Chart 1: Growth downgraded. Not by much, but Osborne sails so close to the wind that every negative revision tends to knock him off course.
Chart 2: So Osborne’s new debt target is missed already. He said the debt/GDP ratio would fall every year: a target he took right to the limit in his Autumn Statement. The ratio is rising this year – again, not by much, but this is rather embarrassing for him as made such a fuss about this target.
Chart 3: Deficit picture worsens. Again. Which happens pretty much every time Osborne stands up to make a financial statement. Here’s his latest plan, versus his original.
Chart 4: 2019 – mother of all austerity packages He says he’ll make an even bigger surplus in 2020 because he’s going to make load and loads of as-yet-unidentified cuts in 2019. This is such obvious nonsense that it’s not even worth a graph, but here’s the OBR’s take on the new, bizarre trajectory of net borrowing.
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