The Spring Statement
how to avoid an annual spring farce
“...one step ahead of the shoe shine — Two steps away from the county line…”
So sung Simon and Garfunkel back in 1970, in “Keep the Customer Satisfied”. The shoe shine means the police (who always have shiny shoes), and the county line is the ability to evade local police, by moving outside their jurisdiction.
Moving around, trying to make ends meet, not always able to stay on the right side of the rules… sounds to me like Rachel Reeves’ fancy footwork to keep one step ahead of the OBR. Last autumn she was £9.9bn ahead - which really is no more than one step. By the spring, events meant she was £15bn behind, and the spring statement puts her one step ahead of the shoe shine once again.
This jumping around will happen twice a year - because the OBR is obliged, by law, to give a pronouncement twice a year.
Given that the budget surplus is the difference between two big numbers, both with large short run fluctuations, this number will be volatile. Even more so given that it is based on forecasts and projections that are genuinely hard to make with any reliability at the best of times - and these are not the best of times.
All in all, it is close to a coin-toss whether the Chancellor will be on the right side of the line on any given day.
How can we make the system work better? I have an idea…