Our deficit has got nothing on America's

  • Robert Chote

Published on 7 November 2004

They'd been over-optimistic about the public finances for three Budgets running, but Treasury officials were quietly confident in March that this time they would be right.

They'd been over-optimistic about the public finances for three Budgets running, but Treasury officials were quietly confident in March that this time they would be right. With half the current financial year now elapsed, however, Gordon Brown is still waiting anxiously for his luck to turn.