Are you implementing unpopular public sector reforms? Would you benefit from political cover from a supposedly “independent” body? Simply follow the following recipe from British Sous-Chef Chancellor George Osborne. You will need: One septuagenarian economist or one disgruntled Blairite A group of Treasury civil servants One laser printer Some Blu-Tac A name for the new organisation (including the [...]
Tag Archives: office for budget responsibility
Resigning OBR chief Alan Budd describes "nightmare" Tory economic policies in archive video
Scrapbook’s exclusive last week exposed the Office for Budget Responsibility as a gimmicky re-branding of the Treasury office which produced economic forecasts for previous budgets. The subsequent resignation of Alan Budd has not only left George Osborne in the position of selecting the next leader of this, um, completely independent body but has set tongues wagging as to why its chief [...]
The "independent" Office for Budget Responsibility: the same economists in exactly the same room!
George Osborne’s much-vaunted Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was supposedly set up to guarantee the “independence and integrity” of growth and borrowing figures which, he claimed, had been subject to “fiddling” under Labour. Revelations that the OBR is is staffed by exactly the same Treasury economists that produced data slammed by Osborne have only strengthened claims that the [...]
