Office for Budget Responsibility chief Richard Hughes may choose to see debt as virtue rather than vice

It is not hard to grasp the appeal to the Treasury of Richard Hughes, Britain’s public finances police chief as incoming chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Setting aside his pedigree (a former Treasury official who ran the government’s fiscal strategy after a stint in a similar job at the International Monetary Fund), the attraction of Mr Hughes is that he recognises the tension at the heart of public finance policy. That is fiscal activism today versus fiscal sustainability tomorrow, to spend to protect the economy now but also to save to prevent the country going bankrupt later.

The OBR’s Fiscal Sustainability Report, published today, will be a reminder of the long-term threat. Within 40 years, the national debt will be 2.5 times the