Another day, another fiscal canard. This time, Gordon Brown re-announced his intention to sell £16bn of public assets – a decision first unveiled at the Budget in April – and the process has been repackaged as part of Labour’s plan for fiscal retrenchment. Items ranging from the Channel tunnel through to the Tote, a state-owned bookmaker, will be offered for sale, ostensibly to help balance the books. But this is nonsense.

Asset sales are simply swapping one item on the government balance sheet for cash. They affect the assets and liabilities of the state in roughly equal measure, and so, by definition, can do nothing to help cope with the UK’s fiscal problem.