1. Growth has been re-forecast, again (above). This year and next, it’s a lot better than Osborne forecast last time (in the red). A little worse thereafter.
2. The projected deficit is, as a result, smaller than he forecast in March. But still way ahead of his original Plan A.
3. Debt as a share of GDP, Osborne will still miss his target: to have the ratio falling by 2015/16. It’s worth remembering that he’s still going slower on debt that the Darling plan that he attacked in the last election.
4. Employment: the bright spot. Public sector workforce has fallen by 640,000 but George Osborne rightly points out this is more than offset by 1.3 million more workers hired by companies. Result? More people are now working in Britain than ever before – and this is set to continue.
5. The lost decade. The Treasury believes that the most valuable metric is GDP per capita (adjusts for immigration). On this measure, not much has changed – it will still take Britain till 2018 to get back to where we were in 2008.
Comments