Credibility check
One of my themes in the last few weeks has been the credibility of UK fiscal policy and how it can be rescued now that the rules of the last ten years have been clearly broken. If your husband has an affair, before you believe his assurances of renewed fidelity, he needs to give you a good reason to think it will be different next time. If this is his second or third sin (after those drunken incidents in the 1970s and early 90s) he needs to be extra convincing. Alistair Darling is in the same position. So how will today's announcements go down? Will anyone believe them? There are five criteria it has to meet to be credible. The first step is that it must have content - there needs to be something concrete to actually believe. Something simple that nobody can forget. "I will never see that woman again" is a good one, and "We will reduce borrowing every year and eliminate it by 2015" comes in a reasonable second place. Marks: 4/5 The second is to make it plausible...