Osborne’s credit card fraud

Well, David Cameron is doing his part to boost the Spanish economy — by EasyJetting to the country with SamCam to celebrate her 40th Birthday. But what about Spain’s peninsular cousins, the Portuguese? They were, more or less, the subject of George Osborne’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce conference earlier — but not how they might have hoped. The chancellor didn’t dwell on the prospect of British help for their stricken economy, but he did cite Portugal as a kind of worst case scenario. “Today of all days we can see the risks that would face Britain,” he said, “if we were not dealing with our debts and paying off our national credit card.”

Ed Balls has since struck out against Osborne’s argument, describing  it as “scaremongering”. But I’ve got another issue with it: namely, that the government is not “paying off our national credit card,” and that it is misleading of Osborne to suggest otherwise.