Detours on the road to a smaller State

One Labour former Cabinet mininster told me he thought the cocktail of cuts in constituencies like his could easily lead to riots further down the line. Folk who look after such things in government tell me there has been no special planning for any sort of uprisings along the lines of Athens and Paris.

How does it all look the morning after? We get some analysis from the IFS later and I will pass that on, but for now you’re struck by two things that cross each other: a strong strategic direction towards a smaller state muddled or muddied significantly by a whole load of detours as George Osborne tries to navigate the right political course for getting there.

So even though the principle of universal benefits was challenged over child benefit, it wasn’t thought politically acute to follow that to its logical conclusion and launch an all-out assault on universal benefits.

The state withdraws huge amounts of support from areas like housing and universities (Professor Nick Bosanquet – of Imperial College – talks of the “denationalisation” of universities in the FT today) but, as Nick Timmins says in a magesterial commentary on the whole Spending Round – also in the FT – fundamental change has not yet happened, even if a direction of travel is clear.

We know where George Osborne would like to end up. But he is engaged on a zig-zagging journey to protect political flanks.