Sunday, 27th January 2008

Clegg and spending

Fraser Nelson 9:22am

Nick Clegg continues to say the right things. This passage from Steve Richards’s interview on GMTV Sunday Programme this morning:

"We understand that the years of unprecedented increase in public spending, and let's remember the increases in public spending since 2000, three years after New Labour came into power, is probably without precedent anywhere in the Western world since the war. There's been an explosion in public spending. That is not going to continue, in fact it's going to very much level off."

Of course, he “envisages” that taxes will lower - while the Tories say taxes will fall “over the cycle”. So the Tory policy is still harder. But I like Clegg’s language, his correctly choosing 2000 as the starting point to an “explosion”. The days of Kennedy’s “penny on the pound of income tax to pay for education” is gone. I’d like to think the premise of Kennedy’s proposal – that more money would get extra results – has been tested to destruction so future governments know not to make the same mistake. Standards have staggeringly declined in British schools between 2000 and 2006. The tragedy is that so many millions of pupils suffered to prove this point to the world.

The Tories intellectually surrendered under Major - they also spoke about “investment” (ie, good) rather than spending (neutral), as if spending is good in itself. Clegg’s precisely right to say most countries are dropping spending, and to use words that work. Our new “Continue reading...” function means I don’t feel guilty about tabbing on the table below - showing Britain’s increase in spending as a share of GDP is sharper than any Western country. Britain under Brown has bucked a trend of money and power shifting back to communities and away from the state.

A few CoffeeHousers have teased me for having a love-in with Clegg. So in my defence – my suspicion is that he, personally, is committed to small government, classic liberalism and it would be churlish not to applaud him when he says the right things. But I reckon his party are still big-government leftists, and he’ll buckle under their weight.

**Government spending as a percentage share of GDP, OECD, December 2007**
		2000	2008	difference
1	Korea	23.9	32.1	8.2
2	United Kingdom	37.1	44.8	7.7
3	Ireland	31.5	35.6	4.1
4	United States	34.2	37.6	3.4
5	New Zealand	39.6	42.4	2.8
6	Iceland	41.9	44.5	2.6
7	Hungary	46.5	48.9	2.4
8	Italy	46.1	48.1	2.0
9	Portugal	43.1	45.0	1.9
10	Netherlands	44.2	46.0	1.8
11	Poland	41.1	42.7	1.6
	Total OECD	39.1	40.6	1.5
12	France	51.6	52.7	1.1
13	Czech Republic	41.7	42.8	1.1
14	Switzerland	33.4	34.0	0.6
15	Luxembourg	37.6	37.6	0.0
	Euro Area	46.2	46.1	-0.1
16	Spain	39.1	38.8	-0.3
17	Finland	48.3	47.8	-0.5
18	Belgium	49.0	48.2	-0.8
19	Australia	35.2	34.0	-1.2
20	Germany	45.1	43.7	-1.4
21	Japan	39.1	36.5	-2.6
22	Canada	41.1	38.5	-2.6
23	Norway	42.3	39.5	-2.8
24	Denmark	53.9	50.6	-3.3
25	Austria	51.5	48.0	-3.5
26	Sweden	57.1	53.2	-3.9
27	Greece	46.7	42.4	-4.3
28	Slovak Republic	50.5	35.7	-14.8

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Simon

January 27th, 2008 11:35am Report this comment

If you scroll through any LibDem's speech you'll find something to agree with. I will join you in the fan club if he comes up with policies which will really reduce the role of the state in public services and he confronts his statist party. At the moment its just warm words. He made a poor start with his health policy, from what I remember, his radical policy there was for elections to local health boards. A policy he shares with the Scottish Socialist party or what ever its called now. His real achievement to date to get you, Matt, and even Danny F fawning at his feet in return for a few kind words about the role of the state. For that I do admire him.

DB

January 27th, 2008 12:46pm Report this comment

Table heading - GOVERNMENT spending, surely?

Pete Hoskin

January 27th, 2008 12:49pm Report this comment

DB: yes, it is government spending. I've now updated the heading to make it clearer. Thanks.

TGF UKIP

January 27th, 2008 6:36pm Report this comment

Dave is Blue Labour and now Nick is Blue LibDem. Never did the phrase "there's no difference between any of 'em" ring more true. Why bother voting - we've got a de facto One Party SocDem state.

Chris Paul

January 27th, 2008 9:35pm Report this comment

Very disingenuous that table of yours Fraser. UK is around 10th in the table on absolute amounts and France and Sweden and Denmark are much higher (and happier for it with more doctors and teachers etc per head etc) while Germany is much the same as us. As I recall UK still have less public workers than in the last years of Mrs T. Ranking by change or even rate of change of change etc are the means for statisticians to give us the impression we want without necessarily reflecting more important realities.

Herbert Thornton

January 27th, 2008 11:14pm Report this comment

TGIF UKIP -

It sounds very much like Canada. As Mark Steyn has just said - (I may be paraphrasing as I can't find the original) -

"In Canada, being oppressed is not an issue. The only issue is who is going to do the oppressing."

Certainly Canada's Orwellian Human Rights Commissions are now eagerly taking on the role of Thought Police as the current cases against Macleans Magazine, and the journalists Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant clearly demonstrate.

Fraser Nelson

January 27th, 2008 11:37pm Report this comment

Chris, come on.... the table is explicitly ranked by RISE not by total amount. The UK is 11th in 2008 but was 23rd in 2000. Shooting up this league table of the fiscally incontinent is what I'm worried about. I'd feel a lot less worried if we were not similtaneously shooting DOWN every other league table (education, competitiveness etc). And FYI the ONS Labour Force Survey counts 5.9m public sector workers in 1997 but 6.5m now.

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