In economic terms, it is dangerous to make something free for which there is unlimited demand, limited supply and a real cost.

Let me give two contrasting examples where , as a result of something being free, the UK faces a position in which if we are lucky and skilful we will still have problems and if we are not we will have a disaster on our hands.

The first is money. Interest rates have now been exceptionally low for well over a decade – generally well below inflation so real interest rates have actually been negative.

The Bank of England and other central banks see no inflation problem. They should be embarrassed. You just need to go to a shop, pay your gas bill, buy a second-hand car or a bag of cement to know inflation is a growing problem – and it is unlikely to be temporary.

Much more dangerous though is the effect of free money on the price of assets and our ability to pay more and more for them.

People drive around in cars they can only afford because money is free. House buyers can pay the mortgage on a house the price of which is at an all-time high in terms of its multiple of their income because money is free. Investors value the profits a technology company might make in 10 years’ time almost as highly as they would those profits today because money is free.

The chill wind of higher interest rates is starting to blow through economies, the yield on government bonds around the world is on the way up . If interest rates go to two or three per cent we can probably manage. If they get to 5%, a historically low figure, our lives will be turned upside down.

Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Finance Secretary, did not know a few months ago what the yield on 10-year UK Government gilts was.

She had better be watching a Bloomberg screen a bit more closely because as interest rates rise – and they will rise by more for smaller and more indebted economies than they will for larger ones – the SNP’s “borrow and spend“ plans for a separate Scotland will be exposed as laughable.

Consider a different free product: healthcare. This is something for which there is almost unlimited demand and we know already that an ageing population means this demand pressure will only increase.

Is it just me or is it obvious to everybody that the National Health Service is heading for collapse? Pressure on GP services, waiting times for operations and for cancer treatment, the overwhelming of A&E departments, patients on trolleys in corridors –these were all problems before the Covid pandemic.

The Tawrees get the blame for not providing enough money – strangely the SNP get little blame in Scotland even though they are in charge of the NHS here and could give it more money if they wanted to. In fact successive UK Conservative and Labour Governments have provided huge extra resources to the NHS since it was created. Between 1950 and 2020 spending on the NHS rose tenfold in real terms but still it always seems to teeter on the brink of disaster. Things are unlikely to improve.

The reason is that all this extra money goes into an inefficient organisation which then uses it to create more supply of healthcare. This cannot work because the underlying problem isn’t inadequate supply but enormously increasing demand.

Why do no politicians have the courage to talk about this or the leadership to do something about it? The sort of things we should be debating are putting VAT on all processed foods and subsidising vegetables. Or putting learning about healthy lifestyles and old-fashioned things like cooking at the centre of the school curriculum. How can we increase sport participation rates? Should obese people pay higher taxes or get a personal trainer? We must focus on prevention rather than treatment. If we don’t address these difficult topics how long will it be before not only is the failure of the NHS inevitable but trying to fund it breaks our economy?

Nothing is ever really free – it comes with a price even if we cannot easily see it. The ending of free money is on its way and we will just have to live with the consequences but the dangers of free healthcare at the point of use are ones we are going to have to tackle before long.

Guy Stenhouse is a Scottish financial sector veteran who wrote formerly as Pinstripe