UK Chancellor Gordon Brown made much of his "golden rule", that the only good reason for public borrowing was investment. But now he is going to have to break that rule by borrowing at least £3 billion more than he forecast. The public finances are in a dire state: the government borrowed £22.75 billion in the first half of the financial year, more than two-thirds of the £33 billion forecast for the whole year.

The Treasury blames 'lower than forecast tax revenues' as if it's our fault for not paying enough tax. Well, we're paying quite enough, thank you. Tax Freedom Day doesn't come until the end of May - though these new figures mean we'll be working a lot longer to pay off the deficit, too. And we paid 6.8% more tax in the first half of this financial year than we did in the same period in 2003-04. But Brown had hoped for a whopping 7.8% increase.

Income tax, capital gains taxes and company tax payments are all down on the Treasury's forecasts. Perhaps there is just a limit to how much British taxpayers are prepared to shell out, and they're staying at home rather than working and spending.

The economy may look pretty flat, but in fact it's as good as it's going to get in this economic cycle. At this point, Britain should be paying off debt, not increasing it.

The other EU countries are wallowing in debt too. The EU version of the golden rule, the Growth and Stability pact brokered in July 1997, is just as dead as the UK's. Portugal's borrowing breached it in 2001, then France and Germany smashed it in 2002. The EU Council 'suspended' the Pact, but the Commission challenged that and won in the Court. But nobody (of course) has been punished. Look forward to higher taxes - after the next round of elections, of course.