What did Darling mean by his “deeper and tougher” cuts claim?

There’s been some hubbub on the good ol’ blogosphere about Darling’s claim that Labour spending cuts would be “deeper and tougher” than Thatcher’s.  Did Thatcher actually cut spending?  What would that indicatate about Labour’s plans?  And so on.

Part of the confusion is caused by the different metrics that are referred to as “spending”.  So here’s a quick guide to what Darling might have had in mind:

OPTION 1: Real-terms total spending.  As the below graph from the IFS shows (taken from this excellent blogpost by the FT’s Alex Barker), real-terms total public spending only fell in two years of the Thatcher premiership.  In all the other years it rose.  Indeed, spending increased by an average of 1.1 percent a year across the Thatcher premiership:

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By contrast, the IFS calculate that total spending will rise by around 0.4