I. Told. You. So.

Is there a name for the special feeling a blogger gets when a national newspaper publishes something that confirms what the blogger said several days beforehand? It’s a sort of doubled-edged feeling, a mixture of smugness at being proved right and resentment that far more people will notice the newspaper article than the blog post, and it blends lofty disdain for the mainstream media with an eagerness for their validation.

Anyway, I said that Tory plans to cut immigration would lead to lower growth and tax receipts than the Office of Budget Responsibility was projecting. And now the FT agrees:

David Cameron’s proposed cap on immigration will stunt economic growth and cost families around £300 a year in higher taxes or lower public spending, according to the government’s own forecasting models.
The prime minister’s pledge to bring net immigration down to the level of the 1990s will hit output by as much as 1 per cent and cost the exchequer £9bn a year in foregone tax revenues by the end of the Parliament.
…
To ensure the independence of the OBR is not challenged, it will have to cut its assessment of the potential growth rate to reflect slower growth in the population

Basically, I’m brilliant. And very reasonably priced.

Tory immigration policy undermines OBR forecasts

Another item of interest from the small print of the OBR’s report:

we assume net migration of 140,000 a year

Which stands in contrast to the government’s immigration policy:

we will reduce net migration back to the levels of the 1990s – tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands

If the OBR takes this into account, it will mean a smaller workforce, less GDP, lower tax receipts and higher borrowing. Probably not a big difference, but worth noting.