How much is enough?

Government, that is.

We have suffered through an election campaign, followed by a post-election campaign, in which the promises have flowed thick and fast, from both sides. One thing they both agreed on: if lots of government spending is a good thing, then lots more can only be better. CS Lewis, in his poem “Lines during a General Election”, put it well: “Their threats are terrible enough, but we could bear/All that; it is their promises that bring despair”.

It was Otto von Bismarck who first (in the modern world) hit on the idea of spending promises to keep the