The deceptions behind George Osborne’s Brexit report

Sometimes, George Osborne’s dishonesty is simply breathtaking. Let’s set aside the way he has positioned himself over the years (if he believed that leaving the European Union ‘would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound’ he might have told us – and his constituents – earlier, rather than proceeding with the farce of renegotiation). But it’s his maths, today, which shames his office – and his use of this maths to make the entirely false suggestion that the Treasury thinks Brexit would make you £4,300 worse off. For anyone who cares about honesty in politics, and the abuse (and reporting) of statistics, this is an interesting case study.

His chosen date is 2030. By then, the UK economy is expected to have grown by around 37 per cent, but the HM Treasury document claims that this would be closer to about 29 per cent growth after Brexit. A fairly straight situation, which Osborne fundamentally misrepresented using two techniques.