Economist Paul Johnson: ‘We are nowhere near out of austerity'

As the man relied on to make sense of the numbers in the chancellor's spring statement, the IFS director warns that cuts have taken Britain to crunch point - and that Brexit will make it worse

When the chancellor Philip Hammond sits down on Tuesday after delivering his first spring statement - the streamlined replacement for what we used to call the budget - one man will be greatly in demand, popping up on every media outlet to tell us what the figures on borrowing levels and the projected deficit really mean. That man is Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). I suggest to him that his official role is to pour a bucket of cold water over Hammond's head, and he doesn't disagree. "Economics is the dismal science, after all," he says.

Happily, 51-year-old Johnson is not at all dismal. He is clever, sparky and down to earth - probably because he sees life through the lens of a father with four demanding sons going through the education system. He crunches all the numbers, but he also understands the personal stories behind those numbers. He has written about how his dyslexic second son has battled through further education and been disappointed by the threadbare nature of Britain's vocational training system. That, in turn, informs his critique of a society unduly preoccupied with universities and graduates. Johnson, despite a mildly nerdy manner, is the opposite of the ivory-towered academic.

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