Bank of England's stimulus package has bought the chancellor some time

There is only so much that monetary policy can do - it's time to cut VAT and borrow for long-term capital projects and boost infrastructure The satirist Peter Cook had a famous skit in which he played a second world war RAF officer sending a pilot on a suicide mission to Germany. "I want you to lay down your life, Perkins," Cook's character says. "We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war. Get up in a crate, Perkins, pop over to Bremen, take a shufti, don't ...