AFTER all the shouting over the Budget has died down, perhaps now is time for a little honesty from our politicians on all sides.

One thinktank – the Resolution Foundation – yesterday crunched the figures and worked out that for the first time in modern history, this Parliament will preside over a fall in living standards. Its sums say that household disposable income will be 0.9 per cent lower at the end of this year than it was in December 2019 when the nation elected Boris Johnson.

We are all worse off than we were five years ago.

Another thinktank – the Institute of Fiscal Studies – also crunched the numbers and worked out that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has pencilled cuts of £19bn for after the general election.

The health, defence and education departments have their spending protected, which means the “unprotected” departments, like councils and justice, are going to be hammered.

It is, said the IFS, the toughest outlook for public finances in 80 years.

Mr Hunt’s steady-sounding Budget didn’t hint at this turmoil ahead.

But Labour needs to come clean, too. Mr Hunt has blown a £2bn hole in its books by blatantly stealing the non-dom tax loophole, but even if Labour still had that money to spend on school breakfast clubs, it would come nowhere close to preventing the £19bn in cuts the IFS says are on the way.

The truth is that our public services are reeling. From NHS appointments to potholes in the road, we can all see this, and further cuts will not help, yet none of our politicians, as they shout at one another from the green benches of the Commons, are facing up to the enormity of the problems before us.