The promised Tory tax cuts will only mean more austerity in the long run | Simon Wren-Lewis

The fiscal stimulus Boris Johnson promises might sugar the Brexit pill. But further spending cuts would inevitably follow

If I have been ill and I say I am better, does that mean I am better than I was or that I am no longer ill? The same ambiguity applies to the phrase "the end of austerity". If you took this to mean that the public sector had stopped shrinking, then in overall terms you would be correct. But you would be completely wrong to think the austerity that began in 2010 had been significantly reversed.

The chancellor, Sajid Javid, plans for government spending as a share of GDP to rise from 38.1% in this financial year to 38.6% in 2020-21, while this ratio was planned to fall slightly under Philip Hammond. However, the same figure was 44.9% at the end of the Labour government. Nearly all areas of spending are still below 2010 levels in real terms. Overall public spending has stopped being squeezed, but it is still much smaller than it once was.

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Related: Javid's giveaways don't come close to reversing austerity's bitter legacy | Polly Toynbee