Austerity: an idea on trial | Editorial

The past week has been a particularly bad one for George Osborne and advocates of the Reinhart-Rogoff approach Over the past week, a series of blows have been dealt to George Osborne's reputation. First, the IMF's chief economist warned that the chancellor's austerity programme was "playing with fire". Then the latest unemployment figures indicated that the jobs market may be about to turn significantly for the worse. The week ended with another credit rating agency stripping Britain of its AAA ...