Imagine trying to raise health spending to the European average against this backdrop!This

Imagine trying to raise health spending to the European average against this backdrop!This is an extreme comparison. After all, the stronger than expected growth of recent years has simply brought the economy back up to its potential operating rate, having been below that rate in the mid-1990s. As a result, the risk of a major deterioration in the public finances from the current position should be relatively low. Yet while this may be true today, it may not be true in a couple of years’ time if the “growth surprise” asymmetry persists.The Treasury will argue that the 2.25 per cent assumption is deliberately cautious and that, in reality, the trend growth rate of the economy is more like 2.5 per cent or 2.75 per cent per year But this kind of argument throws prudence out of the window. Since the last cyclical peak in the UK in 1990, the economy has managed an average growth rate of – guess what – 2.25 per cent.

So the Chancellor’s prudence is no more than a statement of reality. He’s avoided the speed cameras so far but he is far racier than his prudent image would suggest.Stephen King is managing director of economics at HSBC.. Michael Biggs, the son of Ronnie, the Great Train Robber, is a man often in tears. As he talks, his eyes fill up, the salty pools suddenly cascading down his cheeks.

He repeatedly brushes them into his dark sideburns with one hand, while the other fiddles incessantly with the top of a mineral water bottle. It’s not quite what you would expect from the handsome young Brazilian son of Britain’s most famous criminal. Not wanting to die a fugitive, his last wish was to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of beer. Many believed the ailing crook was simply returning to take advantage of British health care.

Either way, he was instantly arrested and sent to Belmarsh Prison, in south-east London. Michael, who has both a young family and a job as a musician back in Brazil, has been renting a small flat in London ever since.Today, at an Immigration Appellate Authority hearing, Michael will learn whether he will be forced to leave the country. When he first came to Britain he was given temporary admission, which has been extended to January as he is appealing, on human rights grounds, for permission to stay in the country while he campaigns for his father’s sentence to be reduced. Should he lose, he will appeal further.At the start of the hearing on Friday, Michael told immigration officials that his visits to his father, currently at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, south-east London, were the highlight of the old man’s day. “Even if he’s feeling tired or dizzy or sick he always tries to look his best for me,” says Michael. “I put his teeth in for him, cut his nails and generally try to make him feel better in himself.” James Gillespie, Michael’s barrister, says there was a “close emotional dependency” between the two men.When we meet, Michael describes the time he has spent in London as “psychological hell”. The uncertainty is the worst, not knowing if he will be forced to leave, or how long his father will have to serve.