In his Autumn statement, George Osborne confirmed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) now projects that the government will borrow more than Alistair Darling was projected to at the time of the last election.
This puts the OBR in line with those independent forecasters collated by HM Treasury this month:
The raw figures are here:
| 10/11 | 11/12 | 12/13 | 13/14 | 14/15 | |
| Current Independent Projected (Collated by HM Treasury) | 129 | 117 | 98 | 81 | |
| 2010 OBR projection of Osborne Plan | 149 | 116 | 89 | 60 | 37 |
| 2010 OBR projection of Darling Plan | 155 | 127 | 106 | 85 | 71 |
| 2011 OBR projection of Osborne Plan | 127 | 120 | 100 | 79 |
In fairness to the Chancellor, he claims that if the Darling plan had been implemented, given low growth, the public sector would have borrowed around £100 billion over the course of the parliament than the Coalition is due to.
However, the argument between the frontbenches is about how much the additional Osborne cutting strangled growth. Whoever is right, we now know this: The government is due to borrow at levels it once said were irresponsible and a sure route to disaster.
See also:
• Whatever Osborne’s growth forecasts today, the reality is probably worse – Daniel Elton, November 29th 2011
• Inflation report is bad news for Osborne’s targets – Tony Dolphin, October 18th 2011
• Cameron’s “failed experiment” leads to yet another economic downgrade – Alex Hern, October 17th 2011
• OECD prediction rocks Osborne’s deficit reduction hopes – Ben Fox, September 9th 2011
• Britain is bottom of the G7′s growth table – Will Straw, August 4th 2011
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