TORY divisions on spending have intensified with Boris Johnson questioning the need for the UK Government's policy of ring-fencing priority areas as the London Mayor clashed with Nick Clegg, likening the Liberal Democrat leader to a condom.
Last year, Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, called on George Osborne to drop the ring-fencing of the schools, health and overseas aid budgets and last week the former Scottish GP urged the Chancellor to withdraw special protection from the "wasteful NHS".
Despite the squeeze on spending, David Cameron has singled out schools, health and aid for budget ring-fencing. But with the Chancellor announcing a future Tory government would seek another £25 billion in cuts - half from welfare - departments would be called on to make deeper cuts in the years ahead.
While Mr Johnson said Mr Osborne was right to say more needed to be done to reduce Britain's budget deficit, he added: "(Ministers) should be looking at all areas of public spending.
"I am still slighty perplexed about why we contribute aid money to some of these countries that are on the path of prosperity."
Following his announcement of £25bn of future cuts, the Chancellor was accused of "hacking at the same people" by allies of Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who is said to be worried about the impact yet more planned cuts would have on the poorest in society.
Meanwhile, the London Mayor continued his war of words with the Deputy Prime Minister on his weekly radio show.
Mr Johnson declared: "I don't want to get into some sort of endless ding-dong with poor old Cleggers.
"He's there to fulfil a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron's lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device for all the difficult things that David Cameron has to do that cheese off the rest."
Mr Clegg hit back via a close source, who said: "Boris needs to make up his mind. Half the time he's moaning that we are blocking policies and half the time we're a lapdog." Elsewhere, as the political fall-out to Mr Osborne's warning about more cuts under a future Conservative government continued, a ComRes poll showed growing public confidence about the UK economy.
Some 36% of Britons said it had improved in the last three months - the highest figure since the question was first asked when polling began in October 2010.
In contrast, 30% said it had got worse - a joint-record low.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article