Dull Political Post - Ignore

While responding to this article in the Guardian -  No, Boris – spending more on London won't fix the country's economic woes.  Which includes the sub-headline:  London gets the lion's share of taxpayer money for health, housing and transport. Now Boris wants to blow more on the capital. But his argument is flatly wrong.

Using the figures provided by the writer, Aditya Chakrabortty, economics leader writer, I spent 10 minutes with my spreadsheet to get this....

Region			Spending	Population	pop%	spending
North East		4	24,378	2,515,442	4%	5%
North West		11	63,663	6,853,200	11%	12%
Yorkshire and the Humber		8	44,427	5,142,400	9%	8%
East Midlands		6	35,238	4,172,179	7%	7%
West Midlands		8	46,591	5,267,237	9%	9%
East		8	44,098	5,388,140	9%	8%
London		14	78,957	7,753,600	13%	15%
South East		11	63,109	8,000,550	13%	12%
South West		7	41,546	4,928,458	8%	8%
Total England		79	442,007	50,021,206	83%	82%
Scotland		9	51,629	5,222,100	9%	10%
Wales		5	29,121	3,006,400	5%	5%
Northern Ireland		3	18,898	1,799,392	3%	3%
			541,655	60,049,098

Which I think shows that regional spending in the UK is largely in line with population.  True London does get 15% of the spending with 13% of the population but then basic services cost much more than in the rest of the country. It certainly doesn't constitute the lion's share.

Now I agree with Chakrabortty that we need to spread the economy more evenly throughout the country but this kind of mendacious, statistically illiterate attack on London and Londoners while fashionable in this Olympic year is not exactly helpful.