At the Spectator debate on the economic consequences of Mr Osborne last night, Andrew Neil repeated JK Galbraith’s line that ‘economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good.’ The impressive Conservative MP Jesse Norman countered with ‘an economist is a man who knows 17 ways to make love to women – but no women’. Lord Oakeshott, I think, joined the mockery by pointing out that every forecast from the Office of Budget Responsibility had been wrong. Its consistent incompetence, its steady state of stupidity, its unerring unreliability, made it a surprisingly useful institution, however. Whatever it predicted you could be sure the opposite would occur.
How we laughed. But political commentators are no better.
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