George Osborne is quite a gambler. Faced with a UK economy that has barely grown since the second half of 2010 and a halving of this year's official growth forecast to just 0.6%, the Chancellor of the Exchequer used his fourth budget to stake his government's fortunes on three big bets: a recovery in the housing market, a recovery in business investment and greater "monetary activism."

But the odds look stacked against him. Indeed, his solutions could just as easily make the problems worse.