James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown has the Comprehensive Spending Review postponed

Andrew Rawnsley’s column today contains this great little scoop:

“A comprehensive spending review was due this summer. Gordon Brown has quietly told Alistair Darling to scrap it.”

Rawnsley reports that the review is being postponed because it would reveal that the state of the public finances dictates that there will have to be huge spending cuts whoever wins the next election. If the government has to admit this, Brown’s Tory cuts attacks will lose its force.

At the moment when Labour politicians appear on TV and radio they keep asking what the Tories would cut. The media should respond by asking them what they would cut.  Indeed, Darling has already said that 80 percent of the fiscal tightening will come through spending cuts. The idea that only the Tories will cut public spending is risible.   

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