Yesterday George Osborne gave his final Autumn Statement as Chancellor before the General Election in May. In it he intends to cut public spending to levels not seen since the 1930s. Mind you, given the proliferation of foodbanks, the modern day equivalent of soup kitchens, I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this.
Mr Osborne says that the cuts are necessary in order to bring down the deficit. The deficit which has grown under Mr Osborne's watch, despite swingeing cuts to the income of the poorest. Meanwhile MPs have awarded themselves.a 9% salary increase this year - under protest of course. Don't see many of them turning it down however. Those horses have got to be kept warm somehow, and moats don't clean themselves.
The only fly in the ointment of these grand plans, however, is that huge cuts to public sector jobs means less tax coming in. Add this to the increases in zero-hour contract jobs (it's all growth you know) and you have a downward spiral. Fewer jobs means less in tax receipts leading to more job cuts. Mr Osborne tells us that he intends to ensure that multi-national corporations pay their tax in the UK. Yeah, good luck with that one. Oh, and he's tinkererd around with stamp duty, which is a political move to try and neuter Ed Milliband's proposed mansion tax. It's not really going to affect most people though, since getting on the property ladder is not an option for a large number of people.
Mr Osborne himself is a trust fund baby, so probably wonders why everyone doesn't just live off their investments like he does. The trust fund owns a 15 per cent stake in Osborne & Little, the wallpaper-and-fabrics company co-founded by his father. Pretty apt for a chancellor who's simply papering over the cracks.
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