Bloody Foreigners!
Posted on December 1st, 2015
By Rab Bruce’s Spider
An article published by the Guardian today suggests that George Osborn’s long term economic plan is dependent on net immigration continuing to rise. Without the increased number of foreigners coming to the UK and boosting the economy, his daft and illogical insistence on attaining a budget surplus looks difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
There are a few points to consider here. First of all, the Tories famously pledged to reduce immigration yet seem to be basing their long term economic plan on increasing it. Some might call that hypocrisy; others might call it merely another Tory U-turn. However, the forecast produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) does suggest that the majority of these immigrants will find work in the UK, which is also rather at odds with the media view, as espoused by UKIP and many Tories, that immigrants place a strain on our Social Security system because they are only coming here to claim Benefits.
The other thing to remember is that the OBR never get any forecasts correct. As the Guardian article points out, they have now increased their estimate of the amount of net immigration twice in the past eight months. And wouldn’t you know it, the last increase just so happened to be exactly the right number required to allow George Osborne to backtrack on his cuts to Working Tax Credits. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
What does all this tell us? Not much, except that it confirms the OBR are just another Tory institution and that the UK Government will use any tricks it can in order to mislead the public into thinking it actually has a viable economic policy. But we knew that already, didn’t we?
