In 2010 Labour and the Conservatives were offering austerity. In 2015 the offer of another serious dose of public spending cuts won the day. By 2017 while the Conservatives offered yet more austerity in a quest to reach budget surplus, Labour were offering very big increases in taxes, spending and borrowing.

Come 2019 and things have moved on. You’d struggle to reconcile the actions of the Conservative Party that is now in government with the one that put its 2017 manifesto before the people. Any idea of budget surplus has been well and truly ditched.

This autumn’s spending announcements imply day-to-day spending on public services reaching levels closer to those promised by Labour in 2017 than those promised by Theresa May. That is to