Maybe it's a generational thing, but it sounds (on the face of it, I haven't done too much research) like not a bad deal.

I would have thought it was actually very beneficial. Save £12K and we'll give you another £3K?

Okay, in house price terms that's a drop in the ocean, but also a 25% return over 4.5 years, better than you'd get if you were just saving with the bank/building society.

And it's doubled if you're a couple and both do this. F*ck - I wish that had been available when I was buying.

I will be encouraging my son (just starting work) to think seriously about this, in 5 years he and his girlfriend could have £30K, with £6K from David & George (sounds like a bad 60's pop duo).

The real issue in this though is affordability. With house price differences around the country - the same ISA will be of more benefit depending on where you want to live. A better q would be linked to the ISA, but with a "thanks for that, but what are you going to do to make cheaper housing stock available?"

“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky."

Oh I don't know, Blair had a good crack at that

In what way has it failed spectacularly? Are you suggesting that he should have cut the deficit slower, and therefore more than doubled the debt? Or did you want him to cut it faster? This line that UKIP and Labour are trotting out about the debt having doubled abandons even a basic understanding on spending and economics. Of course the debt has ballooned, borrowing is at record levels because we have a massive deficit. It's pretty simple.

Osborne has hardly been lucky either. His biggest trading partner (the EU) has a massive issue with demand, we need exports to prosper and he's got a world economy struggling with purchasing as a backdrop. It's hardly been all rosy. We're performing better than everyone else for having adopted his policies, if you judge purely on results you have to say he is delivering as Chancellor. Whether you like his ideologies and how he got there is another matter.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

He failed spectacularly because he failed spectacularly to meet his own targets. Indeed in 2010 he was slating the Darling/Brown plans for putting us at risk financially due to massive over borrowing. He has ended up borrowing significantly more in the same period. So by his own targets he has failed spectacularly.

And saying that debt has doubled abandons no such thing. In 5 years he borrowed more that Labour did in 13. That is factual. So again by his own standards and targets he failed spectacularly.

And the deficit - which he had said would now be £37bn is actually about 2.5 times that (£91bn). So again he has failed spectacularly on his own targets.

As I said, whether you think that is due to external factors, his policies, or previous administration policies will help decide how you vote.

In terms of delivering as a chancellor, the only measure he can be seen to have been a success is on jobs. He has overseen the slowest recovery in UK history (with the exception I think of the one after the Black Death) and has failed to rebalance the economy, significantly reduce the trade deficit (other than through external factors), or improve productivity.

In terms of who is performing best, the UK currently has the best performing economy in the G7, but over the period lags miles behind the US, Canada, and Germany. I think we're still behind France but would have to check.

I accept that he has had challenges in the entire period, but the last year he has been very fortunate. And probably at just the right time for election purposes.

"It's almost like a moral decision. Except not really cos noone is going to find out," Jez, Peep Show

Considering the leader of the green's doesn't even know her own manifesto or the numbers behind it, I find this somewhat amusing they would thrown stones whilst sat in their shiney glass house.

Pride of South London
Upper Holmesdale Block P

Ummmm except you just did "get embroiled in a political debate".

And you're still wrong. I'm not judging George Osborne on anything other than his own targets and his own guidance. And the only measure he can point to as a success on that basis is job creation. Everything else he has massively missed his own targets/expectations.

Like I said, you don't have to think he is culpable for that. Feel free to think he has done a splendid job based upon horrific conditions and the Eurozone collapsing around him. But by his own criteria - set out when he had been in office for several months - he has failed to live up to expectations.

And for the record I won't be voting (and haven't ever voted) for Labour at a general election.

"It's almost like a moral decision. Except not really cos noone is going to find out," Jez, Peep Show