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The latest breach is, however, an important symptom of the decline and fast-approaching fall of Mr Brown’s stewardship of the economy.

The Chancellor was confident that the UK would continue to meet the Maastricht tests indefinitely. When the deficit strayed over the limit once, the European Commission was assured, and believed, that it was purely temporary. In the first four months of this year the public sector borrowing requirement was £4 billion higher than a year earlier, which was itself worse than forecast. There was some improvement in July but the deficit for the year still seems more likely to rise than fall, as the Chancellor forecast.

The current deficit, which Mr Brown uses to calculate the golden fiscal rule, is also rising, rather than falling towards zero next year, as the Chancellor forecast. He is going to such lengths to stretch his own rules that the Governor of the Bank of England makes fun of him.

In his 2004 Budget, Mr Brown predicted that the UK economy would grow at between 3 per cent and 3.5 per cent this year. Only half that is now likely, which is one reason why his sums have been going horribly wrong. But there is a deeper sickness.

By the time that unemployment is down to its lowest for decades and economists are debating only which quarter the UK will run out of spare capacity, any prudent chancellor should be running a current surplus and cutting the country’s debt burden. Mr Brown was blithely confident that debt would stay within 40 per cent of national income. It has reached 40.8 per cent and appears to be rising further.

Mr Brown has lost control because he cannot bring himself to admit that, having once been prudent, he planned public spending increases that can only be sustained on the most optimistic economic assumptions. Optimism for a purpose is no motto for a chancellor.

Wal-flower

WHEN the mighty Wal-Mart complains about a rival being too big, a sympathetic response is unlikely. That did not stop Lee Scott, chief executive of the world’s largest retailer last week calling for a government investigation into Tesco’s domination of the grocery market.

He cannot have been too thrilled yesterday to learn that Tesco is picking up another 30 former Safeway convenience stores from Wm Morrison. Unless the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is prepared to reverse its previous position, it cannot argue with Tesco’s insistence that the deal would only take its share of the convenience market to a tiddly 6 per cent.

Those who do not accept the OFT’s argument, that the convenience store market is distinct from supermarkets, will see Tesco’s latest deal bolstering the more than 30 per cent share it already has.

Mr Scott suggested that in his battle against Tesco he might have to follow its example and move into convenience stores. But he will have to move quickly rather than merely think about it. As yesterday’s deal shows, Sir Terry Leahy’s team is relentless in its efforts to sweep up more stores.

• What lesson should children deduce from the fact that when the Monetary Policy Committee cuts interest rates by 0.25 per cent, the bank cuts the interest on their savings accounts by 0.4 per cent, as Halifax has just done? Parents may be reluctant to replenish the piggy bank since the interest on their Halifax mortgage has been reduced by just the MPC’s quarter point. Halifax is not the lone offender: it is an inexorable rule of banking that, for customers, bad news travels harder and faster than good. But disappointing junior is not the way to encourage a savings habit.

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