On UK tv, they show a couple of regular politics programmes on a Thursday night. They’re on later than my bedtime these days, so I record them and usually watch them over the following few days. So I’m sitting here on Friday morning,before work, watching some Question Time.

One thing I notice is that many politicians are very good, when you mention cuts, at changing your frame of reference. “Such-and-such has been cut by 50%.” “We are spending £100m more.” So you’ve gone from talking about % to £. I saw Sajid Javid doing exactly the same thing, recently, so it is a deliberate tactic, I think.

To be clear, a cut of even 0.1% is still a cut – doesn’t matter how much money is involved. Because of inflation, you need to spend more money just to stand still.