But they also need to be paid for, and ultimately they are highly likely to prove inflationary. Already long bond yields are rising in anticipation of the mountain of debt the Government will need to raise to plug the emerging hole in the public finances.It is generally at this stage in the cycle that the Government’s forecasts lose all touch with reality, and so it is proving this time around. In November’s pre-Budget report, the Chancellor cut his forecast of growth for this year in a gesture to the much tougher economic conditions he now finds himself in, but only to a still too optimistic 2.5 to 3 per cent. It is already looking as if the economy will be lucky to achieve 2 per cent. But in order to make his revenue and spending numbers stack up over the longer haul, he also jacked up the forecast of growth for next year from 2.5 to 3 per cent to a ludicrous above trend rate of 3 to 3.5 per cent.

The rate of growth is forecast to remain above trend in 2005 too.The Chancellor risks making this a pattern. With each successive Budget, the recovery in the economy and the public finances will be pushed a further year into the future, rather in the same way as it was under Kenneth Clarke. The Chancellor will always be able to claim he meets his own rules for financial prudence because he can make the economic cycle as long as he likes. Mr Brown may have to reconcile himself to the depressingly downbeat refrain of “recovery delayed”.Lower-than-forecast economic growth is one thing. If the present downturn in business and personal taxation turns out to be a deeper, structural phenomenon, then the problem becomes doubly serious. The Chancellor needs to come clean over the true state of the public finances.

There is a perfectly respectable economic case to be made for high levels of public spending when the private sector is as flat on its back as it is right now. That case is not helped by pretending that things are much better with the public finances than they really are.Mr Brown continues to live in terror of being punished by financial markets as a tax, spend and borrow Chancellor out of the old Labour mould. But provided he doesn’t wholly let rip, he’s not going to be judged in that way. The budgetary constraints emerging in the US and Europe are in any case much more serious than his own.For whatever reason, the economy is stalling, and if it is not already plain to the Mr Brown that he cannot productively pay for higher spending by raising more tax, then he shouldn’t be Chancellor any more. The case for borrowing to spend is much more credibly made if it is also made honestlyRail strifeMore trouble and strife on the railways where Richard Bowker’s shiny new franchising initiative has suffered a fearful head-on collision with FirstGroup. Moir Lockhead of FirstGroup thought that when the Strategic Rail Authority’s chairman asked him to “pre-qualify” for the new Greater Anglia franchise, he was only being asked to submit his CV, as he is already the incumbent operator on most of the Anglian network No need to bother with a detailed business plan.