Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron have been bickering about tax cuts in the run-up to Monday's pre-budget report. Brown says he plans a "temporary and affordable fiscal stimulus" to cushion the blows of recession.
"This is an investment in the banking system that will eventually pay off," says chancellor Alistair Darling about New Labour’s bailout of the banks. And pay off it certainly will – to the enormous benefit of the bankers themselves.
Until A few weeks ago, supporters of free market capitalism were confident enough to proclaim that their system was the only way that the world could be organised. Now their certainties have vanished.