Rock star former Greek finance minister and self confessed “unapologetic Marxist” Yanis Varoufakis used his slot on Question Time last night to compliment George Osborne for not actually implementing austerity.

“I don’t believe that we need an alternative to austerity because austerity is not an option. And indeed, I’m going to give a compliment to George Osborne and to the Tory government, it’s going to create some consternation I think in the Tory party. He hasn’t really practiced austerity, he’s talked about austerity, he did a little bit of it and then it didn’t work. He killed off this nascent recovery after 2009 with the little bit of austerity he did and he stopped, and indeed I can assure you that in discussions I have with good friends of mine in the Tory party, they have been very supportive to us here in Greece and to me personally in our struggle to end austerity in Greece.”

Varoufakis is right, Osborne jacked up welfare spending by £28 billion during his first four years on the job and is still overspending by £2 billion a week. In office Varoufakis, a socialist Greek finance minister, was more of a deficit hawk than the Conservative British Chancellor, Osborne’s austerity is only rhetorical, he is currently running a higher deficit than Greece…