23/11/2016 Newsnight

That frustrating feeling, when you're chasing that thing

Well, folks, that's Britain trying to get the deficit down to hit

The OBR forecasts that debt will rise from 84.2% of GDP

last year to 87.3% this year, peaking at 90.2% in 2017-18.

Yes, tens of billions more borrowing than planned.

After years of austerity, we're way off solving

We'll look at the challenging plan to hit the new targets, and ask how

The debt fell last month - everyone expected it to rise.

The forecasts for growth were low, but they are higher.

Consumer confidence and retail sales are at record levels.

So my view is, by and large, the Chancellor has to plan for the

worst, but I think the general expectation is, we can do a lot

The Cabinet Minister responsible for public spending will give

us his excuses for failing to clear the deficit, and his Labour shadow

And, as the debt keeps building, are the voters

I think it's a small price to pay, to be honest with you,

We are a resilient country. We are resilient people.

We'll get there. We'll fight.

And the killer of Jo Cox gets a full life sentence.

Her friend and colleague, Alison McGovern, talks to us

Every few years, we get a budget or Autumn Statement

that has to break bad news to the nation.

Be in no doubt, today was one of those occasions.

It looks like we are going to be a long way from where

we thought we'd be at the end of the parliament.

The forecasts have had to be revised, and the Government

is about ?17 billion poorer in 2020 than it was anticipating.

What a stubborn old beast borrowing is turning out to be.

In view of the uncertainty facing the economy and in the face

of slower growth forecasts, we no longer seek to deliver

The Prime Minister and I, Mr Speaker, remain firmly committed

to seeing the public finances return to balance as soon as practicable,

While leaving enough flexibility to support

In other words, fiscal control means what the Chancellor says it

will mean, no running commentary, just trust the Government

Now, we don't need to run a government surplus,

so don't worry about that target being kicked into the distance.

The real problem is the lack of a plan for the less ambitious

Frankly, for me, it is today that we have to declare the idea

of cutting spending to balance the books can

Welfare cuts have been put into reverse today -

Extra money has been thrown at prisons today.

The cuts there have gone too far as well.

This nails a point I'm trying to make.

The day-to-day spending of government departments,

measured per capita, and how it is planned

The Government still hopes to shrink spending.

If you look at it accumulating over the parliament,

actually about a 7% reduction over to 2021.

Now look at what they've achieved this year.

Can they really say this is the deficit-reduction plan

if they've overspent this year and not managed to cut?

The truth is, we have a stubborn deficit and salami slicing spending

no longer looks plausible as a solution.

Right, the second story of the day is how we got into that,

At least that's what the OBR, the Office for Budget

While the OBR is clear that it cannot predict the deal

the UK will strike with the EU, its current view is that

the referendum decision means that potential growth over the forecast

period is likely to be 2.4 percentage points lower

than would have otherwise been the case.

Taking 2.4 % out of our economy doesn't sound like much,

but that is the OBR view of the cost of Brexit.

When I said there was ?17 billion of bad news in its forecasts

for the last year of the parliament, about 15 billion is

So - the declining fiscal position and the EU debate are

Our political editor, Nick Watt, has been soaking it up

On a chilly autumn day, the nation's spirits were momentarily lifted when

Philip Hammond found a spare ?7.6 million to save a jewel in the

nation's heritage. If Philip Hammond had Jane Austen in mind, some may

have seen his Autumn Statement as more reminiscent of a dark genre. To

them, it was the revenge of the experts.

We thought we had seen them off in the referendum. I think the people

in this country have had enough of experts. But today, experts have

hovered over the statement, the warning by Robert Chote that the

cost of Brexit would account for half of the ?122 billion increase in

government borrowing, setting the framework for Philip Hammond's first

big event as Chancellor. Leave supporters were not happy. I think

the OBR is extremely reasonable in the approach it has taken, but

wrong. It assumes when we leave the European Union we will apply the

same tariffs to the rest of the world as we currently apply. That

would be a lunatic thing to do. Half of the benefit of leaving the EU is

that we can set our own tariffs. Until the Government has developed

its negotiating strategy and explained it, the OBR can only

operate on a status quo assumption. They are perfectly rational in what

they are doing, but it is not what the reality will be. And about the

experts? There was a great line, there is nothing so absurd that it

has not been said by some philosopher. I think suspicion of

experts goes back into antiquity and it is a very healthy thing to have.

Experts, soothsayers, astrologers are all in very much the same

category. Remain supporters say the Brexit vote hangs over everything.

There are three problems that the Autumn Statement is trying to

address. Brexit, Brexit and Brexit. Whether it is to do with business

investment, trading prospects, or the kind of austerity that is now

going to be continuing because of the hit to revenue and tax receipts

we are going to see. It is going to cloud everything, no matter what

government department you are in, no matter what area of the public

services. From the moment he was appointed Chancellor, Philip Hammond

always knew he would have to use this Autumn Statement to reset the

economic dial after the Brexit vote. But the scale of the challenge was

laid out in stark terms by the independent experts of the Office

for Budget Responsibility, who said that by 2021, the UK's 2 trillion

economy will be noticeably smaller than it would have been without the

referendum and there will be a slowing in the pace of export and

import growth over ten years. In a break with his predecessor, the

Chancellor nodded to John Maynard Keynes, by announcing he would throw

a protective arm around the economy by borrowing an extra 23 billion

over the next five years to fund new investment projects. To some, this

had a familiar feel. It is a sort of parallel universe, one of those

sliding doors moments when you think, back at the last election, we

were saying, as Labour, we would come in and balance the current

budget, get it into surplus over the lifetime of the Parliament. It looks

as though Philip Hammond and the Conservatives are not even going to

be able to do that. So, one story in our house did come to an end today.

George Osborne's grand plan to fix the roof by balancing the books was

laid to rest, at least for the moment. The deficit will still be

here until well into the next decade, and Britain's overall debt

mountain is creeping ever upwards. So, modest measures today for the

so-called Jams, people just about managing, and the Chancellor offered

no guarantees beyond 2020 on two landmark spending pledges, the

triple lock for pensioners and the ring fencing of the NHS budget. One

Tory believes the party's fundamental goals remain on track.

The trajectory set out by George Osborne has not at the precise time

frame, but has been the right one. And Mr Hammond is continuing with

that. The Tory principle of sound money retains its validity. Perhaps

the plotline in our house will surprise us again. The experts have

left open the possibility that the economy will eventually rebound. The

fate of a generation of politicians will depend on how the story ends.

David Gauke, the Chancellor's right-hand man

Good evening to you. This 2.4% shrinkage in the economy, relative

to if we had voted to remain in the referendum, is that the kind of

figure you think is reasonable, a sensible figure to be planning? I

think we have an independent body that makes the forecasts and I think

it is sensible for the Government to work on the basis that the

independent body has got it right. It is not out of line with most

independent commentators. The Bank of England has a more pessimistic

view on these things. So, I think we have to work on the basis that the

OBR is right. It is their analysis, not ours, but we work on that basis.

It is not that out of line with what the Treasury was saying the cost of

Brexit was going to be before the referendum. Everybody said that was

Project Fear. You must feel a little vindicated by seeing the OBR,

independently, coming out after the referendum and coming up with a

figure that wasn't quite as pessimistic as the Treasury one, but

in the same ballpark? Flattley, I would rather we were in a position

where the economy was growing very strongly. -- frankly. That is more

important than the debate about who was right over what. But I don't

think anybody should be surprised. Given that there is some

uncertainty, a transitional period we would go through, that there

would be a hit to growth of some scale, and the OBR have made their

assessment. Some of your colleagues are saying this is too pessimistic,

some of them have had less kind words about the OBR, these guys are

Remainers, and all of that kind of stuff, would you tell them to shut

up and we have to accept what the OBR says? You showed a clip from

Jacob, and also from Iain Duncan Smith, and he said, well, Government

has to prepare for the worst as well. In the end, as a Government,

we have had to respond to what the OBR says. People are entitled to

their opinion. I think in a year or two's time, we can look back and say

he was right or wrong. One of the very striking things is that if you

want to help the Jams, just about managing, the people who aren't even

managing, Brexit, if we believe the OBR, swamps everything you're doing,

doesn't it? You can tinker around the edges, but there is this great

17 billion or so, 15 billion, caused by Brexit, which is so much more

significant. I wonder why you don't say to those people, wouldn't you

like to think again about Brexit? You are tempting me into rerunning

the arguments about the referendum. We have a referendum, I was on the

Remain side, but we lost. If I remember rightly, on the eve of the

referendum, I think you made the point that the arguments were

brought out to the British people about the economic risks, but also

in terms of issues of immigration, and the argument were made, the

British people made a decision, and we have to respect that and

implement it. That is where we are, rather than trying to pick up the

scab, pick up the wound and reopen that argument. Let's talk about the

budget surplus target. This is a poster used during the last

parliament. It was actually used in 2014, I think. Labour isn't

learning, Labour still plan to increase debt by an extra ?3200 per

person. We were trying to do the calculations. I don't know how that

was populated, but 2018-19, your debt will be an extra ?4600 per

person bigger than we were told at the general election, less than two

years ago. Now... Do you want to apologise to the British people for

the campaign that was run and the claims that were made at that time?

No. Let's look at... Your question is predicated upon the OBR numbers

that were set out today. You know, without wanting to go back to the

referendum, I do think we need to understand what has changed. We

fought the last general election with a pledge to get into surplus by

the end of the parliament. What the office of budget response ability

have said today is that we are not going to meet that pledge. They also

say, if you look through the numbers, but for their analysis of

the cost of Brexit, which would have delivered that in 2019-20, things

have changed, circumstances have changed. The question is, how does

the Government respond? In these new circumstances, you know, getting

back to John Maynard Keynes, the facts have changed, circumstances

have changed. Brexit is to blame? You would have made a surplus, but

for Brexit? That is what the OBR are saying today. You would have had a

small surplus at the end of the last election, and Brexit has more than

wipe that out? That is what the OBR are saying.

So you do not feel the need to apologise for the claims made? At

the time, people said it would be very difficult for you to meet

those. There is a sense now that Brexit is a bit of a cover for the

fact that you don't have the stomach to deliver some of the decisions it

would be necessary to make. As part of that OBR analysis today, what

they show is, although I am not a moment saying that all of the of

public finances is... But notwithstanding that, we still would

have made that 2019-20 surplus number. So the question... Why don't

you tell the people - you are accepting the OBR position. You need

to tell the public that we would have had a surplus, except that you

voted for Brexit. The Chancellor didn't spell that out that clearly

today. He seemed to be disguising it, speaking about difficult

circumstances, lower revenues and challenging growth. The public

should be told. The OBR have done that. This is OBR numbers, not

government numbers. This is what the OBR is saying. Brexit is the excuse?

It's not the excuse. We have made some difficult decisions on spending

which, over the course of the last six years, actually the spending

side of things have been delivered. We haven't overspent. Let's have a

look. This is the grass in my initial remarks. This is the way it

has to fall during the rest of this Parliament. It didn't fall this

year. We have held it flat, more or less. You are expecting it to fall

by 7% to meet these new, softer ambitions. How on earth are you

going to deliver 7% cuts in spending? If you can deliver 7%, why

can you not do it this year? You are now expecting to make this plan. It

is your plan for deficit reduction. One of the reasons why you have the

pro for what this year is that we have front-loaded the extra money

that has gone the NHS. But I come back to the point, look at what

we've done over the last six years. Over the last year, you haven't

managed to get spending down. The reason you have chucked money into

the NHS this year is that you knew the thing was imploding if you

didn't put money into it. It is in great difficulty. With the NHS, we

are putting in ?10 billion over this Parliament. We decided to front-load

it, and that is why that kink is there. The point I want to make is

that, rightly, people are making the point that you are not reducing the

deficit in the way that you said you would. That isn't because we have

failed to deliver the spending cuts we set out. You can go back to the

summer budget of 2010, we said, these are very, very difficult

spending cuts. We have delivered. Over that period of time, we have

seen eight out of ten children go to good or outstanding schools. Are you

really telling me you can get 7% out over the next five years? You didn't

mean to keep it flat this year. It had been intended to go down. This

was the easiest year of the parliament, and you missed it.

Everything is predicated on steeper falls than you failed to achieve

this year, and that is our deficit reduction plan. You can look at the

previous five years, where we successfully delivered on the

departmental spending reductions. It gets harder, not easier, as time

goes on. You have taken the low hanging fruit. Now you are going to

get 7% with none of the low hanging fruit left, because you have picked

it all in the last Parliament. Not necessarily. We are succeeding in

building up more of a culture of spending control. You can make

reforms to public services that bring long-term reforms. I used to

be involved in HMRC, and they have done some fundamental reforms, and

have reduced costs. They are collecting more in tax. In recent

years, they have improved customer services as well. I do believe that

public sector reform is possible, and you can get more for less. Thank

you very much indeed. Obviously, the Labour Party has not

been a supporter of the whole austerity strategy at all -

and takes the view Would we now be borrowing less,

if we had borrowed more Well, this was the jist

of the criticism of Today, we have seen the very people

the Prime Minister promised The Chancellor

has failed to break with The country remains unprepared

and ill-equipped to meet the challenges of Brexit,

and secure Britain's future After all the sacrifices,

after all the sacrifices people have made over the last six years,

I fear today's statement has laid the foundations for

more wasted years. Let's talk to Rebecca

Long-Bailey for Labour. She's Shadow Chief Secretary

to the Treasury. Do you think they have a plan

forgetting the deficit down? We haven't seen one so far. They said

they would eradicate the deficit by 2015. The figures we have seen today

have been absolutely shocking. Do you think it is plausible they can

cut spending in ways that are acceptable by the amount the OBR I

says they are going to to make the books add up? Some of the points to

note, and I was listening to your conversation with David, is that

there was a lot of emphasis on Brexit. Over the ?122 billion a

Mathilde deficit figure we are going to see by 2021, only part of that is

attributable to Brexit. The rest of it is as a result of the

government's mismanagement of finances. We don't think they have

set up our economy for the future. You agree that borrowing is too high

at the moment, and needs to come down. Not right away, but it has to

come down. And you don't need a surplus. That was an ambitious

target. Every government should aim for a surplus, but the strategy that

the government put forward wasn't achievable. We pointed that out at

the time. We are clearly borrowing way more than the surplus now. What

has to happen to get that down? We are either spending too much all the

tax too little. Which one do you think it is? There's a number of

factors involved. If Labour had been in power since 2010, we wouldn't be

in the situation we are in today, because we would have invested in

infrastructure and industry, and provided the higher paid jobs that

return to the Exchequer in taxes. We would have clamped down on tax

avoidance. There's very little in terms of action from the government

on that front. So you would have had more growth and more investment. You

would have borrowed more, and we would have less borrowing now as a

result. So we started with a higher level of borrowing that you are

comfortable with. -- venue were. What is your plan for eradicating a

surplus? Let's say you want to do it by 2025? What is your plan? Tax

increases? You separate your capital spending from your public spending,

which forms part of our fiscal credibility plan. In terms of public

spending, your tax receipts, I think we need a more efficient tax system.

A number of decisions that were taken by the government, such as

cutting capital corporate games tax, were not the right decisions to

take. The cuts in terms of Universal Credit in particular, who are sick

and disabled, there are more responsible tax decisions that you

can take. We would not have slashed the areas they have slashed so far.

We need a more progressive tax system. Not necessarily more tax,

but... Let me give you an example. There's a number of tax reliefs that

the government applied to a number of different groups. At the last

count, I asked for statistics from the government, and they had over

200 tax relief they could provide no economic data on at all. We do not

know if they are efficient or if they are helping individuals. We

need to assess our current tax base to make sure that is working

efficiently. Pension triple lock, Philip Hammond hinted that that

needed to be looked at. Would you also abandoned the pension triple

lock? I think it is shocking. Pensioners are being sold out by

this government. Pensions need to be looked at very carefully, because

people signed up to a social contract with the government. Some

women have had the goalposts moved. It's not acceptable. The government

needs to take a responsible approach and realise that people need to be

sustained in their old age. Another point is about social care. There

was nothing today about social care in the Autumn Statement, and I was

shocked because I know the government came under a lot of

pressure. If we are talking about care that is attributable to the

older generation, they have been sold out on this. Thank you very

much indeed. Thomas Mair, the killer of MP

Jo Cox, was given a whole-life The case details make grim reading -

the horrible specifics of the crime itself,

the descriptions of the weapons in his possession,

and his white supremacist ethos. Jo Cox's husband Brendan

called the murder "an act of terrorism" and said that,

while it was driven by hatred, it had instead created

an outpouring of love. He said he hopes her

death has meaning. Well, in a year of acrid political

discourse around the world, the meaning may lie in attempts

to reduce the poison. A few weeks ago, Jo was taken

from us, and our lives collapsed. It's still hard to comprehend

the magnitude of what happened in There may have been one act

of extreme cowardice on that day, Thomas Mair was found guilty

at almost exactly the same time Outside the Old Bailey,

Jo Cox's family welcomed the verdict The killing of Jo was a political

act, an act of terrorism, but in the history of such acts,

it was perhaps the most An act driven by hatred,

which instead has created An act designed to drive communities

apart, which has instead An act designed to silence a voice,

which instead has allowed millions Thomas Mair's house in Birstall

is a bleak place. Inside, he picked his victim

and researched how to kill her. When police searched

Thomas Mair's house here, they found it stuffed full

of far-right literature We also know that he

shouted "Britain First!" So to say that this had nothing

to do with politics is clearly absurd,

but what is the responsibility of any of our political discourse

for what happened here? Thomas Mair refused to answer that,

as well as all other questions. Do you belong to any

political parties? He offered no defence,

and refused to enter After the verdict, his request

to address the court What this trial and this

conviction have shown us is that there are some nasty,

poisonous undercurrents in British society -

but there always have been. Thomas Mair is not typical

of everybody who voted Leave. But amongst those who voted Leave,

there are some nasty currents. The police meticulously catalogued

Thomas Mair's obsessive hatred. For Jo Cox's family, her death meant

profound personal grief. But, they said, that shouldn't

obscure the political The murder of a sitting

MP would have stopped the nation at any time,

but Jo Cox was killed towards the end of a frantic, excited,

often angry referendum campaign. To reflect on the nature

of our political system, the way we talk to each other,

the way we treat opponents. Now her killer has been brought

to justice, how much, We live in quite difficult

political times. You've seen Brexit, you've seen

the election of Trump. I think there is quite

a feeling of the people vs the establishment,

vs the politicians. But this was a horrific one-off

event, and I don't think there are particular lessons

to learn from it, except that people obviously have to take care

of their staff's safety and their own safety,

and act sensibly. Mercifully, these things happen

very, very irregularly. You've got to keep a reasonably calm

head, but also look at the underlying causes of volatility. I

do think social media is part of this. We have, as it were, got in

touch with our inner barbarians through social media. Lots of us

thought that we had some rather strange and perhaps unpalatable

opinions, but probably nobody else did. We have now discovered lots of

other people, millions of other people have the same strange and

unpalatable opinions. It has given encouragement, it has given strength

to the morale of the barbarians. means the end of

the immediate trauma. I will channel my energy

into ensuring that And, as a family, we will respond

with strength, love, Strength and love for each other,

and positivity and enthusiasm for the principles Jo believed in -

compassion, tolerance, and acceptance, understanding,

and a determination to continue The media attention

will now disperse. However, Jo Cox's death

is unlikely to be forgotten I'm now joined in the studio

by one of Jo Cox's closest friends in Parliament,

Labour MP Alison McGovern. Thanks for coming in. It was a

predictable verdict. What was your reaction when you heard? I suppose a

sense that it's over and that's a positive thing in some way. But

absolute determination that Jo's legacy, it's not about how she died,

it's about how she lived. Jo was somebody who approached the world

with love and compassion, and who had a lesson for us all in how to

get things done in politics, which was not to work from the sidelines,

but for enthusiastically fighting for what you believe in. There are a

lot of people, in the Labour Party and across all political parties,

who are thinking tonight about how they can be more like her. In a way,

you have answered a question of how we should think of the murder. Is

there something significant about this man? If he had any aim in his

act, he has totally failed. That hate that clearly drove him, in some

sense, was met with this massive outpouring of love. You know, the

messages that have been received by everybody, the determination that

the British public showed, that we would say this is not what our

country is really like. Actually, we are people that listen to each other

and who are full of acceptance for each other, and the value diversity.

So, in fact, the outcome has been the complete opposite of what he

might have hoped for. There was that outpouring of love, everybody

remembers those days very clearly. Has anything changed? Do you think,

in fact, people have the discourse? We have been reminded of how not to

do it? Or do you think the discourse, if anything, has got more

virulent and acrid over the year? I think it was actually George

Osborne, when he cancelled his speech at Mansion House to pay

tribute to Jo, said she had changed government policy. I think that is a

demonstration of what can be achieved if you stand up for what

you believe in. I know lots of people who ask me about Jo and who

want to follow her example. We will all take forward the causes she

believes in, whether it is Rachel Reeves leading on loneliness, on

Syria, Andrew, in the film, and I will continue to fight for civilian

protection. The world can be changed and I and others will not give in to

a counsel of despair. We will continue to stand for the principles

Jo believed in. The politics of hate has been a big issue. In the States,

it has been an issue, an increase in hate attacks, the Trump election has

led to more division. When it comes to that, do you see it in a way that

some of the people in that piece did, as a particular feature of what

we call the alt-right, the extreme right, or, in as far as it is a

problem, it goes a bit more widely? I think there is an old story here.

At times of economic trouble, at times of difficulty, it is very easy

for some in politics to exploit the fear and insecurity that people feel

and say, no, your troubles are not because of economic saw the

Government, they are because people just like you, who happened to be

foreigners, or whatever the language is that they use. It is incumbent on

those of us who believe that people are basically, underneath it all,

the same, and have the same hopes and dreams and aspirations, to stand

up for what we believe in and say, actually, that hate will not get us

anywhere. That is not who we are. It is not what we believe in. We do

things differently. We will all take care of each other. That, in the

end, is the answer to that hate. We stand up to it with love. A very

quick one. MP safety became a bit of an issue after this. Has anything

changed on that? Have measures being taken behind the scenes? Of course.

In fact, what was shocking was that Jo was in the place where most of us

would feel we were most safe, in the heart of our constituencies. Of

course, people have thought through security and safety. But the police

and others are very good and make sure that us and, more importantly,

our staff are really safe. They take care of us well.

These occasions tend to be very political -

it's tempting to say that today's was less so.

But, in a funny sort of way, that is politics too.

The Chancellor, wanting to adopt what looks like a more sober tone.

He managed a few jokes, although perhaps aimed

at Westminster and unlikely to get the folks of Middlesbrough guffawing

So, how is the public feeling right now at our post-Brexit prospects?

Katie Razzall is in Middlesbrough, as it happens - Middlesbrough South,

a Labour constituency that the Tories might hope to gain.

She has been listening to how people are feeling about the future.

I have been here now for about four weeks. Basically boarding and

plastering. Tough work? Yeah. Jonathan Skelton moved into our

strength after he lost his job, when the steelworks closed at Redcar.

When I was employed at SSI, you didn't have to worry, you have a

regular wage. Now it is much more difficult. I have two kids to

support. You continue to worry about money. I'll go without, if it means

my kids have another. In amongst the younger students, he and a group of

redundant steelworkers were being retrained. All of them supported

Brexit. How many of you are voting Out? According to George Osborne, we

are supposed to be in a recession now, not a depression. All of the

scaremongering, the country is thriving, as far as I can see. In

2014, the OBR forecast growth to slow... This radio is usually tuned

to music. Today we tended to politics. All of a sudden they can

produce billions of pounds, one minute they are telling us they have

no money to do anything with, then they invest ?23 billion on

something. What are they take us for, fools? The stark predictions of

the cost Brexit fall on deaf ears here. Good news for the

Conservatives, Jeremy Corbyn and his team are not popular with his

one-time Labour voter. I will not vote Labour again, as long as they

are in charge. Theresa May shows you she's thinking of you, do you think

you could go her way? Yes, 100%. I didn't think I would ever say that.

Even in a place traditionally considered a Labour heartland, there

are seats that the Conservatives want to win. One of the

Middlesbrough constituencies is high on their target list for the next

general election. It is voters hear the Government needs to convince if

it wants a real majority next time. The end of the rainbow was right

over Redcar. My thought was, Redcar needs a pot of gold. It is a

volunteer group, we have taken on many of the gardens the council used

to do. In a region hard-hit by cuts to public services, the Chancellor

today talked up job creation in the north-east. But that hasn't filtered

through around here. There are people that are really struggling

because there are few jobs, a lot of them are part-time jobs, and a lot

of them are low paid jobs. They are not permanent jobs, either. When you

saw Theresa May on the steps of Downing Street, and heard what she

said, did you believe her? I wanted to believe her. But the people of

the north-east believe that we are a neglected area and Tayside

especially that. -- Teesside. Who doesn't like getting hit by swords?

It keeps me fit. There are no cuts here, strictly foil. The Chancellor

talked about a resilient economy, despite gloomy forecasts. But

uncertainty is hitting home. A bit concerned about my job. There are

cuts coming in where I work. They are focused on saving money, because

the income coming in has started to decline. We haven't noticed a

massive drop yet, but it does seem to be kind of dropping. The freeze

on petrol duty was a good idea. I think it will help people, it will

help stabilise the slight increase in costs we are seeing coming

through on supermarkets and luxuries, things like that. I have

been piercing for about ten years now. I absolutely love it. I can't

see myself having another job. For me, it is making somebody happier in

their own skin than they were before. It is so much fun. Kim

Hutchinson works at Skins And Needles tattoo studio in

Hillsborough. Like many of the artists in this booming industry,

she is self-employed. So the Conservative attempt to target the

just about managing resonates with her. I think the Jams is accurate,

not struggling but not rolling in it. For a lot of people, we are in

an uncertain time. While people might feel they are comfortable

right now, they don't know what will happen next month. Brexit has a lot

to do with it. The exchange rate has had a lot of affect on me. I buy a

lot of things from America, from Europe. We are keeping such a close

check on exchange rates. We are trying to look for a slight drop

before we place an order so that we can save a little bit that way. We

want to be a world leader... Back-up the building site, Jonathan Skelton

has endured almost an hour of financial announcements. Brexit and

death forecasts don't worry him. We are already in big debt anyway. But

bigger debt? What difference will it make? We knew it would be a long and

drawn-out process. As for the notion that the Brexit debt could cost

almost the same as the League campaign claimed we could get back

and pay into the NHS? We would continue to pay 350 million in the

EU for however many years, I think it is a small price to pay until we

get back on our feet. We are a resilient country, resilient people.

We will get there, we fight. We always do. We are British.

Let's talk now to Rupert Harrison, former Chief of Staff

to George Osborne and now Managing Director at Blackrock,

Stephen Glover from the Daily Mail, and Polly Toynbee from the Guardian.

Let's take a look at the front page of the Daily Mail. You have taken an

optimistic view, so much for Mr gloomy? Yesterday, an upbeat

Chancellor predicted growth, pity about the terrifying debt. Did you

feel that optimistic? I think it was a reasonably happy day. The

Chancellor has been very gloomy until almost a day before yesterday.

I suspect the pro-minister had been sitting on him and he made an

attempt to be upbeat as possible. He spoke about a resilient British

economy. He said there would be 500,000 new jobs by 2020. The growth

figures he outlined are not as good as they have been, but not too bad.

1.4 next year, 1.7 the year after, and then back to about two. He said

this year we would be the fastest-growing G7 economy. The OBR,

to be clear, I had wondered whether your line would be that OBR the

enemies of the people, coming up with a gloomy forecast because it is

the revenge of the expert. But that is not your... You accept what the

OBR are saying? The OBR itself is doubtful about it. And it should be.

It has got things are so consistently wrong and it is more

than usually difficult when it does not know the terms of Brexit. They

know it is going to be difficult. Polly? Well, it's a disaster.

Everything that Project Fear said is more or less turning out to be

right. You are right, nobody knows exactly how these forecasts are

going. But the small c Conservatives have been very cautious. They are

assuming we are still in the single market and being quite positive. It

is going to mean ?830 per year, on average, people are going to lose.

Hammond himself said that people didn't vote to be poorer. I wonder

whether, when it sinks in, it will take a while, probably not until the

end of next year, people are going to say, they never told us that we

were going to vote to be poorer, and whether they are going to feel it

was a bad mistake. We have a budget that is really a fantasy, as you

keep saying, the idea we are going to get 7% more cuts, unthinkable.

Nothing in the budget for health, nothing for social care.

Rupert, those are the same spending projections that work there when

you... Do you believe, moving on from Brexiting, that we can now get

roaring down to those cuts in spending. Of course we can. A

majority was won in the last election. The OBR were in quite a

difficult position, as a nonpolitical body. But it has been

handled with a characteristically shrewd approach. He has positioned

himself in a slightly more optimistic position than the Bank of

England and other forecasters. Stephen, your paper does say, pity

about the terrifying debt. You clearly don't want us to sit at

borrowing 4% of GDP forever. Of course not. What is your view on how

to get out of this? Spending is slightly higher over the next four

years than it was in the March budget. Indeed, because they feel

they are not going to be able to do it. We do not know the terms of

Brexit. I think that the 1.4% growth forecast next year is unduly

pessimistic. If we grew by 2% next year, then all of these figures

about having a hole of ?59 billion will be thrown into a different

perspective. We are looking into the unknown. Forecasters should have a

humility. In May, we were promised by George Osborne that there would

be a profound shock to the economy if people voted for Brexit. That

hasn't happened. Far from it. The British economy is doing well. Did

the experts get it wrong? I agree for the need for humility, but we

have to have it from both sides. The short-term forecasters were wrong.

The early indications, as the OBR pointed out, of inward investment

and so on, those are starting to come off more in the way that was

predicted. But it is incredibly early days. Stephen's plan is that

he doesn't really believe the OBR figures, so that warring would be so

bad. But it could be worse. Of course it could, but it's not

likely. Are we a nation who has a structural deficit, which we have

had for ten years now, so are we undertaxed, or are we overspending?

We are a nation that is always saying it wants Swedish services on

US tax rates. The plan that you and George Osborne have hatched is to

keep the state shrinking, down to 35 or 36%. It is still on that

trajectory, but will take rather longer. Spending is still above 40%

of GDP, which is part of the long-term average. It is not a

catastrophic level of spending. But the idea is to get it down to around

35% eventually. The idea that we should cut and cut again, a country

where our public services have become thinner, shabbier and more

wretched, the idea that you can take 12 billion in benefit cuts of the

lower half, I cannot understand why you did that. Why didn't you take it

off the broader shoulders if you wanted to make those cuts? The

deficit reduction plan has been spread extremely broadly across the

population. At a time where businesses around us are

transforming the way we live our lives, this defeatism about the idea

that the government cannot do anything like that is ludicrous.

It's not government, it is people. People who are working very hard...

There are savings in the way we do things. Why take 12 billion of

things like Universal Credit is, meant to help people, and instead

you have cut corporation tax is, that was in your plan... The reason

why public spending has been difficult to cut is because

demographics, health spending and pensioners, are making it very hard

to get the state down to where it was in the 1950s. What would be your

plan, if they have to find more cuts in spending? The pension triple

lock? I have no idea what the government would do. I hope it will

not be necessary. That could be the motto of the Day! It is clearly

impossible. None of it is true or going to happen. Thank you very

much. Stay tuned for No Such

Thing As The News. A very quiet prospect for the next

few