March of the makers remains a figment of Osborne's imagination

Five years on from pledge to rebalance the economy, manufacturing output is no higher than in 2011, with sector officially back in recession

A Britain "carried aloft by the march of the makers". That was the country George Osborne envisaged in the peroration to his 2011 budget speech. The message from the chancellor was clear; gone were the days when the economy relied on debt-fuelled spending. The clock was being turned back to the days when Britain actually made stuff.

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