Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt will redouble the squeeze on Britain’s crumbling public services to pay for £21 billion ($26.2 billion) of tax cuts designed to boost growth and revive the Conservative Party’s electoral fortunes.

Government departments face a further £19 billion of cuts after the election, expected next year, on top of spending plans that the Resolution Foundation research group had already branded “implausible.” It’s austerity that compares with the measures put in place by Chancellor George Osborne in the last decade.