“I NEVER make predictions and I never will.”

The twisted logic behind Paul Gascoigne’s famous verbal gaffe should serve as a motto to everyone at the Treasury.

No sooner have we been told that growth is round the corner or we are heading for a budget surplus then the country’s finance experts tear up their plans and set new targets, which will also be missed.

Philip Hammond’s autumn statement revealed that growth forecasts have been revised down, there is a £122bn black hole in finances after the Brexit vote - much higher than feared - and borrowing is back on the agenda.

This was dramatic stuff and a long way from George Osborne’s plan to slash the deficit, which has seen more than one million public sector workers lose their jobs and services cut to the bone. Was all of that pain for nothing?

Six year ago Mr Osborne set up the Office for Budget Responsibility, after scorning Labour’s record on economic forecasting. His subsequent predictions, guided by the OBR, proved to be as trustworthy as Lance Armstrong’s drug tests.

The most recent UK and US General Elections, as well as the EU referendum, stripped bare any lingering perception that pollsters have a clue about how people are going to vote. Economic forecasters are similarly losing their credibility. Just take governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, who last week explained his forward guidance policy by saying: "The thing about forward guidance is that it is guidance that is forward. Which is not to say it is meant to be in any way accurate. Indeed, it would be surprising if it were. The most important thing about forward guidance is that the underlying economic determinants should be correct, not that it should be helpful." Eh?

Mr Hammond spoke of a “long term plan” which included investment pledges in infrastructure, but as a set of measures to help people struggling to get by - categorised by the PM as those who are “just about managing” - this mini-budget offered no certainty of a better future, no coherent economic strategy or clarity on how we manage Brexit, and no measures to help the young unemployed. 

It was predictably disappointing.