Yesterday, George Osborne’s neoconservative plans were laid bare. Hidden amid all the other numbers, the Treasury announced a further year of austerity spending for 2018/19: the ninth in a row, if you’re still counting. But this Autumn Statement was different, because it was the first where Osborne called for a permanent, structural shrinking of the state.
Until now, each fiscal announcement since 2009 has sought to return the public finances to roughly where they were before the crash. Now, out of choice, the Chancellor is proposing that public spending should fall, as a share of national income, to far below its pre-crisis level – and indeed well below the trend since World War II.
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