Reply #7: So were the Tory bastards those that introduced ESA?

[TheBigotBasher]

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."
The independent think tank, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has noted that that total public spending increased by an average of 1.1% a year in real terms over the Thatcher era. This is almost three times the increase of 0.4% a year that Alistair Darling has pencilled in for the next Parliament.

The IFS went on to observe that:

"f we subtract spending on welfare and debt interest then we estimate that the rest of public spending would be cut in real terms by an average of 1.4% a year compared to an average increase of 0.7% in the Thatcher era. We have not seen five years with an average annual real cut as big as this since the mid-1970s."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/chancellor.html