"The second story is that the best performing, big developed economy in the world - that's us by the way, as assessed by speed of GDP growth - is generating far less tax than expected.
And the biggest shortfall, roughly half of it, is in income tax, which reflects the creation of lots of new low wage jobs and the absence of meaningful pay rises for millions."
Um, I fail to see why less income tax was unexpected. The Government was fully aware, as was everybody else, that low wage jobs were the ones being created. This is logical rubbish, nevermind evidently dumb policy.
Should you be short of comedic reading material, the following link is to the 2010 manifestos (see in the Health section for further links to the other parties)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/elec...manifesto.html
The Conservatives undertook to eliminate the bulk of the Deficit by 2015. The deficit has in fact risen slightly. The projected date for eliminating the bulk of the deficit is now 2018/9. In other words, the five year target is still 5 years way. Jam tomorrow.