The British Budget
Gordon Brown drove in from 11, Downing Street to the Mother of Parliaments to present his 11th budget. Only one other Chancellor (their version of our FM) had presented more budgets – that was Gladstone but that was by combining his job as Prime Minister. And that should not be a precedent, said Brown, who is to move into 10, Downing Street shortly. Mr. Brown thanked his bureaucrats as comrades in a wry humour when he is referred to as Stalin.
He boasted that the government had not only balanced current spending and revenues, but had a surplus of £11billion - which meant that for the first time in four decades Britain had met the “Golden Rule” of only borrowing to invest.