Suddenly, after years of neglect, the press and politicians are all talking about small business.

It started when “Joe the Plumber” raised an obvious question: why should we expand our businesses, to create the jobs for which the politicians are now desperate, if we are going to be taxed more if we do?

The cash crisis has forced politicians to confront an unpleasant truth: they need us more than we need them.

Of course, they always did, but now their need is urgent: small business is the motor that can drag them out of the mud with which they have covered themselves.

However, having neglected us for so long, they have no idea what we really need now that they want to be our new best friends.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the UK, suggested a giant European fund for small business. Bureaucrats giving taxpayers’ money to their friends, and to those who fill in the right forms, is exactly what we do not need!

The opposition Conservatives are just as clueless: delaying payment of the taxes we owe misses the point, which is that we must still find the money to pay taxes which are too high.

Lord Mandelson, Britain’s new Secretary of State, shows greater understanding by trying to stop the banks – in which the government now has a substantial stake – imposing unfair terms on small business. If he can do that, it will be something – but we are not holding our breath...

If government really wants to help free enterprise – which means helping free enterprise to help government – it must remove the burdens government itself has imposed on us, the excessive taxes, the unnecessary restrictions, the constant hassle of dealing with bureaucracy, and the huge costs of compliance with regulations.

Politicians with the courage to do that will unleash a productive force beyond their imagination.