Darling’s budget was bad. Osborne’s complicity was worse

There was much that was absurd about Wednesday’s pre-Budget Report, from Alistair Darling’s failure to outline a realistic plan to prevent Britain’s national debt from exploding, to his risibly over-optimistic long-term growth forecasts. Public spending will jump again next year, we’re told. Schools, hospitals and police will be protected from cuts if Labour wins the election — which, plainly, it has not the slightest expectation of doing. This was about political positioning, banker-bashing, with a new bonus tax, and pretending to the electorate that a few efficiency savings and National Insurance tweaks will be enough to rescue Britain. The intention was to deceive voters, with the pain only kicking in after the election.

It is ironic to hear the Chancellor telling the City to ‘start living in the real world’, for his Budget (it tinkered too much to justify being called a ‘Pre-Budget Report’) was a work of pure delusion.