Why should we trust the IMF?

It wasn’t an aggrieved business leader, facing a sharply increased wage bill thanks to the Budget, that led the 8 a.m. news bulletin on Radio 4 this morning, but the reassuring verdict of the IMF. ‘We support the envisaged reduction in the deficit over the medium term, including by sustainably raising revenue,’ the body declared. It rather seemed as if the BBC was trying to tell us: never mind the carping from the Tories and other enemies of the government; here is a highly respected, disinterested body of wise men and women telling us that Rachel Reeves’s Budget was great.

To be fair, Nick Robinson did give the Chancellor a proper grilling a few minutes later, taking in Labour’s broken promises on National Insurance and many other things, but does the IMF really deserve to be elevated into the position of delivering the ultimate, defining judgment on the Budget? Let’s just have a look at its record in recent years.