NO MORE ARGUMENTS: AUSTERITY IS WORKING!

Labour and the chattering classes accused George Osborne of condemning Britain to a future without growth. They have been proved wrong.

The death of Nelson Mandela meant the reporting of the autumn statement was overshadowed last week but Osborne scored a significant victory over Ed Balls-Up and his critics are on the run. As the economics editor of the Sundays Times put it “The intellectual battle is over. This may not be the best or most balanced recovery on record but it is a recovery, and is gaining strength”

Even The Guardian declared that Balls was the biggest loser from Osborne’s autumn statement. Recent rapid footwork from Miliband and Balls to shift their attacks on the government from austerity to living standards, could not cover his embarrassment. Balls had endured a n autumn statement from Osborne that started with the line “Britain’s economic plan is working” and proceeded to twist the knife deep into Labour.

The coalition had inherited a country in serious fiscal crisis with its public finances “broken” and mired in “deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services” Osborne said.

Having resisted huge pressure to abandon his deficit cutting strategy, most notably from Balls, the chancellor was able to wallow in satisfaction. Not only had Labour – and Balls – opposed every measure to reduce the deficit, but they constantly warned that without temporary tax cuts or spending increases, the economy would “flatline”

Yet growth has returned dramatically this year. Fears of a “triple-dip” recession at the start of the year proved groundless and the earlier double-dip at the end of 2011 and 2012 was revised away by the official statisticians.

Last Thursday was the biggest upward revision of growth in an official forecast for 14 years. The OBR more than doubled its estimate for this year on the back of quarterly growth rates of 0.4%, 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.

Even more than the GDP numbers the growth in jobs has defied the gloomsters. According to the OBR employment has risen by 400,000 this year, taking the total since May 2010 to almost 1 million. Over the period 2011-2019, the OBR predicts 3,1m extra jobs, three times as many as the 1,1m public sector jobs that will be cut.

All this has come without Osborne abandoning his austerity programme. In comments aimed at the Labour front bench and his many other critics he said “Over the last three years we have stuck to our guns, worked through the plan. We have done so in the face of a sovereign debt crisis abroad. We have held our nerve while those who predicted there would be no growth until we turned the spending taps back on have been proved comprehensively wrong”

The faces of the Labour front bench said it all "Bad news........there's good news"

Source: David Smith economics editor of the ST

Lol. Nothing to say on the Andrew Mitchell thread?

When I've made up the £3.5k in salary I need to get up to my 2008 pay level I might just possibly, maybe, if the wind is blowing in the right direction ,believe that Osborne.

The net nanny on here really does some bizarre substitutions. Are we banned from using a spoonerism to create the name of a former king? Would vagina be allowed?

Guess so!

Steady on chaps, there's a lot of effort gone into this fishing trip, he's rented a big trawler, baited all the hooks himself, and everything...

On the other hand cut and paste from the Sunday Times, maybe he just paid for a passenger ticket on the big trawler.

<pedant mode> a trawler doesn't have hooks, baited or otherwise, it has a net that it trawls through the water. The clue is in the name <\pedant mode>

Are we going for Ajw's reply to the OP with a 'hand-clappy manny' or a simpler 'great post'.
???

Gercha...

Yey, great post, lefties, , austerity working, pulling ahead in polls, Osborne is a god, I enjoy abuse.

Perm any three to win.

Austerity is working.

The performance of Balls last week was shambolic. It was like a bully getting his comeuppance.

A large number of posters on this forum have been proved comprehensively wrong also. Hence why you used to see threads started every 2 weeks about the economy and berating George Osborne - now you don't see any.

An economic recovery based on consumer credit, a government guarantee to lenders for 15% of a property value to kick start housebuilding again, government borrowing higher than it was when they started ...

We could have done all of this three years ago you know.

I caught about 30 seconds of the purple faced Ed Ball reply on Sky the other week, and for me the sight of a grim faced Labour front bench said it all, and contrasted greatly with the mocking laughter on the other side of the house.

But we have no need for reams of fiscal information. We have our own consumer barometer amongst us. The economy has improved so much under the Tories that Codhead has pensioned off Dobbin....the cart is on Gumtree..... and Hulls finest has invested in the future by buying a new van to expand his growing empire.

Who'd have thought, Osborne and Coddy would be singing off the same song sheet?

I will report on that thread shortly. Meanwhile I been reading your comments on the Economy thread. Anything you would like to add.....like 'I was totally wrong' for instance?