"This week one startling piece of evidence stands out. Economist Cormac Hollingsworth, a former managing director at Kleinwort Benson, ... produced these figures: the extra £16bn in cuts imposed by Osborne's plan A have so chilled growth and employment that the deficit will only be cut by £3bn. All this suffering imposed on millions of lives has been for nothing much. For every £4 extra cut in spending, only 75p is wiped off the deficit, due to rising social security costs and falling tax receipts. This textbook proof of Keynes' "paradox of thrift" shows how during a depression the more you cut, the worse things get."

Told you so.