Fisking George Osborne’s ‘hard truths’ speech

Today, George Osborne used a speech to administer what he called ‘hard truths’ about the economy. But in some cases, the truth was even harder than he let on. Here is a Fisk of his speech…

1. Size matters — ‘Government is going to have to be permanently smaller – and so too is the welfare system.’ 

This phrase — ‘permanently smaller’ — is designed to appeal to Conservatives. But in isolation, it’s pretty meaningless: smaller than what? The Brown peak? The below graph tells the story. The size of the British government (in red) used to be around average for a developed country (in blue). Gordon Brown’s massive achievement was the Europeanisation of the British economy – he bet that the Tories would be too scared to unwind what he did. That the gap between the red and the blue would not close. As things stand, Osborne’s plan is that, by 2015, he’ll be back to where Brown was in 2007, before the crash…

2.