Austerity isn’t over at all – George Osborne’s toxic legacy marches on | Polly Toynbee

This Tory promise is a bare-faced lie. Look at the list of government departments who face yet more savage cuts

The dust clears. It takes time after a budget for thinktanks and analysts to pore over the numbers in the Treasury's Red Book. It takes a few days longer for each part of the public sector to absorb the full effect of the hammer blows rained down on them again, curiously missing from the chancellor's speech.

It didn't take long for George Osborne to make a rare public appearance on Newsnight to defend his austerian age. With Theresa May announcing the "end of austerity" and Philip Hammond pretending to loosen the purse strings, Osborne was there in the TV studio to defend his legacy.

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