George Osborne will tonight return from Brussels bringing peace with honour. He says he has agreed to hand over just £850 million to the EU, rather than the £1.7 billion it asked for, as a penalty for having the fastest economic growth in Europe. If true*, how did he wangle it?
I have a theory. He could have told the EU that yes, the UK has pretty strong growth – over 3 per cent this year and next. In theory, this leaves the UK better-able to pay bills. But not this time. Quite the reverse: the deficit is actually going up right now – a bit of an embarrassment for a Chancellor who asked to be judged on his performance on tackling it.
In fact, Britain now stands as the greatest debt addict in Europe. That is to say that we have the worst structural deficit in the whole of the debt-addled European Union as the below graph shows.
There may be a jobs miracle underway, but these new low-paid jobs cost the government almost as much as unemployment due to the way that Treasury’s tax credits are structured.
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