"Good times for Britain when the chancellor is saved by the Office for Budget Responsibility being slightly more inept than her at a single convenient moment. Following the accidental early publication of the fiscal watchdog's market-sensitive budget document, chair Richard Hughes has now fallen on his sword. Although it's possible he meant to fall on his feet but just mistimed it. On Monday we discovered that the OBR's website is not securely hosted but was built using WordPress."
"Did the chancellor seriously mislead the country about the state of the public finances? That is the 4.2bn question. Are our problems going to turn out to be a whole lot bigger than something that could be addressed with 4.2bn? The answer to that is regrettably too obvious too state. Even so, we must return to the chancellor's endlessly self-referenced black hole, which seems in fact to have been a multibillion-pound surplus."
The Office for Budget Responsibility accidentally published a market-sensitive budget document early, prompting chair Richard Hughes to resign. The OBR's website was found to be insecurely hosted and built using WordPress. The OBR released draft economic assessments in the weeks before the budget, creating conflict with Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Questions emerged whether the Chancellor misled the public about the state of public finances and whether a reported £4.2bn shortfall reflected a larger problem. The supposed fiscal black hole appears to have been a multibillion-pound surplus. A 2019 astrophysics episode reported a massive Milky Way black hole that later proved to be an illusory light effect. The OBR's absence of senior leadership at a Treasury select committee appearance intensified scrutiny of its competence and impartiality.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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