UK Chancellor Gordon Brown has done many things the Adam Smith Institute does not support. He has greatly increased taxes, leaving less money for investment and demand in the private sector. He has introduced stealth taxes and made taxes so complicated that people do not know how much they are paying. He has pushed huge sums at the public services, sums which will be 80 percent soaked up in pay increases without extra output. He has heavily taxed pension funds, causing a crisis to what was easily Europe's best pensions industry, and impoverishing many who thought they were saving enough. The list goes on.

He has perhaps earned two cheers, though. His first act was to give the Bank of England the independence to take interest rate decisions based on the need for sound money, and distancing it from the political needs of the government of the day. This has worked well so far.

A second early action was to introduce the rule that borrowing must not exceed investment over the course of a cycle. It looks highly unlikely that he will keep that pledge, but it may have been a good one to make, in that it allows for longer term thinking than has been customary.

He has not by these two actions managed to balance his books with the Adam Smith Institute, but the plus pan is not completely empty.