Ten reasons why a Tory government should cut state spending

For most of the 15 years, an orthodoxy has governed Westminster: that cuts are bad, and that higher state spending – sorry, “investment” – is good. While the Tories stayed mute, Gordon Brown embarked on the biggest explosion of state spending in the developed world. As I say in my column today, only the oddballs say that state spending is too high: Lord Tebbit, John Redwood and 72% of the British public. This last figure is from a poll conducted by PoliticsHome – which is moving into opinion polling, but of a specific type. It has a new technique, deliberative polling, where a representative group of 1,400 people are chosen. You ask them the question, then present them with the arguments, then ask them again. The result is clear: 72 per cent think that state spending is too high. PoliticsHome has the full analysis here, my political column is here.