The more you study the Recession Budget, the more it hits you: this horror story is a best-case scenario. It’s based on almost comically optimistic assumptions. We are apparently halfway through a recession that finishes next May. Then growth starts again, they’ll magic up £5bn of efficiency savings and the rich will somehow break the habit of a lifetime and not find accountants to get them out of paying extra tax.
Darling may as well have finished his speech saying “and we’ll sprout wings and fly to neverland” because that’s the gist of his forecasts. It is strikingly unoriginal. Brown has done what he has always done: borrow, based on fake forecasts that he’ll have to tear up at the next Budget blaming yet another unforeseen economic event.
Make no mistake: the staggering, sickening borrowing levels we see today are the opening bids.
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