Perhaps Her Majesty’s Treasury should think about asking the Department of Health to help draft future Budget statements. Surely the spads from down the road in Whitehall would have pointed out that while, yes, “aspiration” does indeed mean a strong desire for achievement, it is also, a bit unfortunately, the medical term for choking on your own vomit.

That certainly puts a slightly different slant on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's shiny new sound bite. Does the UK - especially given the infamy of its binge drinking culture and the fact that George Osborne has just cut beer duty for the first time since 1959 - really want to be known as the "aspiration nation"? It certainly gives us all another reason to hope that the British economy is in the recovery position.