Government's remedy and austerity medicine appear to be being swallowed, but this treatment will continue for years. The countdown to the election starts here. For George Osborne, his fifth budget, on Wednesday, is an opportunity to rehearse the main Conservative theme for 2015: a severe Labour-induced sickness means the economy remains a suitable case for treatment. This is not quite what Osborne envisaged four years ago. When he took over, the economy was growing briskly and there were hopes that the recession of 2008-09 would be like the others of the postwar era: painful, but relatively short-lived. It didn't ... (full story)