Liam Fox wins

Cuts in the defence budget will be less than 10 per cent after the personal intervention of the prime minister. It's a considerable victory for Liam Fox after what Michael Heseltine described 'as the letter designed to be leaked'. Even Hilary Clinton weighed in on his side.

There will be some painful cuts for the Navy and RAF, but the two aircraft carriers are safe. Cutting them would have hit jobs in what remains of the shipbuilding industry hard. There will be some unspecified savings on Trident as a concession to the Lib Dems.

The schools budget is also to be protected, at least in the sense tha Nick Clegg's 'pupil premium' for disadvantaged pupils will offset cuts elsewhere. This could mean that some schools with better off pupils could lose out.

All this means bigger cuts elsewhere. Higher education will take a big hit with 79 per cent of the teaching budget cut and £1bn off the research budget. Higher education is effectively being marketised and there will be big structural changes as a result with some universities merging or disappearing.

Although the Government is doing what it can to protect the less well off, some of these cuts, such as those in education, could hit median income families hard. However, the Government is going to give £1.5bn to Equitable Life policy holders from 'middle England', although their spokeswomen was not pleased and argued that taxpayers should have provided nearly £5bn.

And the Scottish Government has somehow found the money to abolish prescription charges.