The UK’s debts are horrifyingly large

There is a big danger in today’s government borrowing figures for September being a little less bad than was expected by many observers. It will lead to claims that the Chancellor has enjoyed a ‘windfall’ prior to next week’s Budget, therefore lessening the need for spending cuts.

No, there is no windfall. Until recent years, the idea that the government would have to borrow £16.6 billion in a single month would have been received with horror. True, September is not generally a great month for government finances, and the level of borrowing in the year to September – at £79.6 billion – is only around half the size of the deficit Gordon Brown bequeathed the country with when he left office in 2010.