This time last year they were traipsing up and down the country crowing that their economic credibility was beyond question, they'd be returning the books back to black.

The election was still a few months away, but the economy was their catch cry.
They'd seen us through the global economic crisis - with few of us feeling the pinch.

Labour had left them an economic mess and they'd cleaned it up and the house was being put back into order.

In reality it was a house of cards.

The Clark/Cullen cabal, we were constantly being told, had years of surpluses but did nothing with them. It's true, during their time in office they were a pretty stingy bunch with Michael Cullen often being likened to Mr Scrooge, happily sitting on top of the cash mountain while we all suffered.

In the background though, the debt mountain was being whittled away, allowing the Dipton Drawler Bill English to borrow big time to cushion the crash.

This time last year he was promising a wafer thin surplus, but the wafers remained in their packet and the ice cream melted.

They were forgiven, but went into the election last year with renewed enthusiasm about making surplus. It was the Government's flagship promise. Unfortunately, the ship's sprung a leak and on Thursday it'll hit the seabed with a thud as once again the red ink will be running through the bottom line.

The howls will be deafening from their political opponents, with 'Angry Andy' Little kicking off the condemnation last week. He laid it on with a trowel, describing the broken surplus promise as one of the biggest political deceptions of a lifetime.

Certainly the Beehive burglars won't be proud of their effort but their promise, even if they did bang on about it ad nauseam during the campaign, was actually a prediction. It could never be anything else.

After all, the Beehive can only be as accurate as their advisors in Treasury and Lord knows given their record, if they were running the metrological office last week, they would have been forecasting light showers for Wellington.