Austerity, said Alexei Sayle, is the notion that the financial crisis was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.
In truth, the Chancellor behind the idea, George Osborne, didn’t impose as much austerity as he first fancied.
He saw that most government spending is non-negotiable, decided long ago.
And that the policy was extremely unpopular, even among the people to whom he thought it would appeal.
They liked their libraries and council swimming pools, same as everyone else.
Yesterday, his latest successor Rachel Reeves said she planned to “level” with the public about the “fiscal mess” the last government has left her with.
The state of the nation’s finances is not great, but the notion that she couldn’t see how things looked before she took office is daft.
It’s a political ruse -- she’s hardly the first newly elected politician to try it out.
The question for Reeves will be, as an upside-down Osborne, how much spending she can shove through, rather than how many cuts she can get away with.
If she had decided to be truly bold, to reinvent the notion of government spending in the public mind, to say that there is no limit to what it can pay for, if it so chooses, then she’d have some proper options.
Instead, in the name of appearing prudent, she will be shackled by financial rules she needn’t have agreed to, but which keep the City (relatively) happy.
Which means her infrastructure spending may do less good than Osborne’s austerity did harm.
Chancellors don’t have much wiggle room, which is why they play politics.
A whole new debate about what government money is, where it comes from, and what we should spend it on would be better.
At this point in the argument, someone will say the government can’t spend money it doesn’t have.
It can, it does, it shall. The only real question is whether it should. Usually, it’s cheaper for the government to spend money it is inevitably going to spend anyway on prevention now rather than treatment later.
