Government spending - costed?

Guido Fawkes reported on Saturday that "Yvette Cooper is spinning to all and sundry that the Tories have made £10 billion in unfunded tax reduction promises without "balancing" tax increases." What is interesting is that yesterday, two days before the Budget, John Redwood reports that "Yesterday the government rushed through a whole series of supplementary estimates before the budget. MPs were given a bumper book of spending overruns to try and get to grips with. There was a £2.3 billion increase in health, £2 billion at transport, and £5.7 billion at Work and Pensions. What was more surprising was some of the percentage overruns in the smaller quangos. The independent regulator of NHS trusts put in for an extra 10%, and the department for national statistics an extra 7.5%."

So the next time Yvette Cooper, Alistair Darling or Gordon Brown accuse the Conservatives of unfunded tax cuts or unfunded spending, bear in mind the record of this Labour Government. Don't expect these figures to appear in any way prominently on the BBC, they are doing their best to keep everything nice and happy for Alistair's big day tomorrow.