James Forsyth James Forsyth

The spending cuts Osborne flatly refused to make

Sajid Javid and Liz Truss proposed reductions at Business and Environment that were knocked back by the Treasury

issue 28 November 2015

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[/audioplayer]The Autumn Statement on 25 November had long been circled in Downing Street diaries as the season’s defining political moment. Its importance only grew after the Lords rejected the government’s tax-credit changes and George Osborne announced that he would present his revised proposals in this statement. But now it is not even seen as the defining political moment of this week, pushed down the news agenda by the terrorist threat in Europe and David Cameron’s decision to make the case to the Commons for Britain extending its anti-Islamic State bombing into Syria.

The extent of the security threat to Europe is becoming all too apparent. Not only have we seen more than 100 people gunned down in the French capital, we have seen another European capital essentially shut down by terrorists for several days. For obvious reasons, the question of how to deal with this threat is now what dominates politics.

The Tories have tried to make ‘security’ their watchword since before the general election.

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