"First, we deluded ourselves into believing that maximum expenditure was an acceptable norm. Then... the norm became the minimum..."

If you read no other article today read Jeff Randall's critique of Gordon Brown, Ed Balls and Alistair Darling's mismanagement of the UK economy. Here's an extract, read the rest and spread it to others:

'Having cloaked themselves in the theatrical robes of Keynesianism, Mr Brown's little helpers must endure the humiliation of being stripped naked by events. As any serious student of Keynes will tell you, the great man believed that governments could help smooth the peaks and troughs of cyclical capitalism. He did not advocate management by profligacy or the indulgence of budget deficits at the peak of a boom.

That Mr Brown chose to do this (his average budget deficit from 2003-2007 was £32 billion) began the stockpiling of massive debts. Made strikingly worse by the downturn, Britain's borrowings are £770 billion and on course to hit £1.4 trillion by 2014-15. At that point, our annual interest bill will be £70 billion, about twice what we currently commit to defence.

First, we deluded ourselves into believing that maximum expenditure was an acceptable norm. Then, as the madness took hold, the norm became the minimum. Finally, with alarm bells ringing and red lights flashing, came the Cabinet's bogus cover of "supporting the economy" through recession.

As Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, explained in the Financial Times: "The relevant fact was that the UK [and others]... had over-borrowed for a decade, so a decline in consumption after 2007 was not an anomaly to be fought but an adjustment to be accepted." Such a change in mindset was always going to be resisted by a government that was hooked on the political attractiveness of spending increases, even though it had, in effect, run out of money. To square the circle and calm lenders, Alistair Darling was required to make ever more heroic assumptions about GDP growth. This was the fairy dust which, when sprinkled on the nation's accounts, would magic away our debt crisis.

The philosopher Roger Scruton in his latest book, The Uses of Pessimism, warns against "the danger of false hope" from "unscrupulous optimists" who dismiss constraints, while flogging gravity-defying solutions. Mr Darling and his Treasury team, Mr Balls, Yvette Cooper, and the hapless Mr Byrne fit that description with alarming precision. '