Osborne’s claim that without austerity world markets would be spooked about the UK defaulting on its debt, and so charge us higher interest rates on loans, was always nonsense. It was never going to happen as, again: a) there were no other comparatively safe havens for speculators’ money, and b) most importantly, the Bank of England can ‘print’ limitless amounts of money if needs be (although because markets know it can do this it doesn’t actually have to do it), and, related to this, c) the British government has never failed to repay its creditors.
