«Prudent» UK loses its wind

The good ship UK - call her Prudence - is not going to sail quite so speedily in the future, admitted Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling in his pre-budget report on Tuesday. Growth is going to be lower. Public spending won’t rise so fast. But the UK is still doing better than almost every other major economy. That was Darling’s tack. But Darling’s ‘not quite so good’ is not nearly as bad as it’s going to be. His problem is that Prudence’s happy sailing has long relied on imprudence. U...