Time to think small, Mr Brown

Someone should remind Gordon Brown of the Hippocratic Oath before he stands up on Wednesday afternoon to deliver his tenth Budget to the House of Commons. Taking his cue from all good doctors, the Chancellor should above all strive to do no harm; in his case that means no new taxes and no more grandiose schemes to save the world. Such a plan of non-action would be a tall order for a Chancellor addicted to social engineering — but it would at least represent a first step towards the radical change of course that will be needed if the British economy is ever to be rescued from its slow but inexorable descent into mediocrity.

Mr Brown’s nine years in office have been marked by an expansion in the size of the state sector of a scope and speed unprecedented in peace time; he has presided over a transformation of British society, an insidious revolution which almost rivals in magnitude, and in many ways is reversing, that achieved by Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.