Good news for Our Gordon.

The UK’s chancellor may not be scoring points for communication amongst government departments, but his beloved golden rule is safe, at least for a while longer.

The latest stats from the Office of National Statistics have revealed a £2 billion surplus on the government current account spending in February. February is always a good month, but this time last year the surplus was just £1.6 billion. As for the year so far, from April to February the deficit has hit £6.4 billion, compared to £11.8 billion at this point last year. This is better than expected, and leaves the chancellor with some room to gloat as he reveals the budget today, not that he needs a reason to. There is even a hint he may cut tax.

Government finances are complicated, but with Gordon at Number 11, you know they will always be immersed in enough complexity to puzzle everyone, including opposition parties.

But, government debt and borrowing is measured in two ways. First, there’s the current account, which looks solely at spending net of investment. The UK’s chancellor set himself what has become known a the golden rule. This says that, during the course of an economic cycle, spending must not be greater than income. This implies, of course, that there must be years in which there is an annual surplus, although this has not happened since the financial year 2001/02.

The first few years of Gordon’s reign was one of tough spending limits, and a period when he became known as ‘Dr Prudence.’ But 12 months into the decade the chancellor seemed to morph, into a ‘Mr Profligate,’ as he seemed to resemble the Labour ‘tax and spend’ chancellors of years gone by.

But, Gordon has another rule. And perhaps, in the long term, this is the more important of the two. Sadly, its name ’sustainable investment rule’ is not quite so catchy.

This sustainable investment dictum says that government net borrowing including borrowing to fund investment must be held at a stable and prudent level. What is this level? Gordon has suggested that for the time being, it’s 40 percent of GDP. Incidentally, net debt in most other economies is much higher.

In February, the UK’s net debt stood at 36.2 percent of GDP. This compares with 30.1 in February 2002. But in 1997, it rose as high as 44.0 percent of GDP.

We can criticise Gordon for the way he has allowed government spending to expand, but in fairness to him, we should recall that the UK, unlike many other top economies, managed to avoid recession earlier this decade. There is no doubt the rise in government spending was a factor behind this.

But the world is becoming more competitive. And it is thought that today the chancellor will introduce measures to reduce government spending and taxation. Corporation tax, for example, is expected to be lowered, while borrowing levels could be reduced with the privatisation of student loans.

No doubt today’s budget will come with a subtle twist, and not all the implications will be obvious for some time. But, whatever happens, it seems that the golden rule will never be broken for as long as Gordon is at Number 11. After all, if it’s in danger, he can always change the rules in such a way to make it seem like we didn’t understand them in the first place. Examples of this have been the clarification that the golden rule applies only to borrowing as a percentage of GDP. If it was measured in absolute terms, as we all originally thought, he might well have broken the rule by now. The timing of the economic cycle has also been changed.

However, the danger is this. His successor at Number 11 might not be quite so clever. And, all of a sudden, with Number 11 bereft of Gordon’s subtlety, his flaws as chancellor will be exposed for the world to see. But, it would appear Gordon may have an equally clever successor. The current Economic Secretary to the Treasury is none other than Ed Balls, the man who was for so long Gordon’s right hand.

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