This is verbatim the ‘Politics.co.uk’ website, quoting George Osborne:

George Osborne, chancellor, comments on the Moody credit rating agency report:

“It was a reality check for the whole political system that Britain has to deal with its debts, that we can’t waver in the path of dealing with our debts

“This is yet another organisation – in this case a credit ratings agency – warning Britain that if we spend or borrow too much we’re going to lose our credit rating.

“The idea that I’ve abandoned growth is nonsense. Of course I want growth. Of course I want to see unemployment fall. That’s what I spend every day of my life trying to bring about.

“But the truth is this. If you don’t have confidence in a country’s ability to pay its debts — as you have seen with plenty of other European countries — then you get negative growth, rising unemployment and no prospect of recovery.”

 

This is what actually happened if this article is correct (click here). However, it concerns me that the maths of this article is clearly wrong, in that the deficit certainly got worse, but didn’t go anywhere near being doubled.

“Britain’s budget deficit almost doubled in February as taxes fell and spending surged, leaving Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne little room to meet his full-year goal as he prepares to announce the annual budget.

Net borrowing excluding support for banks was 15.2 billion pounds ($24.1 billion), the highest for any February on record, compared with 8.9 billion pounds a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median of 17 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a shortfall of 8 billion pounds.

Osborne has rejected calls to relax his program of cuts, saying warnings from Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service that Britain could lose its top credit rating reinforce the need to stick to his plan to erase the structural deficit by 2017.”

 

And while I am typing this Cameron is lecturing Europe on trade. And the news there is not good if this article is correct (click here).

“UK’s trade deficit in April 2012 was £4.4 billion compared to £3 billion in March due to a slump in both good and services exports.  Cars and chemicals were the industries most affected that led to 8.6% fall in overall exports.

The drop in exports to other European countries dropped by 6.8% in April.  The deficit in trade in goods came at £10.1 billion in April compared to £8.6 billion in March.

At the same time, the services surplus was £5.7bn in April, slightly lower than March’s £5.8bn. A 13% drop in construction output in April due to fall in government projects compounded the bleak economic news.  Analysts are now worried about a third consecutive quarterly contraction in the UK economy.

“With the trade deficit widening in April and construction output again disappointing, the chances of the economy avoiding further contraction in the second quarter are dwindling.” Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight said.  Analysts are especially worried about the drop in exports to countries such as United States, Russia and China as they were unexpected. “

 

No wonder people are gradually not trusting the Conservatives on the economy. People aren’t stupid, I find, if these articles are correct.