The £6.2 billion cutting programme announced by the Cleggerons didn’t exactly induce shock and awe here in Slogger’ Roost. To recapitulate quickly where we’re coming from, that sum and more will be wiped out immediately by EU bailout obligations. And in terms of addressing the timescale outlined by the late Mr Darling, it isn’t going to cut it with the markets for too long.

The £6.2 billion of cuts is less than a tenth of the fiscal repair job that will be needed over the next few years, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS is right, because it gives good numbers and lives in the real world. The net Osborne-Laws cut is around £5 billion. Just living up to servicing the debt means taking out something like 2.5 times that per annum. While those sound like shocking numbers, the state of our finances is shocking.

The Slog is still disturbed by the number of Fluffies saying the difference can be made up in terms of tax increases. But any distance we wander down that road really would see off what’s left of economic growth – and produce a slump. If we could distinguish between those consumers buying imports or Brit-made stuff, that’d be fine. But there’s not enough home-made stuff for consumers to buy any more; and then there’s that small problem called the EU, which forbids trade barriers.

I think the Coalition is going to need an enormous amount of creativity and cooperation from the civil service once it really gets going on the deficit. Sadly, the Mandarins aren’t renowned for either of those qualities….and turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

Every day, I’m told that most of Whitehall has greeted the ToryDems with a level of relief similar to that of being liberated from the Nazis. Almost all the senior Sir Humphreys are both delighted to see the back of Labour’s interfering and unelected consultancy army; and the middle-of-the-road requirements of making a Coalition work are right up their street: no need for tough decisions and hard work, don’t you know.

This is why somebody needs to give the top wallies in Whitehall a hard slap, and very quickly – because while ironically MOR politics please the markets, they don’t do drastic very well. And drastic is what we need.

There is much talk of this breaking the Coalition sooner rather than later, but I don’t buy that. The longer Clegg’s men stay in the financial and foreign policy positions, the harder it will be to justify walking away from the mess. Another election within a year would be very bad for Britain, and the People know that: the LibDems would be hopelessly split and be comprehensively slaughtered at the polls. In return for real power, Nick Clegg has made a prison for himself, and he knows it.

My gut says that, if LibDem participation stays the course of this austerity programme, UK politics really will be changed forever, if only because the internal alliance within the Liberal Democrat Party will be broken forever. The Cleggies in government will either wind up heroes (as the people who denastified the Tories) or as traitors – very much as Ramsay MacDonald’s rump of followers did following the National Government of 1931.

There will come a point at which the inevitability of more pressure on the poor will come to light, because they use welfare and health services the most. And I understand that this is the moment at which Vince Cable would decide enough is enough. My speculation is that Clegg would stay put in that eventuality: for while Cable is a closet Labour man, Slick Nick is a Cameron Tory in all but name.