There was a moment in the last Budget statement where George Osborne revealed that the deficit was – just – lower in the year to April 2012 than the previous 12 months. He made it by a whisker. Today, the statisticians have revised their opinion and said borrowing for that financial year was is up slightly – by £300m to £118.8bn. It’s a tiny change, well within a rounding error. And, of course, could easily change again. The extra borrowing was £12.7bn in May, down from £15.6bn last May. Factor in the £3.6bn transferred from the Quantitative Easing programme, and the deficit can be knocked down to £8.8bn. It all depends on how you cut the figures.
If this is ‘bad news for Osborne’ it may only be valid for a few months, as more revisions are due and they may well decide that deficit fell after all.
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