MacroScope

An unusual thing happened on Wednesday amidst all the shouting over British finance minister George Osborne’s autumn budget update which, depending on who you asked, outlined an increasingly dire or healthy state of the UK economy.

On the very near-term economic  outlook at least, officialdom actually sounded more pessimistic than most of even its harshest critics.

Britain’s independent Office for Budget Responsibility said it expects the UK economy will contract in the period ending this month by 0.1 percent — a gloomier forecast than the consensus of economists polled by Reuters, for 0.1 percent growth.

That’s strange because since its 2010 inception, the OBR has been wildly overoptimistic about the UK economy. In June 2010, the OBR thought it would be growing 2.8 percent by now.

Only nine out of 32 economists polled by Reuters last month thought the economy would shrink this quarter. That puts the OBR at the pessimistic end of the range of forecasts. And the OBR is now forecasting the economy will grow just 1.2 percent in 2013 — very close to the 1.1 percent consensus in the poll.

So how was it for you?

Chancellor Alistair Darling threw the dice in his pre-budget report in an attempt to bolster Labour's chances of winning the general election in 2010.

From hitting bankers with a one-off bonus tax to lowering bingo duty, Darling played to the Labour heartlands, while hoping to win back voters who have been telling pollsters that they are done with Gordon Brown.

Other measures included the return of full value added tax in January, a 2.5 percent rise in the basic state pension, a 1.5 percent increase in child benefit, as well as help for small businesses and various initiatives to boost the government’s green credentials.