Autumn statement: Why George Osborne's Budget won't be a game changer

Sometimes, reality can be so painful, so scary that nobody wants to accept it, with even intelligent, perceptive people preferring to twist the facts to make them conform to a deluded, make-believe world. George Osborne's greatest problem is that the British economy is stuck in a rut. Photo: Getty Images By Allister Heath 5:38PM GMT 04 Dec 2012 Comments Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance; unkind folk would see it as plain cowardice. What is clear is that such self-deception has reached epidemic proportions when it comes to the economy, and has contaminated all major political parties as well as many professional forecasters. In the absence of shock and awe supply-side and tax...