Spending denial that comes with wriggle room

Danny Alexander on Radio 4’s Today programme has been trying to kill off Nick Robinson’s scoop about attempts to boost capital spending.

Note though the language the Treasury Chief Secretary used. He said he “didn’t recognise the numbers or the process” described.

You don’t have to have read many political memoirs to know that is one of the lower grade denials, carefully limited in its scope.

I spoke late last night to a cabinet minister who acknowledged that people within Whitehall have proposed scraping extra capital spending out of the system, beyond the departmental underspends and the dip into the reserve announced last week in the £0.5bn for infrastructure.

Treasury sources said the ideas were “not even being discussed by the Quad” (Cameron, Clegg, Alexander and Osborne) and were “not government policy.”

That is similarly carefully worded too. It doesn’t preclude the original claim that extra capital spending is being looked at by some.

Question is, would the impact of a lower single figure few billion be worth the pain of being accused to wobbling on Plan A? Some in Cabinet think so; some are not yet convinced and would dearly love this internal discussion not to have popped out.