Reasons to doubt Brown's proposal - 4

Yesterday the Dizzy Thinks website provided a useful service. It listed Brown's forecasts of budget deficits for immediate and more distant years.

Forecast Budget deficits 2003-211, by date made

			Forecasts	£ billions
Year concerned	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
2003	27
2004	24	34
2005	23	33	34
2006	22	29	32	37
2007	22	28	29	36	35
2008		24	27	30	34
2009		24	24	25	30
2010				24	28
2011				23	26

I have produced his figures in tabular form, where he has graphs.

What emerges in both cases is that Brown as a forecaster consistently under-forecasts future deficits. He is either an optimist or a deceiver.

Consistently future years' deficits are revised upwards as we get nearer. We would expect to be more accurate the shorter the time period, as things change and information becomes available.

The consistent undervaluing of future deficits, and need for revision upwards is very marked, however. Could it be that things had gone downhill much earlier than we thought, and Brown couldn't see it?

Whatever the explanation, it is worrying, and raises the question of what value his forecasts have. Take the forecasts for 2006, for instance. In 2003 he forecast a deficit in 2006 of £22 billion, in 2004 of £29 billion, in 2005 of £32 billion, and in 2006 itself of £36 billion. The figure was well on the way to doubling over four years. It is clear that reading down the columns the figures become smaller, suggesting either an eternal optimist - things will get better, or someone who does not like to admit the truth.

Dizzy does not record the actual budget deficits, and I do not have the figures, but upward revisions suggest that even for the immediate year his forecasts are not very accurate.

All this from our economic wizard, who forecast for 2008 a deficit of £34 billion, but which is now turning out to be anything up to £100 billion,

How much faith can e put in any of his figures?