Plan B

Unsurprisingly, given that no one believes his forecasts, Alistair Darling will be asked by the Treasury Select Committee what his "plan B" is.

The Committee will ask Darling what his policy will be, if the economy does not recover next year (as per his forecast).

That is a valid question.

However, it misses the point that the economy may well recover more robustly and more quickly if the politicians stop meddling with it and changing the ruoles of the game (eg taxes etc).

Unfortunately, were the politicians to leave well alone and allow tax rates etc to be set in stone for a multi year time period, people would rightly ask "what exactly is it that you do?".