European bogeymen
Michael Gove said ‘remain’ campaigners were spreading tales of bogeymen. But what is a bogeyman? Appropriately enough, the concept of an imagined monster is a pan-European concept which has exercised the right to free movement for centuries.
— The boggel-mann has been terrifying children in Germanic cultures since the Middle Ages, as has the bussemand in Scandinavian countries. In Dutch, he became the boeman.
— Middle English had its bugge-man and Scotland its boggarts — the latter suggesting a possible connection with marshy ground. But possibly the earliest bogeyman was bugibu, a monster in a French poem written in the 1140s.
Reversed forecasts
A Treasury report claimed that leaving the EU would leave the UK economy 6% smaller by 2030. Can the Treasury forecast GDP a year ahead, let alone 14 years ahead? Some previous efforts:
| Previous year’s prediction | |
| 2008 | 2.5-3% |
| 2009 | 4-6 mths |
| 2010 | 2.25%-2.75% |
| 2011 | 2.3% |
| Outcome | |
| 2008 | -4.2% |
| 2009 | -1.3% |
| 2010 | 1.8% |
| 2011 | 2.1% |
After that, the Treasury handed predicting growth to the OBR.
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