Brexiteers are very fond of telling us that 90% of world growth will come from outside the EU. But how do they know this? The figure comes from a written answer in the EU parliament on 18th March 2016 (HERE). It was provided by Pierre Moscovici, the EU commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs.
How very odd that figures are from the EU are treated as tablets of stone onto which holy writ has been carefully chiselled while anything our own government's provides in the way of economic figures and forecasts are rubished even before they're published officially.
Steve Baker, a minister in HM government and foam flecked Brexiteer says (HERE) in the House of Commons when asked by the Tory MP and leave campaigner William Wragg if he could name a single civil service forecast “leaked or otherwise” that had been proved accurate, the minister responded:
"No, I’m not able to name an accurate forecast, and I think they are always wrong and wrong for good reasons. My longstanding views on the flaws in the epistemology of the social sciences and consequences for econometrics are long set out.”
He was later forced to apologise but we know what he thinks about Whitehall forecasts. Strange then that he said in debate on 30th January this year (HERE Column 689):
"multiple authorities, including the European Commission, have admitted that 90% of the world’s growth will come from [the rest of the worlds's growth]".
Strange that such a Eurosceptic believes the EU rather than our own Treasury. Is he doing the country down or is it just a bit of confirmation bias? I leave you to choose.
