Spending Challenge closure countdown begins

George Osborne - hot or not?

The Treasury's crowdsourced cutbacks website Spending Challenge is to stop accepting new ideas from 12 August.

The site proved hugely popular with racists and Raoul Moat fans and was shut for 'maintenance' two days after it launched. It reappeared later once its interactive features had been removed.

Spending Challenge will now close at 10am on 12 August and a selection of ideas will be put back on the site so that the public can vote on which they want to adopt.

The Treasury said it has received 100,000 ideas in total, 44,000 apparently from members of the public.

At the end of August civil servants will then choose the best ideas to take forward to the Spending Review in October.

The coalition government's other lunatic magnet, Your Freedom, is still taking suggestions for laws to repeal. ®