An analysis of George Osborne's record on hitting his growth targets

After the coalition government came to power in 2010, chancellor George Osborne laid out his forecasts for growth in GDP (how much the country makes) and reductions in the deficit (when a country's expenditure exceeds its revenue).

Of the eight forecasts the chancellor made, he managed to hit just two of those. In the graphs below, grey shows the forecasts, green indicates when those forecasts were matched, and red indicates when they were missed...

2011

2012

2013

2014

As David Blanchflower, Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, explained in an article for The Independent:

The chancellor has failed the economic test he set himself. Four and a half years later we know the economy hasn’t rebalanced; the country isn’t saving more; it isn’t investing or exporting more. The AAA credit rating is past history.

Enough to make you go...

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