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Comprehensive Spending Review

There are all sorts of reasons for that, and they are nothing to do with the topic the Committee is debating. The previous Government did not behave like a pools winner and spend and spend. If we had, the Conservatives would never have accepted out spending plans—but they did. The point is that until November 2008, they undertook to abide by Labour’s public spending plans up to 2010. They sometimes demanded that we spend more—but the Liberal Democrats demanded that we spend more all the time. This was a Government who were supposed to be reckless; if we were so reckless, why did the Conservative party back our spending plans?