One new all-time record coming right up Last night Darling buried the fiscal rules, telling us: "To apply the fiscal rules in a rigid manner today would be perverse. We would have to take money out of the economy, exacerbating an already difficult situation." Of course, he's attacking Labour's usual straw man - nobody is actually suggesting taking money out of the economy now. The real i...

Asked if the fiscal rules had changed, the Prime Minister's Spokesman (PMS) said that no decisions had been taken in relation to the fiscal rules; the position remained as set out at the time of the Budget. Asked what was being planned and if the fiscal rules would remain the same, the PMS replied that we hadn't taken any decisions and there was nothing to add to the Treasury's statement. Put that...

Gordon Brown introduced two "fiscal rules", which have set the terms for debate over fiscal policy ever since. These rules were the "golden rule" - that over an economic cycle, the government should not borrow for current consumption but only...

Alistair Darling has not set out a new fiscal framework in his much-delayed Mais lecture - but he has read the last rites over the so-called the financial rules. “To apply the fiscal rules in a rigid manner today would be perverse,” he says. Not to say impossible: the rules set a 40% limit on net debt and it was 43.4% last month. Instead there is assurance that “people should be ...

Gordon Brown was accused of "moving the goalposts" yesterday as he prepared to relax his fiscal rules to prevent them being breached.

Alistair Darling today confirmed the Government's much-vaunted fiscal rules were "under review". But the Chancellor insisted no decision had been taken on whether to loosen them to allow more borrowing.

David Cameron has accused the prime minister of breaking his fiscal rules and leading the country "from boom to bust".

The government's fiscal rules system was condemned as "ridiculous" by Vince Cable at the Liberal Democrat autumn conference in Bournemouth.

Officials in the Treasury are looking at ways of relaxing Gordon Brown's so called fiscal rules on government finances.

Chris Giles and Anatole Kaletsky have both called for the government to introduce a new set of rules for fiscal policy, now the old ones are torn up. What they don't fully address is the question: why, exactly, do we...