How Much Will Defense Spending Shrink in Britain?
Ted Bromund /
Last week, George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, unveiled the results of a wide-ranging review of spending, designed to bring the government’s share of the economy down from today’s 47.5 percent to 41 percent by 2014–15. In the main, the review’s results are welcome, though they do not go far enough.
Unwisely, though, the government included defense spending—which had already taken a beating from the previous Labour government—in its review. The result, as defined by the government, is that after inflation, defense spending in Britain will shrink by 7.5 percent by 2014–15. To put it in terms of pounds sterling, the government plans to spend 24.3 billion pounds in 2010–11 and 24.7 billion in 2014–15 on defense programs and administration. If it simply wanted to keep up with inflation, which the government estimates at about 2 percent annually, it would need to spend upward of 26 billion pounds. (more…)