Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
No, if I'm understanding the graph properly, he is saying he will borrow £75.9 billion next year whereas he previously forecast he would borrow £68.7 billion.
That is not "£75 billion more than he forecast". It is £7.2 billion more than forecast. He has required, very roughly, about 10% more borrowing than he forecast. Given the already vast size of our national debt pile, and the fact that Labour would cheerfully have borrowed rather a lot more than this in order to 'stimulate' the economy, I really don't think this is the howling great piece of incompetence the Tory hat3rz want it to be.
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Thanks for that Chris. I'm still somewhat unclear about this.
According to the Telegraph in 2010 Mr Osborne stated that he would commit to a mandate of removing the structural current deficit - which adjusts for the effect of the economic cycle and ignores investment spending - and start cutting into the national debt by 2015/16. However, he added that
he would achieve this goal a year earlier than expected. The emergency Budget committed to some £40bn of annual cuts in the deficit by the final year of the Parliament, on top of the £73bn inherited from the previous Government.
As far as I can tell, and I'm happy to be advised to the contrary, he has managed neither of these stated goals and is continuing to borrow in an ongoing attempt to do so.
Therefore is it not a fair point made by the independant and others that this is additional borrowing beyond that which the chancellor obviously thought he required back in 2010 to honour his undertakings?
EDIT:
Sorry Hugh, I was posting as you posted. Yes, that's my line of thought on it - thanks for condensing and clarifying for me. I was getting bogged down trying to explain. As I said, not my forte. Thanks, sir.