Soviet Britain

This is troubling: PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found. The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

This is troubling:

This is troubling:

PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found.

The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere. […]

Across the whole of the UK, 49% of the economy will consist of state spending, while in Wales, the figure will be 71.6% – up from 59% in 2004-5. Nowhere in mainland Britain, however, comes close to Northern Ireland, where the state is responsible for 77.6% of spending, despite the supposed resurgence of the economy after the end of the Troubles.

The government now looms larger in the British economy than it did in Hungary and Slovakia in the immediate post-Communist period in the early 1990s.

Back in the U.S.S.R. indeed. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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