George Osborne’s jubilant ‘yes, but’ Autumn Statement

Just because George Osborne had some very good figures indeed to read out at today’s Autumn Statement doesn’t mean that he had an easy job. There’s Labour’s campaign on the cost of living, which the Chancellor and his colleagues have given enough ground to that it has credence. Then there are the worries of his senior colleagues that Osborne might ‘bank’ the recovery too early.

But Osborne did deliver a statement that addressed all these concerns. Threaded through it was a ‘look how wrong they were’ theme of the Chancellor outlining those predictions of doom from the Labour benches about the effects of the government’s economic policy, and contrasting them with the reality:

‘Mr Speaker, there were those who said it was a “fantasy” to believe that businesses could create jobs more quickly than the public sector would have to lose them.

‘What they should have said is that it would be fantastic if it happened. So