Well, well, well – Darling’s Times interview, which James reported earlier, sure is a significant moment, and one which more than deserves a place on the spending cut timeline which I put together last week. In fact, let’s see what it would look like alongside a few of the most recent entries:
9 December 2009: Pre-Budget Report 2009 forecasts Public Sector Net Borrowing of £176 billion, and Public Sector Net Debt of £986 billion, in 2010-11.
10 December 2009: Alistair Darling puts in a bizarre performance on the Today programme, claiming that the PBR implies that departmental budgets would remain “pretty much flat.”
10 December 2009: The IFS works out that the PBR implies departmental budget cuts of around 19 percent over three years.
9 January 2010: In an interview with the Times, Alistair Darling admits that a tough spending review will see £57 billion worth of spending cuts and tax rises.
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