Figures for June show that the UK’s budget deficit has now reached the point that the Labour government will have to breach its own self-imposed borrowing rules. Naturally this has invited plenty of comment, most of it slightly off the point. On the right, it is suggested that too high a proportion of GDP is in the public sector and that cuts are needed. Nobody these days is arguing that taxes...

An article in the Daily Telegraph today (10 July) reported that “Britain’s economic difficulties came to attention at a meeting of European Union finance ministers, who have voted to condemn Britain for flagrant breach of the Maastricht spending rules, irked that the UK government has not even tried to keep its budget deficit below the treaty limit of 3pc of national income. By its own...