Mike's Minute: Our Prefu numbers are nothing to be proud of

So was this PREFU better than expected as a number of headlines suggested?

Answer: possibly. Possibly not.

What numbers were they looking at?

It's important to point out this is not retrospective. This is not stuff that has happened, therefore cannot be argued with.

This is a projection and the projection comes from Treasury. There are some numbers from their projections to ponder, such as we are not returning to surplus until 2026/27. That is now years after they first suggested they would.

That's strike one.

Strike two is tax revenue is dropping in terms of what they thought it would be.

Strike three is expenses are rising from what they originally thought.

Strike four is debt per GDP is worse.

Strike five is net Government bond issue, which is debt, to 2027 is worse.

Strike six is inflation is higher for longer.

So where is all this good news? Well, they see a little bit more growth.

Unemployment, although going up, isn't going to go up as much as they thought.

And that is about it.

In totality I am not seeing a net score card that is demonstrably better than they thought. When you look at the numbers, at the debt, the spend and the current account deficit, none of it is good at all.

The tired, old line the Government uses about us being not as badly off as others is technically true.

But given there are almost 200 countries in the world, it's not hard to line yourself up against a bunch of economic numpties. It is not aspirational in any way, shape or form to find a collection of failures and pump your tyres up by standing next to them.

The simple reality is there is no hiding from the real danger this economy is in. It is one of the few, among our trading partners with Germany being the other, that has reached recession.

We have spent more, we have borrowed more and we are still nowhere near close to even looking like achieving an annualised surplus.

Our saving grace might, might, be migration and that might lead to a boost in housing and alleviate the labour shortage.

But I think what has happened here is we are so punch drunk, so beaten down by the misery of the economic mess that anything, no matter how meagre, is grasped as some sort of shiny nugget in a desert of economic sand.

When you see where we were, i.e the rock star economy a handful of years ago, and where we are now there is little, if anything, to be proud of.

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