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UK Government Spending From 1600 to Present
by Christopher Chantrill
November 18, 2008
A LONGER perspective on government spending in the UK is given in A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark. Back in the early 1600s during the reign of the Stuarts, government spending was about two percent of GNP. It rose after the Glorious Revolution to 10 percent of GNP.
Government spending rose throughout the 1700s as Britain under the Whigs fought wars in Europe and North America, and peaked at 30 percent of GNP during the Napoleonic Wars.
After Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, government spending went down, bottoming out at about 8 percent in 1875 before beginning a century-long increase in the 20th century.
Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.
Budget News
June Budget: VAT rise and benefits cuts
Chancellor Osborne's emergency budget of June 22, 2010.
Millions in the public sector to pay more for pension
Chancellor says "disparity between public and privates sector pensions... 'unsustainable.'"
Announcing £6.2billion savings
Speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon George Osborne MP on May 24, 2010
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Education
“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State