Scrapping the 10p income tax band was not one of Labour's most inspired ideas, it is safe to say. In fact, it was probably somewhere in the vicinity of JFK's "I think I'll take the open-top limo today" in November 1963, or Adam's decision to let Eve out of the kitchen to fetch something juicy for dessert.

Ok, so maybe it's not quite that bad. It's unlikely to be Brown's poll tax - Labour aren't going to depose a leader who's barely been in the job ten minutes, no matter how efficiently he's used that time to strangle the economy and drain all public trust out of central government. But unless he does some fairly acrobatic amends-making towards all those who have been hit over the head with a sledgehammer from this latest bit of creative economics, he'll have a fairly long queue of people more than eager to lick the envelope on his P45 and tell him all the wonderfully unprintable places he can stick that now-defunct 10p.

Because, you see, I am one of those people. And I am livid.

It's quite rare when your sense of selfish desire and altruistic virtue join forces towards the same end. But when they do, it's brilliant - rage and indignation swirl and collide in an explosive Catherine Wheel of personal misfortune, while the incendiary cool air of smug righteousness wafts by to keep the embers alight.
Not only have you personally been privy to a good arse-kicking by the government, but society as a whole is an ethically poorer thing for it. You are not just you, but a symbol of pious victimhood, a pawn of bureaucratic mismanagement, a powerless doormat on which the politico elite wipe their feet.

Yup. I - and the Common Weal - have been sent down the khazi.

I have to say, however, that I've been impressed by the level of the revolt in the Labour ranks about the issue. Not that this should have been unexpected - the policy scratching its gnarled nails down the party's liberal manifesto an' all - but in reality it's all too easy to forget, once you're earning enough to buy two different types of teabag, exactly what it's like to be at the lower end of the earning ladder.

I hope, however, that I never forget. Because, in my view, experiencing a decent bout of gritty, teeth-grinding beggary is one of the best ways of truly appreciating the value of moolah for the rest of your life. At least, I blimmin' well hope it is, because otherwise this cloud's silver lining is about as impressive as those new clothes the Emperor was so enamoured by.

Yes, any trainee journalist across the land will know what I'm talking about. With bank statements as crimson as a Bolshevik baboon's bottom, we are the Oppressed, the Suppressed, the Untouchable. The Poor.

So what do I mean by being poor? I guess I mean earning only enough to pay for the necessities (basic food and bills) with just enough left over to cover either emergencies (car breakdown, self-combusting lavatory) or some sort of restrained weekly treat. It is living a life of simmering desperation, just one cracked exhaust away from busking with a kazoo on the underground.

It is living on a salary most people would find down the back of their sofa. It is surviving on a diet of tinned pears, Walnut Whips and Tesco's economy cod liver oil tablets. It is using the same teabag twice.

It is never buying shoes unless Scope has vetted them first. It is switching off your heater and wearing all your clothes to bed. It is using a third less washing powder than the manufacturer recommends. It is rubbing fennel under your arms to avoid buying deodorant.

It is cutting your own hair (advice: never do this after three tequilas). It is stealing ketchup satchets from restaurants in the hope of one day being able to afford the chips. It is walking a mile to save 8p on a tub of margarine. It is coming a hair's breadth away from holding a yard sale.

It's not all bad, of course. On the other side of the coin - the metaphorical clean patch on the desk beneath yesterday's dinner plate - a juicy bit of penury does help you become acutely aware of your priorities. Tea or coffee (tea); heating or water (water); clothes or vodka (vodka - though admittedly nudity and booze can be a usefully complementary pair); car tax or weekly deluxe lamb doner with naan (doner)... Living in poverty is living a life of constant choice, and you quickly discover what - and who - is truly important to you.

For me this is: socialising, banjo, sport, family, kebabs, books and orange highlighters - in a somewhat haphazard order of preference.

And as for what is expendable: well, Mr Brown, I think your party might just come top of the list right now. Along with lacy knickers, quilted loo paper and anything outside the BOGOF section of the supermarket.

On the offchance you might hear this filtering through the ether, Mr Brown, please hear the pleading voice of a suffering subject who came to London with a naive, idealistic twinkle in her eye to search for streets covered in gold - and who found the Seven Sisters Road covered in dog droppings, vagrants and regurgitated falafel.

All she has left is hope – hope that there is, somewhere beyond all this, a better world of justice and truth and freedom and rich journalists. As Yeats said: "I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

Mr Brown - please move your big oafish feet... if not out the door, then at least somewhere near the window, where you might at last see the light.