For a long time, people like me have accused politicians of importing into government the habits and ideology of corporate management. Listening to Osborne on Wednesday, however, made think that this accusation is wrong.

Take this passage:

I also said three years ago that I was confident that job creation in the private sector would more than make up for the losses [in the public sector].
That prediction created more controversy than almost anything else at the time.
Instead, every job lost in the public sector has been offset by three new jobs in the private sector...
A central argument of those who fought against our plan completely demolished by the ingenuity, enterprise and ambition of Britain's businesses.

He's forgotten something here. Back in 2010, he thought the private sector would create jobs because the economy would expand. But the expansion has been much weaker than expected; In June 2010 the OBR forecast (pdf) that real GDP would be 9.5% higher in 2013 than in 2009. If its latest forecast is correct, it'll be only 3.8% bigger.

This poses the question. If real GDP is 5.2% less than expected, how can Osborne still rejoice about job creation?

Simple. It's because productivity has fallen.Rather than celebrate businesses' "ingenuity, enterprise and ambition", Osborne should be cheering their increased inefficiency.

The numbers here are huge. If GDP per person in employment had stayed at its 2008Q1 level, there would now be 1.3m fewer people in work than there are. If GDP per worker had risen by 2% a year - as it did in the 10 years to 2008 - there would be four million fewer in work. If half these showed up in the jobless count, we'd have 4.5 million unemployed.

Now, I don't think Osborne deserves any credit for this fall in productivity. And, in fairness to him, he's not claiming any. I've not heard any Tory say; "thanks to our policies, British business has become more inefficient."

But this is not the only way in which he's claimed credit for something he's not responsible for. He also rejoiced in the "£6 billion pounds a year less we are paying to service our debts." But the main reason why debt service costs are low is that gilt yields are (still) low (for now). And the main reason for this is that the (global) economy is so weak. Again, he doesn't deserve credit for this.

Instead, he looks like an in competent rifle-shooter who shoots wildly at a wall, and then paints targets around his bullet holes and shouts "Yay, I hit them." I suspect that if we'd had more normal productivity growth and higher unemployment, Osborne would be celebrating the increased leanness and efficiency of British business.

And this is why I say that government is insufficiently businesslike. Any competent business benchmarks itself against pre-existing targets. The man who misses some targets, hits others only by luck and who invents others after the fact would soon be dismissed as an incompetent bluffer.

In some senses - contrary to my general view! - perhaps we need more managerialism in government.