THREAD: In all the froth about the less-frosty-than-expected reception of the Chancellor's Budget by his own party, the frightening scale & scope of economic decline in the years ahead is in danger of being missed. 1/6
The size of the downward revision in growth forecasts from just 9 months ago is astonishing, at a time when growth is recovering elsewhere in the world economy. As @EdConwaySky notes, these are the bleakest 5-year forecasts in modern UK economic history. 2/6 
The projections for workers' pay make for especially grim reading, revised down considerably since March. Pay will now not return to pre-Crash levels until 2025 at the earliest. 3/6
(Chart via @MattWhittakerRF)
(Chart via @MattWhittakerRF)
UK productivity has had a decade of stagnation, while our competitors have seen theirs increase. It is the central crisis of the UK economy, the driver of our growth, pay & debt challenges, yet there was little yesterday to suggest the Government has recognised this. 4/6
The UK's balance of payments problem is acute, and despite the fall in Sterling after the Brexit vote, shows no signs of improving. We are a proud trading nation with a profound crisis in our trade balance. 5/6
These crises didn't start with this Govt, though Brexit is making them worse. But the utterly dismal economic forecasts partly reflect the catastrophic failure of austerity as an economic strategy. We now need to work together, across divides, to reform how our economy works. 6/6
