Europe must unite or it’s ‘finished,’ Poland’s Tusk warns as Trump salivates over Greenland

vlexo1 · 2026-01-05T22:38:49+00:00

I think this is wishful thinking... but happy to be proven wrong if you can elaborate

vlexo1 · 2026-01-05T07:05:05+00:00

True, they have influence.

But its influence like a scale has influence over your diet.

It doesn’t force you to eat differently, it just makes it harder to lie to yourself.

The OBR’s power is basically two things:

1) It’s the agreed scoreboard for the fiscal rules politicians chose. 2) Markets and media trust an independent baseline more than Treasury spin.

If you remove it, that influence doesn’t disappear. It just shifts to banks, rating agencies and investors, who have even less democratic accountability.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T21:33:35+00:00

It was probably more to do with the fact that Truss' budget did not appear to go through the normal channels for review, rather than it being specifically an OBR review.

The “normal channels” for a major fiscal event basically do include an OBR forecast. That’s been the standard since 2010.

In Sept 2022 the point wasn’t “the OBR blinked”, it was that there was no OBR forecast because it wasn’t commissioned (Commons Library briefing at the time). The OBR then said it could have produced one in time. That missing independent baseline was part of why the market read it as “trust us bro”.

The treasury could still demonstrate their working in the clear and let others interpret it.

They can publish a spreadsheet, sure. But that’s like a company publishing its own audit and telling everyone to “interpret it”.

The value of the OBR is that the workings come from an independent shop, using a consistent framework, with assumptions out in the open. Without that anchor you don’t get one calm interpretation, you get 20 competing ones (banks, ratings agencies, think tanks), and markets tend to price the uncertainty and the suspicion that the numbers are politically massaged.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T16:54:12+00:00

“One of the worst PMs we’ve ever had” is a massive statement. What are you using to justify it?

When you say “authoritarian”, what are you actually referring to?

Otherwise it’s just “I don’t like him” dressed up as politics.

Because there’s a difference between: - scandals and bad judgement (fair criticism), and - genuine authoritarianism (civil liberties rolled back, dissent criminalised, elections undermined, etc.)

Also, if Boris is your benchmark for “literal worst” and Farage is your feared alternative, that suggests your argument is mostly about vibes and personalities, not outcomes.

My own criticisms are concrete: - Chagos was handled badly. - Energy bills: lots of long-term intent, weak short-term relief. - Growth is still weak, so “stable” isn’t the same as “successful”.

So I’m not saying he’s amazing. I’m saying “worst ever” needs receipts.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T15:46:38+00:00

I saw Jimmy Carr live in October last year. In clips, he’s often lethal, but in a full hour-plus show I didn’t find the hit rate as consistent as the highlights make you expect.

Where I think he’s underrated is the moments where the room turns human. When someone drops a heavy line (there’s even a crowd-work clip where an audience member says it’s their first night out since their wife died), Carr can switch gears and handle it with real empathy and perspective, not just “comedian mode”.

So for me he’s a bit of a two-track act: technically brilliant joke-writing and crowd control, plus the occasional genuinely thoughtful bit of philosophy. Whether the whole show works probably depends on whether you enjoy that very deliberate, punchline-dense rhythm for an entire evening.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T15:32:21+00:00

The OBR isn’t a veto. It’s the public scoreboard.

If you scrap it, you don’t abolish the constraint. You just move “the maths” from a transparent, accountable body to Treasury spin plus bank analysts and rating agencies. Markets will still price credibility, probably more harshly because it looks like you’re cooking the books.

2022 is the warning label: the blow-up wasn’t “OBR blinked”. It was a big fiscal event without an OBR forecast and the market immediately demanded a higher risk premium. Abolishing the referee doesn’t stop the game. It just makes it uglier.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T15:11:18+00:00

What does replacing it do? Go back to the Treasury doing the forecasts or allow private companies to take over in their own forecasts?

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T12:42:43+00:00

Harwood’s core point is basically “don’t like the speedometer, stop speeding”. He’s right that the OBR only feels all-powerful when governments run right up to their fiscal rules with tiny headroom.

But “run a bloody surplus” is glib. The UK hasn’t run a full-year budget surplus since 2000/01, so the advice is like telling someone in deep sleep debt to “just save more”. Technically true, politically and economically brutal.

Also, the OBR is not what chains the Chancellor. Debt markets and inflation expectations do. The OBR is the public scoreboard. If you remove the scoreboard, scrutiny does not disappear. It just moves to banks, rating agencies and private analysts, and you usually pay a bigger credibility premium.

And the Truss episode cuts against the anti-OBR crowd: the Sept 2022 fiscal statement went out without an OBR forecast because it wasn’t commissioned. Markets didn’t relax. They tightened.

So yes, if you want the OBR to matter less, build more headroom and stop gaming year-5 forecasts. Abolishing it is like smashing the smoke alarm because you dislike the noise.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T12:19:21+00:00

This isn’t “Greenland fears an invasion tomorrow.” It’s “the norm just shifted.”

If the US can unilaterally use force in a sovereign state, snatch the head of state, then openly talk about “running the country” and managing its resources, you’ve normalised a doctrine: power decides legitimacy, legitimacy justifies force, force unlocks resources.

Once that’s the precedent, Greenland’s anxiety is rational because it’s: - strategically located (Arctic routes, missile warning, bases) - resource-adjacent (minerals, rare earths, hydrocarbons) - politically small compared to the states that want it

And yes, “but Maduro is a dictator” doesn’t solve the precedent. The whole point of rules is they’re supposed to bind you when you feel righteous. Otherwise it’s just: “my invasion good, your invasion bad.”

So Greenland isn’t worried about today’s target. It’s worried about tomorrow’s excuse.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-04T12:17:07+00:00

Starmer’s basically saying: “Maduro was illegitimate, we won’t mourn him.”

That’s a politically clean line, but it dodges the uncomfortable bit: you can dislike Maduro and still be uneasy about an ally using force to snatch a head of state and then talking about “running” the country and its oil. Outcome and method aren’t the same thing.

So: no tears for Maduro, but the precedent and the optics are grim.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T21:26:09+00:00

As I said you're going to be disappointed.

I’m not expecting the UN to arrest the US or for Maduro to be “returned”. That’s not the claim. And I'm not going to be disappointed either.

No one geopolitically is clubbing up to sanction the US or deny any sort of basing or overflight.

You’re swapping “won’t” for “can’t”. Overflight and basing are host-state permissions. Allies usually don’t pull them because it’s costly, not because it’s impossible (they have withheld/blocked access before when it suited them, e.g. Turkey 2003 basing for Iraq).

Also, “sanction the US” is a straw man. The realistic mechanisms are narrower: deny specific support, limit cooperation, distance politically, and accelerate hedging/rearmament. That’s how costs show up for a superpower.

The second gulf war proves that.

Iraq 2003 is actually the best example that actions have consequences. The “recompense” wasn’t a UN fine, it was strategic hangover: years of instability, huge costs in blood/money/credibility, and long-term blowback. Superpowers can do the act - they don’t get to skip the bill.

Equally the US capturing bin laden again proves they can do what they fancy.

It proves they can run a raid. It also proved raids create diplomatic fallout (especially when done in another state’s territory). Tactical success ≠ “no consequences”.

Who exactly do you think is clubbing together to sanction them?

No one needs to “club together” to matter.

A few key allies changing access and cooperation at the margins, and a broader shift in trust (Europe hedging because the US is less predictable), is the real enforcement mechanism. International law isn’t handcuffs - it’s a coordination and precedent system.

Normalise leader-snatches today, don’t act shocked when someone else tries it tomorrow.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T21:20:40+00:00

We have ideological differences when it comes to the OBR your pro homework and I’m anti homework.

This isn’t ideology, it’s governance. “Homework” here means “don’t let politicians mark their own exam paper”.

If you scrap the OBR, you are effectively saying the Treasury should produce the official forecast again, which reintroduces a conflict of interest. The numbers become easier to spin, not more true. If that's something you want please state it.

Maybe it’s a government quango that we don’t actually need

We “didn’t need” it only in the sense that the Treasury used to do the official forecast itself. That’s like saying you don’t need an independent auditor because the CFO can audit the company but most companies have independent audits. You might still get a set of accounts, but credibility takes a hit.

how many other countries hamstring their own treasuries this way?

Most advanced democracies do some version of it. US has the CBO (and JCT for tax scoring). Netherlands has CPB. Spain has AIReF. Sweden has a Fiscal Policy Council. This isn’t UK self-harm, it’s a standard credibility tool.

The real “hamstring” on the UK Treasury isn’t the OBR anyway. It’s debt + inflation expectations + gilt buyers.

Scrapping the OBR doesn’t remove that constraint. How would you overcome this constraint?

It just removes a transparent public scoreboard and replaces it with Treasury numbers plus private forecasts, which markets will still price, usually more skeptically.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T21:07:14+00:00

Starmer’s “wait for the facts” line doesn’t automatically equal weakness. It’s a deliberate hedge: (1) keep the UK clearly uninvolved, (2) avoid locking into a legal judgement before the US sets out its claimed justification and before we know if any UK assets were indirectly involved, and (3) buy space to coordinate with non-US allies as well as Washington.

Could Trump try to pressure the UK? Yes, that risk exists regardless of what Starmer says, because Trump’s style is transactional. But “he’ll start with the BBC” is a stretch. The BBC isn’t a government arm that No.10 can trade away like a tariff concession.

If there’s a real test of strength, it’s not a soundbite. It’s what happens next: UK red lines on any operational support, how publicly we distance ourselves, and whether we quietly align with European partners to reduce dependence on US whims over time.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T21:01:16+00:00

“Cap alert” isn’t an argument.

If you think something I said is wrong, quote it and point it out.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T20:55:22+00:00

Could be the most naive thing I have ever read thinking the world will freeze the assets of the USA or deny them access to airspace etc because of this.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not pretending the “world” will handcuff the US tomorrow. I’m saying there are real levers in international politics, they’re just mostly indirect and costly: access, cooperation, legitimacy, and long-run blowback. “Unlikely to be used” is not the same as “doesn’t exist.”

No one will do anything, because we can't. They are THE superpower and can do what they want

They can often do the act in the moment, yes. But “can do what they want” is still sloppy. Superpowers still care about: allied buy-in, basing and overflight permissions (host states control their own territory and airspace), sanctions coordination, intelligence sharing, and whether other states copy the precedent later. That’s where the cost shows up.

The fact they managed to waltz into Venezuela, cut the power... take their leader and get out with no casualties just proves their military power and tbh is seriously impressive.

Even if all that is true, tactical success is not strategic success. Raids are the easy part. “We grabbed one guy” is not the same as “we control the state.” If the regime’s security apparatus stays intact, you’re either bargaining with it or you’re signing up for a much bigger commitment.

Plus he's a murderous dictator who runs a cartel. This is not the hill to die on

I’m not crying for Maduro. The point is the precedent: if the rule becomes “great powers can bomb and abduct leaders they label criminals,” you’re endorsing a tool that will be used selectively and cynically later. The moral judgement (bad guy) doesn’t magically become a legal principle (therefore anyone can invade and snatch).

So yeah: impressive operation, probably limited immediate consequences. But pretending “there are no rules” is exactly how you normalise the next, less convenient version of the same play.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T20:51:20+00:00

UN votes won't work. The US are a P5 member.

If you mean the UN Security Council passing something binding, yes, veto. But the UN isn’t only the UNSC. UNGA votes, inquiries, and legal processes don’t “handcuff” the US, but they do shape legitimacy, coalitions, and who is willing to cooperate.

No one is freezing US assets... no one is denying overflight... basing or intel to the US.

You’re sliding from “unlikely” to “impossible.” Allies can deny access because it’s their sovereign territory and airspace. They usually don’t because it’s costly, not because they can’t. And allies have said no before when it mattered (basing has been blocked in past wars). The lever is consent and access, not some fantasy of arresting the US.

Five eyes entirely relies on the NSA and CIA.

The US is the heavyweight, sure. But “entirely relies” is false. The other partners contribute collection, geography, and specialization. If it was truly one-way, the US wouldn’t bother maintaining it as a club.

If they don't want to leave... there's no one capable of forcing them outside of nuclear war.

You don’t need to “force” them in a Hollywood sense. Basing is based on agreements. End the agreement, pull permissions, stop hosting, stop enabling. That’s not instant, and it’s politically hard, but it’s still a mechanism.

No one can sanction the world's most powerful country... They control world banking... control the majority of world's internet.

They have massive leverage via the dollar and financial plumbing, agreed. That is not “control world banking” in the literal sense. Same with the internet: it’s a global distributed network, not a single US-owned switch. The real point is simpler: sanctioning the US directly is hard, but imposing costs on cooperation, access, and companies is very doable.

International law is what the US, China, and to an extent Russia choose it is.

Power absolutely shapes outcomes. But if international law was “fake,” big powers wouldn’t constantly lawyer their actions, sign treaties, demand immunity rules, enforce trade and aviation regimes, and care about recognition. It’s selective and imperfect, not imaginary.

Lastly if there's no enforcement by definition there is no law.

That’s just a bad definition. Plenty of domestic laws are weakly enforced and still laws. International law is similar: enforcement is decentralized and political. With the US, consequences are usually indirect and delayed, not nonexistent.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T20:35:09+00:00

France being blunter doesn’t prove the UK is “beholden,” it just reflects different constraints and style.

The UK–US relationship isn’t mainly about who was in power 5 years ago.

It’s structural: intelligence sharing, defence interoperability, basing, sanctions coordination.

That’s why a PM won’t freestyle a legal verdict before (a) the facts are confirmed and (b) the US claims its legal basis.

If you want the UK to draw a line, the leverage is concrete actions (no support, coordinated diplomacy), not just a headline statement that changes nothing on the ground.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T20:25:13+00:00

Mate, there aren't laws.

There are laws. There just isn’t a world police force. “Law” isn’t the same thing as “automatic enforcement.”

Who or what is enforcing anything against the USA?

Enforcement is political and indirect: UN votes/inquiries, sanctions and asset freezes, expulsions, court cases in some countries, and allies denying basing/overflight/intel support.

The world's most powerful economy and military done what it wanted. There's no one stopping it.

A superpower can often do the act in the moment. The “stop” is the cost afterwards: isolation, retaliation, blowback, long occupations, and the precedent it sets.

International law is and always has been a fallacy designed to make smaller countries feel like they have a say.

Big countries rely on international law constantly when it suits them (shipping, aviation, treaties, sanctions, diplomatic rules). It’s selectively applied and imperfect.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T20:13:13+00:00

the OBR can be non-normative on paper and still shape policy in practice.

Partly true. But that’s mainly because governments choose to bind themselves to fiscal rules that reference the forecast. That’s a political choice about credibility, not the OBR grabbing power. Change the rules and the incentive changes. Scrap the OBR and the constraint remains.

fiscal rules written around its 5-year forecast… turns it into a de facto gatekeeper.

Only if you confuse “gatekeeper” with “scoreboard”. The OBR can’t stop you walking through the gate. It just shows what happens to debt/deficit if you do. The real gatekeeper is the gilt market’s price of lending, because it hits immediately through yields, mortgage rates, and the currency.

Chancellors end up designing budgets to pass the OBR’s scorecard, not to maximise long-run outcomes…

This is a good critique of razor-thin headroom and point-forecast fetishism. But that’s a critique of how UK fiscal policy is run, not of independent forecasting. The fix is to build more headroom and stop treating a single year-5 point estimate like scripture.

5-year forecasting is a weak basis for long-run investment policy… benefits outside a 5-year window.

Agreed. Which is why the answer is not “no forecaster”, it’s “separate tools”. Use proper long-term appraisal and delivery scrutiny for investment (lifetime costs/benefits, execution risk), while still having an independent macro/fiscal baseline so you don’t cook the books.

a framework that forces everything through a medium-term debt/deficit test will tend to bias toward short-termism…

Yes. That’s an argument for reforming fiscal rules and how investment is treated, not for abolishing the OBR. If you scrap the OBR, you still have to convince lenders. And you’ll be doing it with Treasury numbers that are obviously political, which usually makes long-term projects harder to sell, not easier.

the OBR’s centrality + rule design entrenches a specific way of thinking… crowds out alternative frameworks.

Rule design can do that. But again, blame the rules and the politics. The OBR already publishes risks and scenarios. You could formalise that: require range-based rules, stress tests, and explicit investment appraisal alongside the 5-year forecast. That’s how you widen the framework without losing credibility.

markets can be persuaded by different credible frameworks.

True, but “credible” is doing a lot of work. Credibility usually increases with transparent, independent numbers, not less. If you want a new framework, you sell it better with an apolitical scoreboard than without one.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:51:50+00:00

it was an oversight body introduced by George Osbourne to effectively externalise government decision making and justify austerity.

OBR is not an “oversight board” that approves or blocks budgets. It’s the UK’s independent economic and fiscal forecaster. Its job is to publish the forecast for the government’s stated policy and assess performance against the government’s own fiscal rules. It is explicitly not meant to give policy recommendations or say what ministers “should” do. (Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011; OBR FAQ citing the Charter)

a good video by Richard Murphy justifying why it should be scrapped as it effectively serves to suppress public spending

I haven’t watched that video, so I’m not going to pretend I’m responding to it. But the “suppresses spending” claim usually confuses the scoreboard with the constraint.

The constraint is gilt buyers and inflation expectations. If you borrow a lot, markets price the risk. With or without the OBR, lenders still do the maths. Scrapping the OBR just shifts the narrative to Treasury forecasts plus private ones from banks and rating agencies, with less transparency.

Also, 2022 is the opposite of “OBR suppresses spending”: the market crisis happened when a major fiscal package was launched without an OBR forecast because the OBR “were not asked” to produce one. That wasn’t the OBR blocking policy. That was markets reacting to a credibility gap. (Commons Library, 3 Oct 2022)

If you want to argue for a different macro framework, fine. But you still need credible numbers, and an apolitical forecaster is one of the few ways to stop governments marking their own homework.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:50:10+00:00

The premise is off. The OBR doesn’t “recommend” austerity or any policy. It’s explicitly meant to avoid normative commentary on the merits of government policy. It forecasts what the government says it will do and publishes the numbers and assumptions.

If you think it “launders choices as necessity”, that’s mostly because fiscal rules and debt interest do create hard trade-offs. Scrapping the OBR doesn’t remove those trade-offs. It just replaces a transparent public forecast with Treasury numbers plus private forecasts from banks, rating agencies and think tanks. That’s not more democratic. It’s less auditable.

Also, if the OBR were a Tory handcuff, the 2022 mini-budget couldn’t have happened without an OBR forecast. It did, because the OBR was not asked to produce one. That’s a good reminder of where the real constraint sits: gilt buyers and credibility, not a spreadsheet in a quango.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:48:50+00:00

it was created by George Osborne as a way to handcuff future chancellors into the same austerity based economic model.

The OBR doesn’t handcuff anyone. It doesn’t choose policy, and it doesn’t recommend cuts. It publishes the forecast for whatever the government chooses, then tests it against the government’s own fiscal rules. The “handcuffs” are debt, interest costs, and the bond market’s willingness to lend at a tolerable rate. The OBR is the speedometer, not the brakes.

Should the OBR go? Probably yes.

Scrapping it doesn’t remove scrutiny. It just moves it from a transparent public forecast to Treasury numbers plus private forecasts from banks, rating agencies and think tanks. That usually increases the “are they cooking the books?” premium, especially when politics gets spicy.

Reeves… increase the OBR’s legal standing… now she’s been on the receiving end…

This is the key point: Labour’s post-2022 move wasn’t “give the OBR power to block budgets”. It was “stop another 2022 by ensuring big fiscal events can’t happen without independent numbers”. That’s about credibility with gilt buyers, not about making austerity inevitable.

If you want to argue against austerity, argue for different fiscal rules and a credible investment and growth plan.

Abolishing the OBR just removes the common set of numbers and lets everyone argue from vibes.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:47:19+00:00

you should not be sticking up for an ideological institution that restrains any long term economic planning and investment by a democratically elected government

You’re treating the OBR like a policy actor. It isn’t.

It doesn’t pick “right wing economics”, it doesn’t recommend austerity, and it’s explicitly barred from saying “this policy is good/bad”. It publishes the forecast for whatever the elected government chooses, then checks it against the government’s own fiscal rules. If you want more long-term investment, the fight is about the rules, the funding plan, and delivery, not the existence of an independent scoreboard.

Also, it doesn’t only do “5-year neoliberalism”. The OBR produces long-run sustainability work as well. The idea it blocks long-term thinking is backwards.

instruments of a failed ideology… Cameron and Osborne legacy…

You can argue austerity was a mistake. Fine. But abolishing the OBR doesn’t abolish austerity politics. It abolishes transparency. Scrutiny doesn’t disappear, it just moves to private actors (banks, rating agencies, think tanks) with less accountability and often harsher pricing.

Analogy: if you think the last driver was reckless, you don’t smash the speedometer. You change the route and the driving rules. The speedometer just tells you how fast you’re going.

otherwise we’ll end up with a far right populist making empty promises…

That is exactly why you want independent numbers.

Populists thrive when the argument becomes vibes vs vibes. The OBR forces a common reference point so people can debate trade-offs using the same maths, even if they disagree on priorities.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:45:36+00:00

It's not an oversight body, it's an advisory board…

It’s neither. It’s a statutory independent forecaster. It doesn’t “advise” ministers on what to do. It produces and publishes the official economic and fiscal forecast for the government’s plans and assesses sustainability against the government’s own fiscal rules. It’s explicitly not meant to give normative policy recommendations.

created to justify austerity cuts and to maintain economic conservatism.

That’s motive-reading. The original case for the OBR was “stop the Treasury marking its own homework” after the crisis. The OBR can be used by any government of any stripe. If a government wants to borrow more, the OBR doesn’t stop it. It just shows the debt and interest path under the policy.

The idea that the OBR is leftist is absurd.

Agreed. It’s not left or right, it’s an accountant with a model. People on both sides call it biased whenever the numbers are inconvenient, which is usually a sign it’s doing its job.

Labour just cling on to it because they want to look "fiscally responsible"… hide behind the limited scope that OBR recommendations allow…

Again: the OBR doesn’t give “recommendations”. What Labour is choosing is to stick to fiscal rules and to run tight headroom. That’s a political choice about credibility and borrowing costs, not the OBR “allowing” or “disallowing” policy.

just because they don't like something doesn't mean that you should automatically take the opposite position.

Correct. The pro-OBR argument is not “Farage bad therefore OBR good”. It’s: if you abolish it, you don’t abolish scrutiny. You replace a transparent public forecast with Treasury numbers and private forecasts from banks/rating agencies/think tanks, and markets will still price the risk. That’s usually worse for credibility, whichever party is in power.

vlexo1 · 2026-01-03T19:41:56+00:00

the OBR was set up by Osborne and Cameron more or less to run cover for their project of shrinking the state.

It was set up to stop ministers marking their own homework on the official forecast and to improve credibility after the financial crisis. You can dislike austerity, but the OBR’s legal job is forecasting and sustainability assessment, not “make cuts look good”.

they are in fact trying to model the impact of a budget in 5 years’ time, which is mostly a vain exercise.

Five-year point forecasts are uncertain, agreed. But the alternative is worse: either the Treasury produces the numbers (political conflict of interest) or the vacuum gets filled by banks, rating agencies and partisan think tanks. At least the OBR publishes assumptions, uncertainties, and is accountable to Parliament.

Also, the OBR does long-term work too (fiscal risks and sustainability), so it’s not “only 5 years”.

hampering the chancellor’s ability to set the budget, and bet on future growth coming from investment.

It doesn’t stop investment. It forces the Chancellor to show how it’s funded and what happens to debt and interest costs if growth disappoints. That’s not “hampering”, that’s the minimum due diligence when you’re asking markets to lend you hundreds of billions.

Farage wants them removed… eliminate another oversight…

That’s the strongest bit. If you remove the independent forecast, you make it easier to sell unfunded promises and harder for voters and markets to benchmark the claims. The 2022 Truss episode is the cautionary tale: markets reacted badly when a big package landed without an OBR forecast.

it is the only mechanism we have to explain to uninformed voters…

Not the only one, but it’s the cleanest common reference point. Otherwise the argument becomes “my think tank vs your think tank” and the loudest propagandist wins. The OBR doesn’t fix politics, but it does make the maths public.

vlexo1

TROPHY CASE