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The Office for National Statistics says about 70% of adults have "money saved in deposit accounts, shares, individual savings accouts (ISAs) or other investments." So with an adult population of 50 million, that's about 35 million savers.

But of course many of those people will also have borrowings.

There are around 12 million mortgages in Britain. Many of those are joint mortgages, so there could be 18 million people with mortgages. There are 10 million overdrafts, 8 million personal loans and a staggering 56 million credit cards. Of course, a lot of people have all these things.

So what really matters is how many people have savings which are larger than their borrowings - what are called net savers. There are no hard and fast figures on this that I can find.

But the key thing is that UK households overall are net borrowers. Total household savings are £987 billion with banks and building societies (plus £90bn in National Savings). Borrowings include £1,225 billion of mortgage debt and £233bn of other consumer debts.

The difference - the so-called funding gap - has been filled by banks borrowing in wholesale markets, with much of the money coming from abroad. That's one of the main reasons the economy is now in trouble!

You often see newspapers saying that there are six or seven savers for every borrower. But as these notes suggest, I think that is an urban myth.

Overall we are a nation of borrowers, not a nation of savers."