Corporate Welfare

Taken from HM Treasury's Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis, Table 5.3.

"Current grants to persons and non-profit making bodies" is mainly old age pensions and welfare payments plus a chunk for fake charities; "Pay" means public sector pay, 7 million people @ £25,000 each. And then they spend as much again on corporate welfare.

A special mention must go to the £28 billion "accounting adjustments":

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From The Evening Standard (25 February 2013, page 43):

The downgrade should come as no surprise - the Coalition made it clear at the start that they were going to continue running up large annual deficits for their whole five-year term.

What is noticeable is the extent to which a narrative of "savage Tory cuts" has gained traction, when what's actually happening are exemplary cuts for people the Conservative frontbench don't like (welfare claimants; social housing tenants) while ever larger sums are given to influential businesses and party donors (banks; welfare to work providers).

What is even more surprising is that Labour politicians go along with the charade and call for higher spending - surely they know the Government is spending £100 billion a year more than Labour was before the credit crunch?

Mark Wadsworth, Young People's Party.

Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the YPP

Jeff Randall has done our work for us, thanks to Peter Smith for the links. Each part is about twelve minutes long.

Primarily he's railing against public sector spending and deficits. The way in which the housing market has been used as a massive wealth-transfer programme from young to old (not to mention from the productive economy to the bankers) is covered in the second part.