Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. podcasts. I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any

governments ever made in this country for a very long time and socialist

governments traditionally do make a financial mess.

They always run out of other people's money.

Margaret Thatcher talking about the Labour government's economic policy when she was leader of the opposition in 1976.

Three years later, when she became Prime Minister, she was determined to limit the size of

government.

And in 2010, a coalition government under David Cameron and George Osbond took office in the wake of the financial crash and pursued a policy of austerity designed to bring down the budget deficit.

Under current plans, we are set to tighten the public finances by a total of 113 billion pounds by 2014.

Of this, around 30 billion will come from tax measures, and around 61 billion will come from

cuts to departmental expenditure.

And what has been the result of all this cheese pairing?

In 1979, the UK government spent the equivalent in today's money of 400 billion pounds.

In 2010, it was 800 billion and this year the government will spend well over a trillion

pounds.

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