There were times when the Square Mile took almost masochistic delight in the chancellor's heady mixture of fiscal rectitude and socialist largesse.
Would John Prescott allow any elected regional assembly to have the same financial largesse allowed to the Scottish executive?
The chancellorâs Pre-Budget Report statement may well signal to many departments an end to the public spending largesse.
As ever, the prime beneficiaries of state largesse would appear to be the middle classes.
Largesse was especially given on the field of victory, and was, moreover, liberally distributed to stifle sedition and mutiny among the troops, the numerical strength of which was continually increased as the empire enlarged its borders.
