Public Spending

'The Conservatives said he had been working from Labour's own figures from the last Budget but the prime minister accused the Tories of planning "savage" public spending cuts.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8104606.stm

Why is government spending called Public Spending? It is called the latter to distract from who is doing the spending. The British government is composed of a few dozen cabinet ministers. Those ministers individually and collectively decide how 557 Billion pounds of our money will be spent each year. Think about that for a few moments. Five hundred and fifty seven billion pounds that you and I will not get to spend. We will not get to decide on how it is spent either- those government ministers, chosen personally by the prime minister of the day rather than say elected by you, WILL decide.

The right name for spending our 557 billion pounds is Government Spending.

Calling things by their Right Name

It is always useful to call things by their right name. Societies that succeed do not deal in euphemism, mis-naming and mis-labelling. Those practises lead to bad decision making, a distorted view of life and events, and eventually to the demise of that society.

The purpose of this blog is to correct the names given to things in public life which are consistently mis-named. If you have something you feel is mis-named in the public discourse, feel free to post them in the comments, or submit your own correction.