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In November 2011, Nadhim Zahawi – then a back-bench MP for Stratford-on-Avon and, as of 10pm last night, Britain’s new Chancellor of the Exchequer – spoke in a House of Commons debate on the economy in which he questioned Labour’s proposal to build an economy that was “less vulnerable to global shocks” by borrowing an extra £25bn a year over four years.
In those days of “fiscal discipline”, an extra £25bn a year was to be frowned at, but in the teeth of a real global shock it seems a rather quaint sum of money. It’s a lot less than we spent on Test and Trace (£37bn for “no clear impact”) and not that much less than what was handed out to businesses that were either fraudulent or expected to default (having done almost nothing to check whether either was likely) through Covid loans.