A brief passage in George Osborne’s last Andrew Marr interview stands out: In it, the shadow chancellor heaps praise at the feet of the world’s central banks for preventing financial meltdown.
“But we say the most effective form of stimulus is monetary policy, is the low interest rates, which both here and around the world I think have been the most effective tool at bringing the world back from the brink of depression.”
A statement of the obvious, you might think. But was Osborne playing up the actions of Mervyn King and others to belittle those of Gordon Brown? A Tory MP suggests that this strain could grow louder as the party seeks to rob Brown of the credit for halting the apocalypse.
For some time now I have been asking the Treasury for an explanation of Alistair Darling’s Budget claim that government actions have saved “up to 500,000 jobs”.
My questions:
1] What research is this based on?
2] Is 500,000 at the upper end of a wider range of estimates; eg “350,000 to 500,000″?
3] How much of the 500,000 is down to political action and how much is due to the actions of the Bank of England – ie quantatative easing and interest rate cuts?
It’s been at least three weeks and the Treasury still hasn’t answered the question. Although they say they may provide more detailed analysis later in the autumn.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
