The numbers game

摘要

Britain's undeclared general election campaign has already seen the politicians trading numbers as boxers trade punches. There is nothing new in such statistical slanging matches. What is new is an underswell of worry about what has been happening to official statistics under the Labour government. One of the most important figures for Gordon Brown when presenting his preelection budget on March 16th was the current-budget balance. This is the gap between current revenues and current spending. It matters to the chancellor of the exchequer because he is committed to meeting his own "golden rule" of borrowing only to invest, so he has to ensure that the current budget is in balance or surplus over the economic cycle.