BY THE TIME you read this Gordon Brown should be putting the finishing touches to his tenth — and possibly last — Budget. I doubt he’s given much thought to the plight of the middle classes, but it’s time that he did; especially if he wants us to vote for him at the next election. In recent years we have been squeezed so much financially it’s become difficult to breathe.

There is an obvious problem with the nation’s finances. Productivity is slowing, while education and the NHS constantly need more money. The problem is twofold. The funds have to come from somewhere (that’s us again) while the inability of public services to keep up with demand leads many to consider private education and healthcare.

School fees of £10,000 a year, per child, mean that private education is out of the question for my own family, though I know my daughter would love to go to the school I attended. In those days lots of middle-class parents scrimped to send their daughters there. It’s now a far more exclusive band of girls that benefits; especially since this Government scrapped the assisted places scheme.

It’s difficult to ask for sympathy, and I’m trying not to whine — compared with most people we’re lucky and privileged. But when it comes to our disposable income, there isn’t much to dispose of.

I can assure you that there are no holidays in the Caribbean — or, indeed, anywhere overseas. We don’t have posh meals (I cook most nights), a wide-screen TV or a DVD player. Along with a number of our friends, we’ve switched from shopping at our nearby Waitrose for a cheaper Tesco that is further away.

And we’re not the only family under financial pressure. Everyone I know feels the same. It’s been a kind of drip, drip effect — an increase in fuel duty here, higher insurance bills (because of raised insurance premium tax) there. Some people are still annoyed by the removal of tax credits on dividends for pension funds and the scrapping of mortgage tax relief. Others are worrying about more expensive utility bills and university fees. All in all there is a depressing feeling that it’s hard to cope, but that no one seems to care (except the rest of the middle class, naturally).

One friend told me that her children no longer do any out-of-school activities, while another said they don’t take their football-mad son to see Spurs any more. Both families simply cannot afford it.

But I am not saying we are all poor. What I am trying to get across is that we are not rich. Whatever Gordon Brown thinks. My mother-in-law agrees with Gordon — maybe it’s a Scottish thing. She owns a lovely flat in suburban Glasgow that is worth about a fifth of our home. Then again, she has no mortgage, while we have recently re-mortgaged. Our term, which was 14 years, has now gone back up to 25. My husband finds this incredibly depressing.

And with stamp duty so high, it’s not feasible for us to move. Where I live, if you need more space, the only option is to build an extension. That is, of course, if you are foolish enough to have more children. These days only the rich seem to have more than two. On top of all this comes Sir Michael Lyons’s council tax review. This makes me shudder because I know what the end result will be — higher bills — and I am unsure how we will pay them. We already pay £1,800 a year to our local council (up 36 per cent from three years ago) and it’s soon to go up again.

Now Sir Michael has said he is studying plans that would see so-called “better-off” households making a “bigger contribution”. To some, it may seem that we are very fortunate since our house has gone up dramatically in value since we bought it six years ago. I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, it means two things: other people such as us can no longer afford to live here and we will soon be liable for even higher council tax bills. I find it remarkable that, within all the accusations (mainly from northern Labour MPs) that we now have more “wealth” because of our house, no one has thought to ask whether it has led to more disposable income. In our case, of course it hasn’t.

Not having any more to spend also means we have none to save. Apparently over the past years there is been a stock market boom. It’s a shame that eating and paying the mortgage got in the way of our potential bonanza. They also got in the way of putting money into a pension. The Government keeps giving warning that this is a big mistake, but like many women, I can barely cover my childcare costs. Finding pension money is impossible.

You probably want to know how much we earn; our joint income takes us — not by much — over the £58,000 limit that the Government uses when assessing tax credits. It sounds like a lot, but perhaps this limit should be reassessed for people who live in London.

A combination of increasing national insurance contributions and pulling people into higher rate tax bands, through not raising them in line with average earnings, has meant that the middle classes are paying a lot more than is fair. For instance, the 40p higher rate band now starts at an income level that is less than 1.4 times average earnings. This compares with 1.6 times in 1996-97. The number of people paying top whack has risen from just over 2 million to 3.5 million people.

The State needs to raise more money and the middle classes seem to be shouldering an unfair burden. So why don’t people who earn £100,000 or more pay a higher rate of tax? Mr Brown, are you listening? Or are you that willing to lose the middle-class vote so as not to upset the very rich?

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