For my money Chris Giles has provided the best explanation of the baffling blizzard of public spending numbers.

The FT’s economics editor points out that current expenditure will indeed rise (slightly) every year to 2013/14, as promised by the prime minister.

But as Chris explains:

“Current expenditure includes the salaries of vital public service staff, paper-clips and, crucially, also the interest payments on government debt and social security costs.”

If you also factor in capital spending cuts you end up with the really painful numbers - ie the 8.6 per cent real terms cut in departmental budgets (or 13.9 per cent if you exclude health and overseas aid).

Meanwhile our political editor George Parker today questions how Gordon Brown tied himself in knots over the question of spending cuts:

“Privately cabinet ministers despair of the prime minister’s propensity to court political trouble by refusing to acknowledge the truth or by trying to avoid difficult questions. As one senior Labour figure put it: ‘He never learns.’”

September 17, 2009 11:25am in Budget, Gordon Brown, Recession, Tax, Treasury, UK politics | Comment