When George Osborne set up the Office for Budget Responsibility in May 2010, he declared that it would “remove the temptation to fiddle the figures by giving up control over the economic and fiscal forecast”. The then chancellor added, presciently: “I recognise that this will create a rod for my back down the line, and for the backs of future chancellors. That is the whole point. We need to fix the Budget to fit the figures, not fix the figures to fit the Budget.”
So it has proved. Mr Osborne seems a veritable God of fiscal rectitude by comparison with the present incumbents, and indeed he has now been disowned by Liz Truss and her diminishing but loud band of zealots: these are, after all, people who absurdly claim the market chaos was because investors feared Keir Starmer becoming prime minister. (The 33-point Labour poll lead has strangely coincided with a modest stabilisation of sterling.)
Mr Osborne’s aim was for the OBR to help burnish the UK’s credibility in financial markets; and to keep future administrations “honest”. He had in mind the possibility of a radical Labour Party running up debts by indulging in unfunded commitments; little did he realise that a radical populist Conservative government would be the one dismantling the “guard rails”.
