I blame Montagu Norman. As J M Keynes said of him "always so charming, always so wrong".

I dodged that question but I do recall writing an essay later on about the bright prospects for raising productivity growth in the coal industry: not the first or last time I was a tad optimistic about Britain's growth prospects.

Fiscal rules can be useful. But the Treasury always attaches more importance to them than they deserve. And something which can be broken with impunity on a regular basis isn't a rule. It's a target. Much more important is whether the public finances are sustainable.

Earnings related unemployment benefit abolished in 1982. Earnings related invalidity benefit and the state earnings related pension scheme lived on until the mid-90s, having been cut back in the Fowler reforms of the mid-80s.

True. Barbara Castle's 1975 reforms exchanged income related contributory benefits for income related NI contributions. It was peak social insurance. Sadly it didn't last. By the mid-1980s it was deemed unaffordable. But income related national insurance lives on at a much higher rate.

I signed on to supplementary benefit in 1978 -aged 18 -having broken my arm. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure my benefit at a little under £14 a week was more generous in real terms than it is now, despite living standards more than doubling since. It was the year the UK was at its most equal.

I've been wrestling with the same issue for some weeks. I still haven't found the answer. But I suspect washed up and cynical HMT officials (me not you) aren't the target audience.

We have now had fiscal "rules" for more than 25 years. Arguably they have done more harm than good encouraging HMT to focus on incremental changes to live within them until they can't...cue a new rule. What matters is the substance of fiscal policy. Does it support macro policy? Is it sustainable?

"It takes many years before governments can have any impact on the trend rate of growth, and most governments end up mistaking cyclical for structural improvements."