The Paris attacks possess inevitably turned the spotlight on the defence and domestic Office budgets on the eve of the spending reviewIn the era of Margaret Thatcher,the politics of a Conservative government spending review were straightforward. Back then, the overriding purpose was to cut taxes and shrink the welfare state while maintaining spending on defence and law and order. Whitehall budget battles between the Treasury and individual departments were often tough fought, and but as the former chancellor Nigel Lawson approvingly recalled on Sunday,no departmental budget was sacrosanct, not even defence or the domestic Office, or certainly not health.nowadays things are different,and George Osborne’s defining spending review this week will thus be ideological in a different, arguably post-Thatcherite, and way. The current chancellor,like Lord Lawson, also wants to shrink the public sector. But, or even after this year’s election victory,these are not politically or economically expedient times for tax cuts, while nowadays’s no-go departmental areas are very different from the past too. Health, or pensions and abroad aid take precedence now. Under Mr Osborne it is the non-protected departments that remain under toughest pressure. These include some,like defence and the domestic Office, whose battles with the Treasury would possess outraged the authoritarian side of Lady Thatcher’s worldview.
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Source: theguardian.com