They Just Can't Help Themselves Can They?

Just as not all coppers are bastards it's probably true that not all politicians are liars but George Osborne was certainly economical with the truth in his preamble to the budget. Not only was he economical with the truth but he was also caught out by the OBR and only two people in the House of Commons: Nick Clegg and Yvette Cooper were actually caught on camera realising he was being economical with the truth.

Little lies first, the speech began with the comments that unlike his predecessor and the previous Government everything in this Emergency Budget would be above board and laid out before the house. Except it wasn't, a review of the budget notes revealed that this was all about the big numbers, the tabloid headlines. The notes are full of 'we don't know's' which is fair enough given that they don't know, and I suspect they do know there is a double dip approaching, but a lot of the budget was already in place from Labour. There are very few Conservative ideas in there, apart from the usual Conservative phobia about the public sector and benefits, the 'everybody who is on benefits is evil' mantra must be something Conservative MP's are injected with when they decide to become a member of the party.

This was straight from the 'whose got the biggest cock' school of politics. No wonder Alastair Darling couldn't find much to say, he was probably gobsmacked that most of it was his sodding idea!

But little Georgie couldn't hide the biggest lie could he? No, the big lie was there for everybody to hear except nobody did. Look at the OBR forecasts that are in the budget, they are based on what was in the budget after the budget was announced, that's exactly the opposite of what they were established for. George tried to get round this by making a joke about the new errant paragraph being a vote of confidence in his measures, but nobody knew those measures when he stood up. He quoted directly from the OBR saying that to compare his before and after forecasts would be misleading. That was when the biggest lie was spoken the idea that the Conservatives emergency budget was based on economics rather than politics - like hell it was. This was party politics writ large, why didn't anybody ask the big question? Why didn't somebody ask how expectations of a budget could lead to a higher growth forecast than the budget itself?

This was where Labour showed itself to be off the game, possibly outside of the stadium buying a hot dog. Watching George Osborne speak I was impressed by his tone, it was measured, not too downbeat and not to triumphant but it was based on a political lie rather than economic prudence. Listening to the reductions in annual borrowing was encouraging but knowing that the forecasts had been altered was a little like watching a carpet fitter feeling pleased with himself because he put the right colour down but the wrong size.

50 days in and the use of the OBR has caused the Chancellor to fall flat on his face even before the Finance Bill has the chance to be debated.