About that £81bn.

I have been rattling on here and elsewhere about how the government is unable to do what is required to public spending because - post Labour - the payroll vote is electorally decisive. Perhaps I am wrong. If the linked post at the Adam Smith Institute is correct, then (h/t Prodicus);

This is why the MSM, government and opposition are talking about "cuts", while the rest of us see government expenditure (and public debt) still rising. The word "cuts" here is what we lawyers call "a defined term" - and a very misleading one at that.

Why would a government genuinely trying to make cuts in the face of electoral opposition, define "cuts" so badly as to make them sound worse than they are?

Either they are as keen as expanding the state as their competitors, or they are trying to convince their creditors they have done something much, when they haven't. Or perhaps both?

I am open to other suggestions.