Spending review: The 'cuts' that mean public spending soars
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...ing-soars.html
Spending review: The 'cuts' that mean public spending soars
Britain's £800m a year to India helps to pay for its space programme, writes Christopher Booker.
Quote:
The most overworked word of the week was obviously “cuts” (although the ineffable “fair” was never far behind). George Osborne may have been hailed by one newspaper front page as the “man who rolled back the state” as he “reverses 60 years of recklessly rising public spending” – but of course last week’s supposed curb on state expenditure was nothing of the kind.
As page 17 of the Treasury statement made clear, far from cutting Government spending, Mr Osborne’s own projections show that over the next four years it will continue remorselessly upwards, by larger jumps each year, from £696 billion to £739 billion. For all the dramatic talk of 25 or even 35 per cent cuts in the spending of some departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Home Office, these are more than offset by massive percentage increases in those areas of spending which top the list.
The one which has rightly drawn most flak is the colossal 47 per cent jump in our spending on overseas aid, due to rise from £7.8 billion to £11.5 billion. This includes, for instance, a further rise in the £800 million a year we already donate to India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies. This will be spent, inter alia, on promoting gender equality, assisting the Indians with their space programme, and of course on climate change (such as the £10 million free gift the Department For International Development is making to Dr Rajendra Pachauri’s Teri research institute).
This includes, however, only a part of the £2.9 billion that will be spent, along with the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), as part of an EU scheme “to help developing countries pursue low-carbon growth and adapt to climate change”, which is a hefty part of the 27 per cent rise in the DECC budget over the next four years. A good case could be made that almost all spending on overseas aid and climate change is money chucked down the drain. (My favourite politically correct DFID project was building a Ferris wheel for the female inhabitants of the Afghan town of Lashkar Gah.)
Another item – which, intriguingly, Mr Osborne completely omitted from his statement, though it would be fourth on the list of fast-rising items of public expenditure – is the £16 billion a year we already contribute to “EU institutions”. This will be boosted by the EU Parliament’s decision, last week, that the EU Budget should rise by a further 6 per cent.
The article goes on about debt interest which is going to continue to soar even after these 'cuts'.. so there you have it - these 'cuts' do not exist. Government spending is still out of control, the state is still growing by billions it does not have every year and all that is occuring is a slight re-arrangement in finances; shifting money (which we don't have in the first place) from domestic budgets to the likes of foreign aid, climate change and the European Union.
So Labour voters/supporters; you've got nothing to fear from this government.
Conservative voters/supporters.. you've been well and truly duped (again).
& most of all, the joke is on all of us because we are still funding a state which is ballooning out of control.
You won't hear any of this on mainstream news though, but there you have it.
