John Healey holds the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment, to everyone's surprise, including, I suspect, his own. He was interviewed by Sam Coates of Sky Television yesterday. The Guardian reported these comments:

Healey said fiscal discipline was the “first priority” for any chancellor.

“It's the bedrock for economic stability,” he said. “We simply can't deal with the problems we face as a country by maxing out the country's credit card.”

I despair. We have another Chancellor who thinks that the country is like a household.

That is bad enough, but what is worse is the reference to "the country's credit card.”

First, that is because no such thing exists.

Second, because he does not apparently realise that if it did have a credit card, he controls the bank that issued it and can set the credit limit wherever he likes.

It is quite absurd that we can still have Chancellors who can, without apparent embarrassment, display economic ignorance of this order.

When might we have a Chancellor with any degree of macroeconomic competence?

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