Could not agree more with this. It's a nonsense exercise in which we basically go 'you, the opposition parties, have very limited resources. Make some promises that are basically not going to add up except by coincidence!'

One of the stupidest things the IFS did in the election campaign was their attack on the minor parties for their sums being daft AF. I mean, no kidding, the Liberal Democrats' 'costings team' were one very bright guy called JJ, it would be troublingly if they were as rigorous as the government's.

We'll probably keep getting this crap until the public develop reasonable expectations (so, forever).

the impact of whether the actual program succeeds or fails is almost always orders of magnitude more important than the fiscal cost, but I never in my life saw a think tank try to "fully benefit" a manifesto

Although to be fair, the government costings at election time also haven’t added up for the best part of a decade.

Any sense of where the PLP will be if the Budget turns into a bit of a mess (underpriced outcome IMO)?