Chris Mason: Spending Review a gamble on patience in an era of impatience
The hours, days, weeks and even months after a Spending Review can feel like peeling away the layers of an onion.First, there is the speech from the chancellor in the Commons: the political rhetoric and the numbers often designed to sound big but which are often incomprehensible.Then there are accompanying documents - in this instance in particular a blue-covered, 128-page tome crammed with words, numbers and graphs.The work of months, much of it conducted privately with intermittent blasts of authorised and unauthorised briefing, talking up and grumbling, then suddenly bursts out in public demanding digestion. But that takes time.
And as the detail is pored over, elements that were not put up in lights by the chancellor become clearer.A good example is the expectation many, many people in England and Wales will be paying higher council tax to help fund the police - something not set out explicitly by Rachel Reeves at the dispatch box.More details on what is planned are expected in the coming weeks - with the government's infrastructure plans due to be set out shortly.But other elements could take much longer to play out: for example, an obscure budget in a particular department that was culled, only for an outcry in six months time. Or, conversely, a budget that hasn't been culled but is later determined to be a waste of money.
Seven ways the Spending Review affects youWinners and losers: Who got what in the review?What has the chancellor has announced? The key pointsWatch: Where the money is being spent
The government is seeking to badge this moment as a turning point.The prime minister told the Cabinet and has now written in the Guardian that "this week we bettered a new stage in the mission for national renewal. Last autumn we fixed the foundations. Today we showed Britain we will rebuild."Let's see.The curiosity here is the standard critique of political leaders is turned on its head with much of this Spending Review.So often the grumble is one of short-termism, the quick win, the lack of strategic long term thought.And yet the gamble the government has taken is a willingness for patience in an era of impatience.Long term, so called capital spending, can - the argument goes - transform the public realm and in so doing transform economic potential.But it doesn't happen quickly and day-to-day spending is limited, even cut in places.And this at a time of volatile politics and a restlessness among an electorate, many of whom feel squeezed and have done for years and years.The Chancellor Rachel Reeves acknowledged to me there was an impatience for change - the very thing Labour promised - and pointed to an expansion of entitlement to free school meals and breakfast clubs in England, for instance.The big bet though remains on economic growth - finding it and sustaining it.The lack of it is the shackle on so much within government and beyond: the national mood, taxes, you name it.And yes the prospect of more tax rises in the autumn will hang in the air all summer.But the big test of this Spending Review is the contribution it can make to delivering growth - and when.
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