George Osborne is blowing bubbles

In opposition, George Osborne said that you cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis. In government, he has proved it. Since entering No. 11 Downing Street, his strategy has been to talk sternly about austerity while borrowing more than anyone else in Europe. With every budget he has presented, the deadline for balancing the books has slipped further forward — now it’s 2020. Britain’s AAA credit rating has gone, we’re paying billions more in debt interest payments as a result. The Chancellor has brilliantly spun all this as the problems of austerity rather than his own profligacy, but for three years he has had no good news to report. Until now.

The British economy seems to be springing back to life in a way no one predicted. Tax receipts are flooding into the Treasury twice as fast as expected. The International Monetary Fund has doubled its growth forecast for Britain.