Ask some proveably stupid people a loaded question...

From today's IPSOS MORI poll:

Q13 Which two or three, if any, of the following areas do you think the UK Government spends the most money on?

The NHS/Healthcare - 50%
Defence and armed forces - 28%
Overseas aid - 22%
Social services - 14%
State pensions - 12%
Schools - 11%
Benefit payments - 10%
Local authority services - 9%
Police - 5%
Care for the elderly - 3%
Other/Don’t know - 6%
[Re-arranged in descending order]

Quite how stupid are people? The correct running order, give or take a few billion and depending how you classify stuff*, is of course as follows:
1= State pensions, old age welfare (especially if you include public sector pensions)
1= NHS/Healthcare
3 Schools
4 Working age benefit payments/social services/Child Benefit
5 Defence and armed forces
6= Police
6= Overseas aid (if you include EU and UN payments, then it would leapfrog "Police")
8 Local authority services (rubbish collection and a bit of road maintenance?)

* "Care for the elderly" could be included under "Pensions" or "NHS"; do "public sector pensions" go under "State pensions"?; do we include "NHS/Healthcare" and "State pensions" gross or deduct the PAYE that never leaves the system (the government gives with one hand and takes back a third of NHS wages with the other, etc.)
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Then you ask the same proveably stupid people...

Q14 As you may know, the government is reducing the overall level of public spending as part of the process of reducing borrowing. Which two or three, if any, of the following areas do you think the UK Government should cut the most money from?

Overseas aid - 55%
Benefit payments - 44%
Defence and armed forces - 28%
Local authority services - 10%
Social services - 8%
The NHS/Healthcare - 5%
Police - 4%
State pensions - 3%
Schools - 2%
Care for the elderly - 1%
Other/Don’t know - 16%

You can cut "Overseas aid" (and EU and UN payments) to £ nil as far as I am concerned, but they are relatively small amounts to start off with, so the potential saving is not huge. Working age "Benefit payments" are pretty measly (barely 5% of government spending transfer payments with as much again for Child Benefit/Child Tax Credits), and so on and so forth.

The only item on that list where you can make big savings, in absolute terms, is the NHS. The NHS gets great value for money with what they spend on actual healthcare; the problem is all the crap, the bureaucratic reshuffles; ridiculous salaries for the fat cats; the nanny state advertising; translating leaflets into umpteen languages etc.
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The only way to get a sensible answer to such a question is to provide a few facts (approx. figures from memory), I would have phrased it thusly:

Q14 As you may know, the government is reducing the overall level of public spending as part of the process of reducing borrowing. Which of the following areas do you think the UK Government could cut the most money from?

Private sector procurement and subsidies to banks and other corporates (35% of government spending)
Public sector salaries/pensions (30% of government spending)
State pensions (20% of government spending*)
Working age benefit payments (5% of government spending*)
Child Benefit/Child Tax Credits (5% of government spending*)
Overseas aid, payments to EU and UN (5% of government spending)

Surely, if you want to reduce waste, you don't just look at how easy a target is, you look at how big it is?

* As mentioned, these aren't really government spending, they are transfer payments.