The public’s right to know

The Treasury have just banned transcripts of the all-important briefing they give to journalists after the budget. Coffee House broke the mould after the April budget by producing the first-ever transcript – releasing to the public the spin which journalists are given in the precious few hours they have to write up the Budget. This shows how journalists were wrongly told that there were no spending cuts, when there were in fact cuts of 7 percent over three years.

Here is an example of their misleading briefing last year

Q: Why are you cutting spending by more? A: By more? (quizzical look on his face) Q: Well not reducing the rate of growth by more than you are.  It is not that big a reduction given the scale of the problems you are facing. A: We have taken on board the efficiency reports that were published yesterday which set out the scales of efficiencies that should be deliverable and we’ve made and assessed a judgement on the growth of spending in the light of that report and clearly we want to maintain real growth in public spending, which this does, 0.7