Fiscal profligacy is breaking out all over. Australia is an exception, but many other countries have given up on efforts to curb deficits and borrowing; some never even tried, and the handful that have succeeded in applying discipline are under pressure to relax it. The United States is a stand-out example, where the polity simply no longer cares about deficits and debt and sees nothing wrong in running a budget deficit of almost five per cent of GDP in the midst of an economic boom that should be producing surpluses. 

Britain is one of the most interesting and instructive cases.