I just did an interview on the Daily Politics about public spending cuts - and why the government was actually finding it rather more difficult to curb spending than the rhetoric suggests.

It is a mathematical fact that total public spending is actually set to rise from £669 Billion in the last year of Labour, to a projected £740 Billion plus by 2014-15.  A rise of over £70 Billion.  In other words, the "cut" is the rate of increase - not the total spend.

Even so, figures show that last month the government had to borrow a record £11 Billion, almost twice the £6 Billion projected. 

Why might this be? 

Firstly, no government can really be relied on to actually cut the amount government spends.  If we really want to reduce public spending, we need not just inward accountability to the Treasury or any "Star Chamber", but to the Commons. 

Giving each Commons committee the power annually veto departmental and quango spending would soon expose savings.

Second, we need to address the fact that parts of our free market economy have morphed into what is in effect crony capitalism.  Just as medieval monarchs dished out charters and monopolies to their cronies, the modern British state seems to have confered on various corporatist interests a legal right to claim a future share of tax revenues. 

Indeed, add up the total liabilities due to PFI corporations and various bank guarantees, and we're indebted to a cool £ 0.6 Trillion.

So instead of actually spending less, this government may end up doing what so many post-war governments have done when confronted with the problems created by state overspend; higher inflation and higher taxation.   

Until we change the off-balance-sheet, out-of-sight way of managing the nation's money, politics is only going to be a choice about how fast we increase public spending.