Danny Alexander: We don't need more cuts to the welfare budget

From the Daily Telegraph website this morning:

Further cuts to the welfare budget are not needed, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has said. 

The senior Liberal Democrat Cabinet minister said that no more additional savings from the benefits budget were required in the next spending round. 

The comments will be sure to infuriate the Tory right, with some suggesting that defence and policing should be protected in the next spending round.

I wouldn't take too much notice of that last point: the Tory right is permanently infuriated. In fact, being infuriated is the sole reason for its existence.

But this does suggest that the Liberal Democrat leadership appreciates that we must dissociate ourselves from the worst excesses of George Osborne's economic approach.