These figures are at first glance bizarre and make little sense. The main danger is them being used as political capital to oppose austerity, which is quite wrong.
These figures are nothing to do with austerity measures at all, government spending in December was the highest on record, they are to do with the government being so preoccupied with fairness, a nod to the Liberal Democrats, that they are neglecting the more traditional 'capitalist' Tory policies that drive private sector growth.
This is what happens when you have a government that's neither one nor the other and has no identity or genuine direction but tries to please everyone. Regrettably rather difficult when Labour have hooked big swathes of the population on unsustainable levels of public spending and the other parts of the population who are expected to pay for this spending are getting disgruntled.
We need tax cuts, not tax rises. If this means deeper public sector cuts so be it because without the growth the tax cuts promote there won't be anyone to pay for the public sector.
It's that or we jack taxes up to about 45% of the economy, minimise the cuts and watch the same people who campaigned against the cuts whinge and moan about their tax bills as they'll be having to pay considerably more to compensate both for slower economic growth and the loss of revenue due to the
Laffer curve - mobile peeps like me will take ourselves elsewhere and pay no tax to the UK at all, while others look for ways to minimise their tax bills as they become more viable and make more sense.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...rowth-strategy
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/201...business_fail/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukp...1295890396453A
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analy...isten-business