Yes, I reckon Osborne could be brainless. I doubt it, but he could be.

I don't agree with his argument, or at least the main thrust of it, but I also appreciate he has to balance between pragmatic solutions and keeping those who pay for influence happy. Political parties represent their doners and the media, specifically newspaper editors. If you want to know what decisions they will make, follow the money.

My main problem with their slash and burn idea is that the landscape has indeed altered. We are not a manufacturing nation any more. We have a symbiosis between public and private sector, one feeding off the other and the much maligned city providing the readies.

Our new MP (Tory, kicked out the Labour dude,) was in the small market town next to our village the other day, being interviewed about how small businesses thrive there, and how the private sector is so wonderful.

Now... follow the money again. We moved here because my responsible adult is a doctor, and all the other doctors at the hospital tend to live here. Ditto many of my colleagues in government bodies. In fact, nearly all the higher earners with free cash to support the twee craft shops and cafes the MP rattles on about depend on public sector higher earners to survive.

At another level, cancelling spending means less contracting to. Oh, the private sector. If the road expansion plans are put on ice, it means they can lose 200 people in Dept of Transport. Good headline till you factor in the thousands of lost jobs in civil engineering, in the wonderful private sector they hold so dear.

I co owned and ran manufacturing companies till I retired (and started interfering in Government bodies) and was always rattling about how bloated the public sector was. We could as a nation increase wealth then. However, now we have the same money sloshing around from public to private and back again with occasional pump priming by the city and investment in innovation; the only product we can sell. at least for now, it will be some time before the rape of higher education causes the devastation it is saving for us...