Better to inherit a home than start a business in Osborne.uk | Will Hutton

The chancellor of the exchequer claims he wants to double exports by 2020, but his budget gives little indication as to how that might happen

Incomes per head in the west have grown by broadly 40 times over the past 250 years. Economic historians compete with each other for explanations, though none but the very idiosyncratic argues that the key determinant was tight control of the national debt . Rather, the driver is a combination of institutions, rule of law and competition that best fosters human beings exploiting the astonishing and unfolding fruits of science, technology, ingenuity and innovation.

In this context, George Osborne's simultaneously much lauded and deplored "big budget" last week is largely irrelevant, if not actively unhelpful. His book-keeper's obsession with boxing the economy and society into whatever shape will best deliver a budget surplus by the end of the decade while preserving as much party advantage as possible will damage the country he purports to serve. Lower tax and lower welfare may be desirable for ideological purposes, but any linkage they may have with high wages, greater productivity or investment is at best indirect, at worst, barely existent. Mr Osborne is selling both party and country a false prospectus.

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