The Daily Telegraph, November 18, Professor Patrick Minford
As the Autumn Statement bears down on us, Britain’s economic prospects look grim indeed. On consensus forecasts, including my group at Cardiff, growth of GDP will hardly rise above zero.
This has two implications. First, that household incomes will stagnate. Second, given minimum demands for rising public services, public finances will deteriorate, with the debt-to-GDP ratio rising steadily over the next decade, after a brief decline fuelled by massive recent tax increases.
This Government was warned by a broad range of economists that their policies would damage growth and they would have done much better by keeping taxes down and putting growth first.
This would have meant borrowing more in the short run but far less in the long run. This was the position of the Truss government, which was heavily opposed by a coalition of Left-leaning economic commentators, the Treasury, the Bank, and a large section of the Tory party.
This opposition succeeded in destroying her government. Yet, as the facts come in, the Truss position has proved to be right.
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