Statistics, statistics...

Much has been made of a comment by a BBC correspondent that the Chancellor's planned cuts would take us back to the levels of the 1930s - notorious for the Great Depression and the Jarrow March. The Prime Minister has accused the BBC of "hyperbolic" coverage.  So who's right?  Well, they both are.  The BBC are correct that the cuts announced in the Chancellor's statement would take the government's spending as a proportion of GDP to a little over 12% - the lowest since the 1930s. What of course this doesn't take into account is that GDP today is significantly different in both scale and composition to back then so you are really comparing apples and pears.  Perhaps the BBC, as a supposed neutral commentator, should have made that clearer?