POLITICS is taking the form of some weird surrealist painting, what with David Cameron in Number 10 and Nick Clegg-up on the front bench.

I keep pinching myself and thinking if I blink five times and hold my breath or click my heels together a la Dorothy, it will all start to come into focus and make sense again.

Whatever your political colours, chances are you were not 100 per cent happy with the outcome of the election.

Two weeks on, I suppose it is time to grow up, pack away the tissues and the punchbag and, to borrow a key election phrase, Get Real.

Departing chief secretary to the treasury Liam Byrne might have thought he was being funny when he wrote a note to his successor declaring: “there’s no money left”, but with this year’s budget deficit hovering around a record £170 billion – that is twice as big as it has ever been before and one-eighth of what we Britons actually make in a year – few of us are laughing.

After all, what is there to be chortling about – most of us are going to be seriously worse off, very soon.

With the prospect of tax hikes, benefit cuts, rising inflation and job losses, we will all have less money in our pockets.

George Osborne’s emergency budget is on June 22. We know the Tories want to shave £6 billion of the deficit this year by slashing “government waste”. One thing is for sure, part of that waste will be people’s jobs.

If I was a betting woman, I’d take a punt on the Tories hiking VAT, partly because it’s a quick and easy way to lure loot out of our pockets and into the Treasury’s coffers. If it goes up from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent that would bring in an extra £12 billion; put it up to 25 per cent – as it is in Sweden – and Mr Osborne has £36 billion more to help him balance the books.

The Tories and the Lame Dems both want to reduce financial help to middle-income families, so expect to see cuts in Child Tax credits and perhaps even cash for nursery places for three year olds. The argument goes that we can’t afford to help people on joint incomes more than fifty grand. But just pause for a moment. If both parents are working, those salaries are only around the national average, and if they have young children, nursery fees can cost up to £10,000 per year, per child. Some women will find that they are working for little or nothing and may well decide they are better off giving up their jobs and staying at home. Now I am all for stay-at-home mums, but surely it is better for all concerned if women make that decision for the right reasons.

Since the credit crunch, pay freezes have been part of life in the private sector, and this looks set to spread to the public sector. Fair’s fair, you could argue, except there is a blaring inequality in terms of who is paying the price for the economic downturn.

The bankers – who got us into this mess in the first place – are continuing to laugh all the way to, well, the bank.

The country is almost bankrupt and yet the banks we bailed out two years ago are back in profit and handing out hefty bonuses again.

Just to remind you, we stuffed £850 billion into their sweaty hands to keep them in business (and in work).

With City of York Council looking to shave £15 million and rising off its budget in the next three years and uncertainty around what lies ahead for our debt-ridden local health services, surely it’s time for Mr Osborne to take off his top hat and hold it out to the banks.

It’s payback time, gentleman – now, please.