The truth behind that 10 percent cut

Little did I imagine, when I calculated that the Tory spending parameters would involve a 10 percent cut in non-NHS departments, that it would attract such an audience. Brown repeaed it on Marr, as if it were an official Tory figure. But when Andrew Lansley mentioned it this morning as an official Tory figure then, I guess, it becomes Tory policy. A great battle ensured in PMQs: whose cuts are they? Tory cuts or Labour cuts? Real or fake? Brown loves such battles, thinking that no journalist can be bothered to go do the maths by themselves. He will be wrong here, I suspect, as the maths is pretty easy.

Budget 2009 proposed total real-terms spending falling by 0.1 percent a year for three years starting April 2011. Those figures Brown read out in PMQs represent a real-terms cut as any half-sentient economist will tell you.  The IFS spotted the complete trick the day after the Budget.