I Think Paul Krugman is Mistaken – Spectator Blogs

The great sage – once described to me by someone who attended a (highly) derivative speech he made on the Scottish economy as Woody Allen with statistics and no jokes – blogs that George Osborne is “Britain’s Paul Ryan”. Remarkably, this seems unfair on both Mr Osborne and Mr Ryan.

Anyway, Krugman writes:

Osborne’s big idea was that Britain should turn to fiscal austerity now now now, even though the economy remained deeply depressed; it would all work out, he insisted, because the confidence fairy would come to the rescue. Never mind those whining Keynesians who said that premature austerity would send Britain into a double-dip recession.

Strange to say, Britain’s recovery stalled soon after Cameron/Osborne began their new policies, and the country is now in a double-dip recession.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. You’d be hard pressed to make a case for Osborne’s success but, as the chart above demonstrates, you’d be just as hard-pressed to make the case that the programme of fiscal austerity that Osborne has actually delivered – which should not be confused with that which he promised – is markedly different from that which his predecessor, Alistair Darling, proposed prior to the last election.