Debt used to be a dirty word but attitudes to it have certainly shifted over the years. ‘Being in debt during my childhood was a bit like catching the clap’ says Janet Street-Porter in today’s Independent. She contrasts her early years, when debt was something to be avoided, to today’s world where the government expects students to saddle themselves with massive debt and then to spend a decade of their lives paying it off. I don’t have a penchant for revisiting the past but there’s a lot to be said for a return to the debt-avoidance mindset of yesteryear.