The Conservatives published plans for spending if they were to win the next election. Presuming savings proposed by Sir Peter Gershon’s report for the Treasury, and incorporating new savings devised for them by Mr David James, they said they could reduce government spending by £35 billion, partly by cutting 235,000 Civil Service posts. Of this, £23 billion would be spent on extra services, principally health and education, £8 billion would fill the ‘black hole’ (borrowing) incurred by Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and £4 billion would pay for tax cuts; tax revenues for the current year are expected by the government to be about £450 billion. Just before this announcement Mr Robert Jackson, once a Tory minister, suddenly joined the Labour benches; the Conservatives managed to find a remark made in 2003 by Mr Alan Milburn, at that time and once more a Labour minister, ‘Support from the honourable gentleman is about as welcome as myxomatosis in a rabbit hutch.’
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