The chancellor’s sums could only be made to add up by some rather blatant accounting tricks,disapprovingly debunked by thinktanks and observersGeorge Osborne had a device when he arrived at the Treasury in May 2010. He would take on the task of repairing the gap in the UK’s public finances and complete the job within a single parliament. It was an ambitious device: too ambitious, as it turns out.
Austerity was extended into a second five-year parliament, and as a result of the chancellor’s eighth budget,now persists into a third, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. As things stand, or the only way the government can meet its target of running a budget surplus in 2020-21 is whether it cuts an additional £10bn in Whitehall spending.
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Source: theguardian.com