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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

That was very much the question that I intended to address and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for prompting me. It is the important question; not merely, ““Will it be the same this time?”” It may not. Marx said:"““History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.””" Maybe it will be farcical this time, maybe not. If it is to repeat itself, how well placed are we to cope with something similar? The lessons of the period when the hon. Gentleman was at school and I started at university, before working first as an economic consultant and then in the City, was that countries that had run a very tight ship experienced much fewer problems during the latter and more painful unravelling of events than those that had run large budget deficits and a less tight ship. The sad truth is that we now have the highest budget deficit of any major country, with the exception, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Hungary.