Gosling's Grouse: Has the Chancellor come of age?

GOSLING'S GROUSE

In a speech two minutes short of an hour, George Osborne at times sounded like a headmaster sending a young pupil out into the big wide world of work.

Was he remembering his own final days at school when he was told about ‘earning his way in the world'? We may never know, but certainly for his third budget Osborne repeated on a number of occasions his desire for Britain to pay its way and tried to compare the country's economy with those of China, Brazil and India. And indeed he revealed that last year the UK exported more to Ireland than it did to the four BRIC nations combined and he committed to improving exports. But where are those exports going to come from? Sadly some of it will be more versions of Downton Abbey and what h...