Correct...
https://twitter.com/George_Osborne/status/314343067505270784
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has joined the swelled ranks of politicos and media bods on Twitter today, ahead of his Budget Statement at lunchtime - which is expected to be one of the bleakest in years. 'This is what they call a selfie, right?' The Register suspects that Osbo is too busy with his abacus today …
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Seriously though, how much paperwork actually exists inside a government these days? Enquiring minds need to know...
Ministers all still have red boxes, and get their homework put in them to do each night. See all the gags in Yes Minister about it for details.
So I'd imagine they're mostly on paper reports. Given the amount, and varied nature, of the information that ministers have to absorb, paper is probably the most efficient way to deal with it. Obviously they have to have a large support staff to make this work, but top ministers have so much information to go through that single person, that it would be impossible for them to manage the infomation flow themselves.
Gotta love the picture. Paper and pen?
I want to see a Chancellor using some sort of advanced visualisation tool so he can see the effects of decisions.
Of course, he's just a person who presents and rubber stamps the ideas of advisers in reality. So he actually looks like he is marking their homework in that picture. Sadly I don't think he's writing "E - Must Try Harder" or "See Me" on it.
The Treasury have got a really advanced visualisation machine. They've got a model of the British economy done in plumbing. You open and close different valves, to show the effect of tax/spending changes and see what happens.
Quick Wikipedia link (it came up first) here. Sadly looks like the Treasury don't have one, I'm sure they still did in the 90s, but there's one in the Science Museum.
In reality I'm sure the Chancellor doesn't get to play with the spreadsheets / models. He just gets fat reports with predictions of what effects changes will have.
I'm sure Osborne's got a grasp of basic economics. The correct answer to the current mess is unknown, as there's not really been a crisis like this. The 1930s Depression was different, for various important reasons.
It's obviously easy for Ed Balls to say that if he'd been in charge things would have been different. But without access to a time machine, or the correct parallel universe, it's impossible to know for certain.
Although one thing that I find constantly amazing is just how many Keynesians we've got kicking around now the world economy is in the toilet, who entirely failed to be Keynesian during the boom (i.e. spending cuts in the boom to limit bubbles - allowing for large borrowing during busts). Were Keynes around today I'm sure he'd make some great suggestions, as he seemed to be a genius, but I'm also sure he'd have been doing a lot of re-writing of his theories, given the experience of the last 50 years.
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Seems an odd decision to join Twitter on the day of the budget (which isn't likely to be a 'nice' one with juicy, popular tax cuts). It'll just be full of abuse. Or they'll have to employ 10 extra people to delete it all.
Unless the Chancellor wants to perch on the front bench with his phone and tweet abuse at the leader of the opposition as he gives the budget response. Perhaps one of those apps that makes him sound like he's on helium?