The UK government at least has made it remarkably easy to rack up huge debts on secured and unsecured loans, declare yourself bankrupt with an IVA, stay in the house that you overborrowed (and then secured additional loans against) to buy and have your credit record wiped clean after only a couple of years. No nasty reposessions, no nasty bailiffs, no repercussions in fact.

Therefore I’d say that treating your credit card as a magic never-never fountain of money is quite rational in the current political climate of bailing out those people who have taken fullest advantage of cheap credit with public money.