The magic money tree

The end of austerity?  More like bait-and-switch.  The BBC reports:

On Sunday Mrs May promised that, by 2023, an extra £20bn a year will be available for the health service in England on top of any rises to keep up with inflation.

This year's NHS budget is £114bn.

While the spending commitment has been widely welcomed by those within the health service, Mrs May has been asked to explain how the extra spending will be paid for.

Her answer that the increase will be partly paid for by a "Brexit dividend" has already been questioned, with Labour saying the government was relying on a "hypothetical" windfall.

There has been criticism from within her own party as well. The Conservative chair of the House of Commons' Health and Social Care Committee, Sarah Wollaston, said the idea of a Brexit dividend was "tosh".

And Paul Johnson, director of economic think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the only way the rise could be paid for was by an increase in taxes.

He said the financial settlement with the EU, plus the UK's commitments to replace EU funding, "already uses up all of our EU contributions" for the next few years.

If either Labour or the SNP had come up with a similarly unfunded commitment, the Tories would have criticised them as financially irresponsible.