Is George Osborne cutting enough into public sector spending? In this week’s Spectator cover feature, Ross Clark examines how the Chancellor isn’t making much of a dent at all into government waste and how he is wasting numerous opportunities for being austere. On the latest View from 22 podcast, Matthew Sinclair of the Taxpayers’ Alliance goes head-to-head with Charlie Elphicke MP on some of the cuts Clark argues aren’t being made. Is it a political problem, that the British public are unwilling to accept deeper cuts? Or does the Cabinet lack the courage to take on the Whitehall machine more aggressively?
But it’s not all bad for Osborne. As James Forsyth explains in his political column this week, the first green shoots of recovery are appearing and the Chancellor appears to have won the intellectual battle against Labour and Ed Balls. David Cameron, the Treasury and now Tory MPs all now believe that strong and steady growth is on the way. Is the mood improving on the Tory backbenchers? Do the positive economic signs make them more content with the leadership?
Plus, Brendan O’Neill and Freddy Gray discuss why we need more individualism, and not less as some key players on the left have been arguing for. Did the rise of the individual begin with Margaret Thatcher? Are ‘eccentrics’ like Russell Brand and Boris Johnson true individuals, or just show men playing to a crowd?
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