George Osborne, UK chancellor of the exchequer, on Wednesday presented his comprehensive spending review as a programme for growth, fairness and reform. There was some of each. But not quite as much as he pretended.
There was little in the speech to shock. As Mr Osborne said in his June Budget, he plans to cut spending by £83bn to eliminate the structural deficit – which hit 5.3 per cent of output last year – and stabilise the public debt by the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
These are swingeing cuts. However, politically, Mr Osborne has pulled off the CSR as well as he could have hoped. The public is by now inured to awful public finance figures, and the coalition may not have a real fight on its hands until the cuts start to bite next year.
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