Mixed reviews in the press this morning for George Osborne's spending review. The Chancellor is attacked from the right by the Torygraph, which points out that a £11.5 billion cut is only 1.5% of a £750 billion spend, that public spending has continued to rise on his watch and that it remains marooned at on or about 44% of GDP. On the other hand the Guardian is against it too. "Osborne takes the axe to public sector jobs", and "Osborne the axeman" run the headlines.
Delve deeper and some interesting faultlines appear. Dan Hodges, the Torygraph's resident Blairite columnist, thinks Osborne has nailed Ed Balls. "The key part of the debate came in the instant just before George Osborne rose to deliver his reply. . . He couldn't wait to spring back to his feet. . . Despite all the attacks on him and the Prime Minister, why was Ed Balls not prepared to say what he wanted to say, namely that despite borrowing spiralling out of control, Labour wanted to borrow more?"
Hodges thinks that Osborne has manoevered Balls into a corner, where Balls has to choose between accepting Tory spending plans or admit that Labour will spend more and borrow more.
This echoes something I've thought for a year or so now - that it's reasonable to criticise Osborne for lack of growth in the economy, or for borrowing too much, but not both. After all, if Osborne had borrowed less there would have been even less growth.
"Labour's "the government is borrowing too much, we'd borrow more" line means the deficit denial tag is now hung round their neck for good", writes Hodges. "The Chancellor believes the political and economic cycles are slowly moving into alignment. And he also believes there isn't anything Ed Balls or Ed Miliband can do about it".
Boy must he loathe the Brownites.
Amidst the acres of critical coverage in the Graun, the leader column has this gem tucked in right at the end. "The picture that emerged from yesterday's spending review was of a Britain in 2016 that resembles a joyless version of Britain in 2006". Well yes. But Britain in 2006 was a woozy paradise fuelled by economic narcotics. What do they expect it to look like when someone attempts to take the debt syringe away?
Martin Kettle's column is all about the politics. As ever with Kettle - who does at least seem to me to have grasped the seriousness of Britain's economic situation - the real fun is to be had with the comments below. "I've said many times before", writes one cheerful poster with only tenuous links to the reality-based community, "just f--- off to the Daily Mail with your Tory cheerleading".
Osborne's "punitive action will have next to no impact on the deficit", writes Jonathan Freedland. "It's all about the politics". What would he prefer? That Osborne put in place some real cuts which would have an impact?
Over in the Torygraph Peter Oborne is in no doubt about the Chancellor's faults. Doing anything about the national economic emergency "means making the kind of difficult decisions that would throw the Coalition into disarray. . . Everybody knows what needs to be done. But nobody dares to do it. . . if growth does not return, we will soon need a chancellor with the will and the guts to make the big cuts in the major spending departments".
A friend reports a visit to the Courts the other day. Tea could not be provided for the jury after 3 p.m. because of budget cuts. A new Sheriff was being sworn in and everything stopped for the occasion. But although the various dignitaries got coffee, there were no biscuits. Budget cuts. The Department of Justice is going to have a budget cut of 10% in 2015-16 (a bigger cut than the Department of Culture, Media and Sport). It won't be long surely before there is no tea or coffee either.
Meanwhile foreign aid continues to countries like Pakistan, which has a top rate of tax lower than the UK's. And a nuclear weapons programme.
