07/11/2005 6:08:01 pm
Is Britain Losing Its Main Advantage Against Continental Europe? British think-tank Reform provides new facts about the rapid growth of the public sector in Britain in recent years:

The increase in the size of the government sector since 1999-00 is not a subject for debate: as a proportion of GDP, public spending has risen by 4.5 percentage points, faster than any other developed country.

In 2003, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in its first study of public sector productivity, found falling productivity across the public services.

Falling productivity in the public sector means that services need more resources just to stand still, let alone to improve. It puts further upward pressure on taxes at a time when the tax burden is already rising, by 2008-09, to a 25 year-high.

Soon, perhaps Britain will no longer be part of the so-called Anglo-Saxon Model. They seem to be adapting more of the European Social Model. Mr Blair has explicitly given Sweden - with the highest taxes in Europe - as a good example. We should have the opposite development. Mr Blair, don?t make the Swedish mistake!