A tumble dryer would have cost 3 per cent of annual income; today it’s 0.7 per cent. Buying a new Range Rover, a huge TV or a Mulberry bag is invisible socialism – stealth philanthropy.