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The fairy tale of British spending cuts

Critics blame David Cameron's spending cuts for causing another recession. What spending cuts?

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Dan Kitwood/Reuters/File
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during a news conference in the garden of number 10 Downing Street in London earlier this month. Karlsson argues that blaming the British double dip recession on spending cuts is a falsehood.

As we all know, Keynesians blame Britain's double dip recession on the Cameron governments allegedly savage austerity, and argues that the recession proves that he should reverse course. There's one big problem with that argument: those spending cuts are nowhere to be found. Below are central government spending in Britain for the first 7 months of 2012 and 2011. The number excluding interest is arguably the most interesting one since interest rates isn't something the governmment can directly decide upon. I'm asking you, do these numbers look like spending cuts to you?

Central Government spending 2011 Jan-July: 拢356.35 billion

Central Government spending 2012 Jan-July: 拢368.91 billion +3.5%

Excluding interest 2011: 拢327.81 billion

Excluding interest 2012: 拢342.22 billion +4.4%

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