Remember that the core mission of the coalition in 2010 was to deal with the deficit? We were repeatedly warned by George Osborne that after Gordon Brown’s financial splurge, Britain risked having a bigger deficit than Greece. After 5 years of Osborne’s deficit cutting rhetoric, Britain really does have a deficit that is bigger than Greece’s, in fact as a proportion of GDP the IMF expects the UK deficit to be quadruple that of Greece [chart above]. Next year the IMF expects Greece to be in surplus, the IMF does not expect this government to ever run a surplus… 

In this context is it really sensible for Osborne to be promising a Keynesian splurge on infrastructure? Where is the value-for-borrowed-money in HS2, which will save businessman half-an-hour on the London to Birmingham trip? £50 billion is a big chunk of the deficit.

Some may argue that the deficit is big enough to look after itself. We still have Quantitative Easing to unwind, the international economic outlook is not secure and the government is already overspending by £87 billion-a-year – adding £1,000 to the national debt for every man, woman and child in the land. If the British economy is doing as well as the Chancellor claims, he should be living up to his rhetoric and focusing on paying down the debt by running a surplus, rather than outspending Gordon Brown in his pomp. It has come to something when a socialist Greek finance minister is more of a deficit hawk than a Conservative British Chancellor…

See also: George Osborne Skewered By Kay Burley On Deficit Failure