The UK has a problem. As Iain Martin points out in The Daily Telegraph, we are deeply in debt (£1.8trn worth) and still getting in deeper. This is no time for "spending laxity". Yet that is exactly what we are going to get. There is no group in the UK prepared to pay any more tax and no group prepared to give up any of their state-financed perks.
Pensioners, the obvious example here, have no intention of supporting anyone who might mess with the pensions triple lock or ask them to pay much towards their own social care from their huge reserves of housing wealth. The rest of the nation won't hear a word about rationing the NHS; charging for GPs appointments; or making any more than token efforts to rein in Gordon Brown's out-of-control tax-credit system.
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