Since I seemed to have triggered an outbreak of statistics ...

User Posted Link

Have a look at this for example (there are countless other articles/books/speeches to same or similar effect - you might even look at the interview with David Laws in Sunday's Telegraph) - the real points I was trying to make were (1) as a country we need urgently to reconsider the relationship between state and individual; and (2) the state provides more today than at any time in our history (and in my opinion, too much, because of the gradual underming of personal responsibility, and the fact that we simply can't afford it). It doesn't much help looking at state spending during wars for example - those periods are completely exceptional.

Posted By: paulg, Jun 25, 15:56:06