How you interpret these tales will to a large part depend on your political perspective. (As the entertaining argument about Today story between former Conservative trade secretary Lord Young and Tom Hampson of the Fabian Society demonstrates).

However the FT story about tax paid (or not) by big business best demonstrates this.

The news that so little is paid by such large companies will come as something of a shock to many. As Michael Devereux of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation said: 'It is certainly surprising.'

Some may – generously – read it as a sign that small businesses make an enormous contribution to the exchequer's tax take.

As Bill Dodwell of Deloitte told the paper: 'That 700 of the largest companies and groups are only paying 54 per cent of corporation tax shows the giant contribution of small companies.'

Others, not least Richard Murphy on his blog, read it as a further sign that Something Needs To Be Done: 'Why do we allow a system where so many with obvious wealth contribute so little to the well-being of our society from which they benefit more than most? These companies need to be held to account.'

John Cullinane of Deloitte perhaps gets closer to my own take. He landed on the significant point that the largest companies that are paying tax are from the banking, insurance and oil and gas sectors.

These companies tend not, for different reasons, to use high gearing to reduce their bills.

More than anything that highlights just how vulnerable the exchequer is to a downturn in their fortunes. A sobering thought at a time of financial unease.