Economics editors, it’s your job to tell us what’s really behind the budget
by Peter Preston from on (#390Q8)
Press and broadcasting experts should look behind the gloomy OBR forecasts and tell us if the UK really is in a hole this big - and what we can we do about it
What are political correspondents - from Laura, Nick and Robert on down - there for? Not to go to the same old briefings and sing the same old song? Independent judgment is a coverage pearl beyond price?
And what are economics correspondents there for on the big budget outing? Not merely to take the latest Office of Budget Responsibility growth figures and turn them into a uniform tale of woe. As Alex Brummer of the Mail (and before that the Guardian) very reasonably pointed out, the OBR has "a flawed track record" on forecasting- and is glooming a damned sight harder than the Bank of England and IMF.
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