I think people who preach the importance of austerity and go on about the lack of a magic money tree haven't really understood how economics works. For a start, quantitative easing, as practised by chancellor George Osborne, is just that: a magic money tree that creates new money and releases it into the economy.
And while a cut in public spending may seem initially attractive as a way of reducing the deficit, that fails to look at the consequences. Take education. Suppose you cut the schools budget by £3bn. Great, you've saved £3bn. What happens next?
Well, the first thing that happens is a load of teachers, teaching assistants and admin staff get made redundant. They are no longer paying tax. Some of them will claim benefits. They are also spending less in the shops, with knock-on consequences for those businesses, who will make less money and contribute less in tax.
There'll also be a knock-on effect on education, of course. Special needs children won't get the support they need. Other children won't receive as good an education so will leave school without key skills, which in turn means the economy won't benefit from the skilled labour it needs, contributing to a further downturn.
You can apply the same arguments to hospitals, of course. Saving money in the short term looks attractive, but in the long term, the consequences, both socially and economically, are disastrous.