George Osborne’s recovery is in danger: the only option now is to steal Jeremy Corbyn’s clothes

Britain needs a plan to move us away from cheap imports and zero hours contracts. Will the budget deliver?

So the economy is 18bn smaller than we thought. And wages are rising more slowly than we thought. And to hit a budget surplus just before 2020, we need another 4bn cut in public spending. This is not great news for George Osborne going into this week's budget, but it is not his biggest problem.

If you want to understand Osborne's biggest problem, listen to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Engand, who told the G20 summit in Shanghai last month that "the global economy risks becoming trapped in a low-growth, low-inflation, low-interest-rate equilibrium".

Related: The chancellor must be honest about the budget's implications | Letters

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