The pertinent point to make, every time, is that they all applied for the job, ALL of the political party's stood at the last election, none of them withdrew their candidates stating that the economic recovery was too difficult a problem to fix, ALL of them had a plan that they thought would fix the thing - and the current incumbents DID think that they were applying a fix.

Or did they ?

There are those who tout the opinion that this is a political party shielding themselves behind a bad world economic cycle to impose their own very severe political ideology upon a country, a sort of "crash and burn" where they get one chance in 100 years to blame everyone else for the effects of pulling the plugs out on any social responsibilities that they may have been forced to support in the good times.

That would be very evil.


the more I look at them and the longer this goes on the more confused I am as to which of the two options it is, are they totally bereft of ideas or totally full of ideology, or indeed just totally self interested at the expense of everything else ?

Goalposts on wheels. Neat trick.

So are you confident that the Q1 2013 growth figures will positive, yes or no? Otherwise we will be in a triple dip, despite your insistence that we're not.

I don't think there is any doubt at all regarding the motives of the tories. They are seizing the opportunity to shrink the state by as much and wherever they can. Gifting prime contracts to their ultimate paymasters without any real tangible, long-term savings. They've even entered territory that Thatcher and Major daren't ever tread.

I don't blame Labour or the Tories for that matter for the circumstances in which I live. I blame a faulty gene that I more than likely inheritated but couldn't have been detected at my inception.

I have paid my income tax and National Insurance on the understanding that if I became unemployed or ill or both I would have my basic needs taken care of, just like I understood that when I paid my income tax and National Insurance while I was working that I was paying for other peoples children to be educated and OAP's state pension.

They all appear to reprising the rlAnne Elk sketchrl

It will be due to "one off factors" - the snow.

And Osborne will say the triple dip means its even more crucial than ever to stick to his plan.

rlDanny Alexander on Daily Politicsrl

A graphic example of the Anne Elk effect

Excellent, its always someone elses fault.

Neil actually asks the question that I raised last night - "You knew what the problems were when you formed the coalition..."

The answer ? "We relied on forecasts by economists which were wrong"

Not, "We're making this up as we go along but really there is only this one idea of what to do"

And of course you can always rely on "We inherited the biggest ...."


Still they struggle for ways to explain that as fresh faced graduates who haven't even started to shave yet they shouldn't have applied for the job in the first place, but hey, its good money...

"Do you accept that the deficit will be higher this year than last ?"

"Its all the OBR's fault..."

"Why don't you fire the OBR ?"

The one good thing Osborne has done IMO is bringing in the OBR to be an independent body that makes economic forecasts. However, the line of "well the forecast was wrong" is a cheap one because you have to understand any economic forecast of the future in the context it is made: it is based on making a model out of past information, with all the information available to the forecasters at the time. You know there will be events in the future ('random shocks') that you can't foresee, that will affect the economy for better or for worse - so a forecast aims to make it so the prediction isn't biased either on the upside or the downside, ie there is as much chance of a positive random shock, as a negative random shock.

If a forecaster is doing their job well, then over time, they should get it wrong as much by overestimating, as by underestimating. If they are persistently overestimating, then they aren't estimating accurately, there is something wrong in their model.

But also some people have unrealistic expectations of an economic forecast. You can no more see into the future than Mystic Meg - all you can do is give a best projection based on all the information available at the current time, so that it can guide policymakers. Firms do the same when they forecast their sales and margins through the year - if a firm was to forecast £10 million profits for the year, and then two months down the line, a scandal breaks where their product is shown to be unsafe, their profits will be smashed....but there would be no point blaming the forecasters for getting it wrong, they should blame the product control unit.

The OBR made its first forecast in June 2010 just after the election, and their view in the light of all the information available at the time, was that the UK economy would grow 2.6% in 2011 and 2.8% in 2012. The actual growth rates were 0.9% in 2011 and 0.0% in 2012.

The government's spin can be "well the forecasters got it wrong" but if they actually believe the OBR to be unfit for purpose they should close it down and stop spending tax payers money on it. The alternative explanation is that, the UK's performance should have been more in line with that forecast by the OBR in 2010, and the government's policy decisions are related to why it has been so disappointing.

Yes that analogy is exactly right. Another observation from underachieving on those forecasts is that it shows the problem is one of demand in the economy and not supply. Those forecasts were based on an estimate of the 'output gap', ie what the UK economy is currently producing and consuming, compared to what it could produce and consume if all its resources were being used. If the problem was one of supply, ie we were not able to produce enough to meet the things people demanded, then you would see high inflation, as all the firms trying to meet the demand were fighting over having enough workers, access to capital, land etc and would be bidding each other up and driving up the prices of all those input resources. But inflation has this last year been fairly low, 2.7%. The reality is we could easily absorb a stimulus to demand and start producing more just by using unutilised resources. But its a chicken and egg situation: firms see consumers aren't spending so they are worried about investing to expand production, in case there isn't enough demand for their products. Even if they do want to take the risk and expand production, they probably need access to finance and the banks see the situation the same way and are anxious about lending. Once there was a kickstart to the economy though it becomes self-maintaining as those problems would be released once firms saw evidence of some demand. This is where government can make a difference as the first mover - some carefully targeted infrastructure spends that would increase demand for private sector goods and services, would start giving the economy some momentum. Also note that Jim O'Neill from Goldman Sachs has come out and said Osborne faces sending the UK into a lost decade. Note - not a left wing commentator, but a senior investment banker: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... -austerity

Yes that analogy is exactly right. Another observation from underachieving on those forecasts is that it shows the problem is one of demand in the economy and not supply. Those forecasts were based on an estimate of the 'output gap', ie what the UK economy is currently producing and consuming, compared to what it could produce and consume if all its resources were being used. If the problem was one of supply, ie we were not able to produce enough to meet the things people demanded, then you would see high inflation, as all the firms trying to meet the demand were fighting over having enough workers, access to capital, land etc and would be bidding each other up and driving up the prices of all those input resources. But inflation has this last year been fairly low, 2.7%. The reality is we could easily absorb a stimulus to demand and start producing more just by using unutilised resources. But its a chicken and egg situation: firms see consumers aren't spending so they are worried about investing to expand production, in case there isn't enough demand for their products. Even if they do want to take the risk and expand production, they probably need access to finance and the banks see the situation the same way and are anxious about lending. Once there was a kickstart to the economy though it becomes self-maintaining as those problems would be released once firms saw evidence of some demand. This is where government can make a difference as the first mover - some carefully targeted infrastructure spends that would increase demand for private sector goods and services, would start giving the economy some momentum. Also note that Jim O'Neill from Goldman Sachs has come out and said Osborne faces sending the UK into a lost decade. Note - not a left wing commentator, but a senior investment banker: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... -austerity