Who’ll tell the anti-austerity marchers that government spending is at a record high?

‘No cuts!’ said banners held at the march on Whitehall today. Well, the Treasury is listening. It has pushed state spending to £732 billion this year, up from £673 billion under the last year of the Labour government. So why the fuss? My guess: lefties like to march and call for the downfall of governments. It’s their way of enjoying the weather. It’s a nice day today, some of us have been out celebrating midsummer and those of an angry, leftie disposition have been doing some placard waving. Each to his own. But as the below graph shows, it’s rather hard to accuse this government of savage cuts:-

[datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/8k37c/index.html”]

Russia Today has been very excited about the march, as you might expect, and interviewed Owen Jones about it (above). Now, I have some admiration for Jones (to the chagrin of most CoffeeHousers) and he was clever enough to avoid the austerity canard.