JUST after I was elected in 2010, the government had to bring in measures to deal with the dire state of public finances. Chronic overspending for years had led to a big annual deficit between what the government was committed to spend, and what it received in taxation. Without tackling it head on, we were heading like an express train into financial oblivion and our predecessors – the architects of the problem – hadn’t even begun to deal with it.

My early meetings with local organisations delivering public services – public sector bodies, private businesses and the third sector – were all about their concern they would be cut off at the knees, financially, and that they would not be able to deliver their service, or even survive. Some services went, some providers closed and a high degree of efficiency was driven into public services. That’s not a bad thing. From time to time we must reassess what it is we are doing in public services and if we are not getting some measurable value for money, is it right that we should spend taxpayer’s money on a dubious product?

The age of austerity was a direct and necessary output from 13 years of carefree and seemingly uncontrolled expenditure.

However, at what point does austerity move from being a necessary response to a financially illiterate period of government, to an ideology?

The party conference recess provides an opportunity for me to visit a load of organisations, schools, charities and the like, who are suffering under austerity. But these aren’t the whinges of people who are having to adjust to a slowing down of uncontrolled expenditure: they are the genuine cries for help from organisations we consider vital to our public services. Northamptonshire council has already gone bust. What other councils across the country are facing similar constraints?

It is a sad fact of politics that every single Labour government there has ever been has increased unemployment. This is, often, accompanied by tattered public finances. But is it a similar truism that every Conservative government has left public services underinvested?

We have resolved the major part of the deficit, and tax receipts are at the highest for decades. So rather than continue with this rollercoaster of over and underspend, surely this Conservative government can work out, once and for all, what the right level of sustainable spend should be on our valued services and bring an end to feast and famine.