BROWN’S BLACK HOLE

Of the many personal mishaps to have afflicted ministers in the last Conservative government, few, ultimately, can have proved as damaging as the revelation that Norman Lamont had exceeded the credit limit on his Access card. No matter that most credit-card holders commit this oversight at some point, nor that the cheap cigarettes and fizz he was alleged to have bought in a seedy street in Paddington turned out to be a fantasy on the part of an off-licence manager. The point was that at the time the government was running a £51 billion overdraft. The link between the personal and the official was irresistible: how could a chancellor who was unable to look after the pennies in his own pocket be trusted with looking after the pounds in the Treasury? Mr Lamont, who had survived Black Wednesday, resigned soon afterwards, and the Tories’ reputation for being good with money never recovered.

If Gordon Brown has a credit card, he should be very wary of where he keeps his statements. If he carelessly discards one, he could find himself in Norman Lamont’s shoes. As we go to press, the Chancellor is preparing to make his pre-Budget report. Given New Labour’s track record in news management, we can be confident that his announcement will be in line with the leaks of the past few days, which have suggested that he will raise this year’s projected public borrowing requirement from £10 billion to £17 billion. While this does not yet represent a debt problem of the proportions which faced the Conservatives in 1993, £7 billion is an alarming black hole to have appeared in the public finances in half a financial year.

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