Two Brians are reluctant to break the rules

SINCE cutbacks have become the new economic vocabulary, government ministers are for the first time in over a decade facing challenges of a very different nature.

For years the current surplus has provided the bulk of the cost of running the country, on top of much of the funding that has gone into capital projects during the boom years.

As a result the national debt is one of the lowest in Europe which means we have scope to borrow to get us over the hump of what is beginning to look like a dramatic change in our economic fortunes.