Once, journalists trawled the Red Book (ie, the Budget statement) for stories. Now, the Office for Budget Responsibilities does this for us. There will be plenty in it for Brexiteers and Remainers. The former will be delighted that the OBR pretty much trashes the main assumptions made in HM Treasury’s now-notorious dossier on jobs, recession, house prices etc. But then again the OBR estimates a Brexit effect on the deficit: £3bn this year, peaking at £15.4bn in 2018/19. This has delighted Remain campaigners who now, at long last, have ammunition to write about the costs of Brexit – especially if you add the figures together and come up with a £50-odd billion Brexit effect. Expect plenty of this in the papers tomorrow.
The last year has taught us to take economists’ (and pollsters’) forecasts with a pinch of salt. The OBR has been wrong about jobs, about growth – its director, Robert Chote, likes to say that he knows each set of forecasts will be wrong.
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