Gordon Brown's tenure as chancellor of the exchequer has seen two very different approaches to managing the public finances. From 1997 to 2002, Gordon Brown mark I was exceptionally prudent. For four years, public sector spending and investment, as a proportion of GDP, was actually lower than in the previous years of Conservative government - years when public spending had been heavily constrained. Indeed, many in the Labour Party complained that Brown had been "too prudent by half". But