2016-04-24telegraph.co.uk

... this document could have been produced by Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Unusually for a newspaper pundit, perhaps, I'm a trained economist. And in all my many years of studying official economic documents -- budgets, comprehensive spending reviews and the like -- through all that sifting and weighing of fine-print, I've never come across methodology and assumptions so blatantly rigged.

...

So the extent to which we are "poorer", a "fact" wielded many times by the Chancellor and to be used many times again, is a bogus calculation of what is anyway a bogus concept. And, on top of that, it is driven by differing GDP projections that are, in themselves, deeply dishonest. It is just about credible, whatever the difficulties, to have a stab at a long-term GDP projection -- as long as it's not presented as "fact" of course.

... Those of us backing Brexit aren't "economically illiterate", Mr Osborne. This Treasury document, though, including no possible Brexit benefits, and entirely ignoring the growing prospect of another systemic eurozone crisis, is deeply disingenuous -- doing a disservice to our democracy.



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