The great fiscal fair of 2016 has begun. The world's governments are seizing on the flimsy excuse of Brexit to prime pump their economies, hoping to stretch the ageing global cycle for a little longer.

Japan's Shinzo Abe has kicked off the first round with a "shock and awe" fiscal package ostensibly worth $270bn, though the South Koreans nipped ahead of him with a $17bn raft of measures.

Britain cannot be far behind as Philip Hammond prepares his first post-austerity Budget this autumn, while France's Francois Hollande and Italy's Matteo Renzi have seized on Brexit to run a coach and horses through the eurozone's fiscal rules. Brexit is manna from heaven.

Brussels hardly dares to raise a squeak, knowing that revolutionaries - the Front National and Beppe Grillo's Five Star movement - are knocking at the doors of power. Fiscal austerity is over in Europe.