Ex-Chancellor George Osborne never referred to his deficit-reduction policy as ‘austerity': that epithet was down to opponents and commentators like his biographer who titled his book George Osborne: the austerity chancellor. Yet austerity is what Osborne will be most associated with, and local government, which has taken the biggest budget hit along with defence in the past six years, will heartily agree.

Indeed when Theresa May, and then Osborne, abandoned his target for a budget surplus by 2020 this was interpreted by the media as ‘the end of austerity.'