Gordon Brown has a plan. He has a plan for you, your children, your partner, your job, your house, your car, your business and your country. He cannot see a problem without wishing to solve it. He is serious, energetic and high-minded. But his plans are also always detailed, intrusive and complex. I admire him. But I also find the thought of all this busyness ruling unchecked from 10 Downing Street quite frightening.

Video comment

Martin Wolf discusses some of the economic implications of the pre-Budget report

Yet one cannot deny that his overall record as chancellor has been admirable. It is true – a truth he is loath to confess – that he owes much to his predecessors and, above all, to the UK’s greatest post-second world war prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. But he has indeed cemented stability. Nothing he said on Wednesday changed that fact. Growth has continued for 57 consecutive quarters. The UK is now second in national income per head in the group of seven leading high-income countries. It is a long time since anybody has thought of it as the sick man of Europe.