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If you’re wondering whether the sums in the Lib Dem manifesto add up and, to adopt the phrase Sir Ed Davey used rather a lot today, are “fully costed”, the answer is… well, yes, sort of. 

If you have full faith in all the numbers published in the costings document alongside the manifesto, they are indeed fully-funded. 

For the £27bn or so of extra spending commitments is paid for with the £27bn or so of extra taxes and money raising. Hurrah! 

Except that it’s not so simple, because it’s not altogether clear we should have full faith in those numbers. 

To take one example: the Lib Dems say they’re planning to raise £3.62bn (note the two decimal places) by reforming aviation taxes. 

Yet, when you ask what level they’re actually planning to increase aviation taxes to, they don’t have an answer. 

Then there’s the fact that the main revenue raiser is actually not a new tax at all, but the assumption that they will be able to squeeze tax avoiders even more than the last lot, raising an extra £7bn billion in the process. 

These are hardly the only question marks. 

I’m a little sceptical the Lib Dem plan to solve the asylum crisis – allowing asylum seekers to work after three months – would really bring in a whopping £4.3bn, as the costings document implies.

Perhaps the most instructive takeaway from today’s manifesto is to note that it is far, far less ambitious than the one that preceded it.

When Jo Swinson was leader back in 2019, her manifesto involved spending plans of roughly £63bn a year – today’s manifesto is basically half that size, even less once you adjust for inflation. 

Whether you conclude that’s down to the times we’re living in, with the public finances more constrained, or because the Lib Dems have changed considerably, it’s certainly a less radical vision than last time around.