This morning the Financial Times is running quite a few Budget stories. My favorites are the pieces about the regional effect of spending cuts, which we have simulated (click on the beautiful maps). These show very simply that whether public spending is cut from social security or from government consumption, it will hit growth harder in the North than South and harder in poorer than in richer areas.

George Osborne’s constituency of Tatton in Cheshire suffers the least of any region on one of the comparisons. The chancellor will like that. Others might take a different view.

Some may say that is a description of the bleeding obvious since everyone know that public spending tends to follow need. Of course it is also not a dynamic model, just some very simple calculations, but they are important in showing the first-round effect of cuts. I have not seen anyone else doing this sort of thing. It might even make Nick Clegg, deputy prime minster, stop and pause before describing spending cuts as fair and progressive. The cuts might well be necessary, Read more