Something’s Gotta Give in the UK

Britain’s fiscal confusions have collided with reality yet again, setting off a spectacle that’s equal parts gripping and disheartening. There’s talk of the golden years, when the UK led its G7 peers in productivity gains and income growth, but that proud memory is lost on a government stumbling from one self-defeating budget proposal to the next. The latest “mini-budget,” so-called, feels more like a last-ditch attempt to paper over the cracks than any serious plan for growth. Whispers in Whitehall point to a coming day of reckoning, when Britain’s stubborn devotion to untenable fiscal rules finally meets the fate that has claimed so many other economic shibboleths in its history.