Spending Review a gamble on patience in an era of impatience

The hours, days, weeks and even months after a Spending Review can feel like peeling away the layers of an onion.

First, there is the speech from the chancellor in the Commons: the political rhetoric and the numbers often designed to sound big but which are often incomprehensible.

Then there are accompanying documents – in this instance in particular a blue-covered, 128-page tome crammed with words, numbers and graphs.

The work of months, much of it conducted privately with intermittent blasts of authorised and unauthorised briefing, talking up and grumbling, then suddenly bursts out in public demanding digestion. But that takes time.

And as the detail is pored over, elements that were not put up in lights by the chancellor become clearer.

A good…