The end of spending
Fraser Nelson 6:16pmSo Alistair Darling today repeated the same trick he used in April’s Budget – referring only to rising “current spending”, so as to hide the full extent of Labour’s spending cuts. Current spending is only one component of total spending, and when you add in some of the other components – as we have done in the table below – the cuts become clearer. The table shows that next year is the last year of any real rise in spending. From 2011, spending either falls or flattens out. 
But the cuts will be even deeper than the table reveals. This “total spending” figure is all we could work out from the appendices in today’s Pre-Budget Report – but, alas, it doesn’t account for debt repayments or unemployment benefits. Tomorrow, the IFS will work out estimates for those and the picture will become clearer still. In April, the cuts were to the tune of 7 percent over three years. This time, they will most likely be deeper. These cuts are necessary and to be welcomed. It’s a great shame that the government would prefer to hide them from us. When you see them, it’s clear that the next election isn’t about “investment vs cuts” – but rather about whose cuts you prefer.
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TGF UKIP
December 9th, 2009 6:45pm Report this commentWhat a pity for the Tories that you aren't their economic spokesman, Fraser. If you were they might even be able to actually score some economic points.
Being a mate of Andrew Neil isn't quite the same, unfortunately, as being a former member of either Eton or the Bullingdon.
TrevorsDen
December 9th, 2009 7:31pm Report this commentWho in the lobby will ask Brown about these deep cuts in departmental budgets at his next press conference/ who will insist on an answer?
The bunch of ignorant lily livered cowardly supine place serving sycophantic bastard hacks that are represented in the Lobby will not only not ask but will not insist on a clear answer if they did.
Chris
December 9th, 2009 8:05pm Report this commentI was wondering whether it would be Verity or TGF who'd be the first to prove, with the aid of boring clichés, that it was all Dave's fault.
Tankus
December 9th, 2009 9:07pm Report this commenterrr ..Maggie's too
Tiberius
December 9th, 2009 9:33pm Report this commentOur Verity has been too busy gossiping on the Wall and dissing Islam on the side blogs to worry about the PBR, Chris.
Alex Sabine
December 10th, 2009 12:36am Report this commentThose TME totals look right (except I make it £706.6bn for 2010-11) but isn't it ridiculous that we have to do the sums because the Treasury doesn't publish expenditure totals anywhere in the Red Book or supplementary documents - let alone the assumptions for debt interest and social security spending that lie behind the TME figures (it was these that were leaked last time and revealed the big cuts in departmental budgets needed to make the sums add up).
The equivalent TME figures at the time of the Budget were £620.7bn for 2008-09, £671.4bn for 2009-10, £701.7bn for 2010-11, £717bn for 2011-12, £738bn for 2012-13 and £758bn for 2013-14.
So, on the face of it, there is a modest fiscal loosening in the out-turn for 2008-09 and the projections for 2009-10 and 2010-11, but thereafter nominal TME is fractionally lower than projected in the Budget.
That being the case, I don't understand the IFS's conclusion in its press release that Darling "increased planned spending (in other words, reduced his planned cuts) by around £15 billion in total over 2011–12 and 2012–13" - in nominal terms, at least, it looks like he's cut planned spending by £1bn in 2011-12 and £4bn in 2012-13. What am I missing?
It looks to me like the overall spending envelope for 2011-12 onwards is unchanged from the Budget, it's just that the government has now indicated some areas it will ring-fence (implying correspondingly larger cuts elsewhere to stay within the same TME level).
Hopefully the IFS will clarify this at Thursday's briefing...
Mike Towl
December 10th, 2009 7:44am Report this commentYesterday lunch time, I tuned in to watch this white haired bloke in the commons speak about the UK's diabolical economic situation and how to fix it. I watched until he sat down again but I must have nodded off, because I can't remember a single thing he said, apart from something about Bingo. Perhaps he was the minister for sport and I got the wrong channel.
TrevorsDen
December 10th, 2009 10:40am Report this commentAgreed Chris. If UKIP has nothing to say (except promote the re-election of Brown) I suggest he shuts up.
In fact Hammond on Newsnight pointed out FN's point, but the odious, and dare I say it thick, Wark was more interested in getting him to repeat the bleedin' obvious 6 times, ie that the Tories would prioritise lowering the NI increase than increasing HT threshold.
Crick spat in the face of those suggesting a March 25 election so we can be sure it will be then.
Tiberius
December 10th, 2009 12:08pm Report this commentYou have a stronger constitution than me, TrevorsD, if you can sit and watch hound-the-Tories-only Crick, and thanks-for-the-Holyrood-contract Wark on the same programme.
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