As the well-known economist and climate scientist Wilkins Micawber once said: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Whether this necessarily translates to running a country… well, I’m not a climate scientist, but when an election’s just around the corner, it seems to be a pretty simple case of black ink good, red ink bad.