A Motility To Mislead

This calendar week United Kingdom of Great Britain too Northern Ireland of Britain too Northern Republic of Ireland taxpayers are starting to have letters which detail where their coin goes. It is a George Osborne inaugural designed, supposedly, to increase transparency almost how taxes are spent. Here is what taxpayers volition see.

It shows that a quarter of solid reason spending (including debt interest) goes on welfare. And everyone knows what welfare involves - welfare payments to the unemployed, the piteous too disabled etc. 

Except that this is non how welfare is defined here. As the IFS point out, welfare inward this figure includes pension payments for those employed past times the state, similar nurses too teachers. Why the welfare total should include these pension payments, spell the solid reason pension itself is separated out, is inexplicable. The IFS also signal out that this welfare total includes spending on social care, which is non a cash transfer, too which would endure to a greater extent than logically included nether health. The IFS also present how it would endure quite slowly to intermission this welfare total downward into to a greater extent than meaningful parts.

So the agency the nautical chart aggregates welfare spending appears non solely wrong, simply also foreign if the thought is to inform the public. But of course of report that is non the aim. This presentation is business office of the Chancellor’s election drive to convince voters that at that spot is enough of range to cutting world spending farther past times reducing this huge welfare bill. The thought is that many of those receiving this data volition assume welfare involves all those solid reason handouts to scroungers that their newspapers are ever providing examples of.

The background to all this is straightforward. When people are asked whether they desire higher, the same or lower taxes too regime spending, almost 35% say they desire higher taxes too spending, spell almost 7% desire lower taxes too spending. For a Conservative political party committed to reducing the size of the state, this is a serious problem. The solution is two-fold. First suggest, mainly through a constant flow of paper articles simply occasionally backed upward past times Chancellor himself, that unopen to business office of world spending is wasted on transfers to the undeserving poor. Second, label that ‘welfare’ too exaggerate its size every bit much every bit possible, using inward this instance world funds to arrive at so. This is non almost transparency, too it is non fifty-fifty almost spin. It is almost giving a distorted take in of reality to create a political consequence that solely a little minority of people look to genuinely want.

Postscript (6/11/14) Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 publish of people convey written almost how misleading the government's presentation is, although most arrive at non seat the background inward quite every bit stark a agency every bit I do. To run across why this matters, here is a overnice poll from YouGov, which shows how opinions are influenced past times amend information. Which, of course, George Osborne knows total well.