Britain spends £145 billion on working age welfare - and will spend £170 billion in 3 years time. We spend £62 billion on defence. As I pointed out to Iain Dale 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 ⚒️, when Andy Burnham said we can’t cut one to fund the other, he showed his priorities... - and those of his MPs👇show more

@IainDale I just find it unbelievable we are cutting things in our own country whilst we are handing billions to Ukraine, millions to Pakistan and other places. It’s absolutely disgusting and nobody is calling it out. Charity starts at home.

@IainDale @SirSimonClarke under your tenure at @hmtreasury, defence spending increased +2.3% in cash terms yet you increased working age welfare spend by +3.2%. You're attacking the PM/Chancellor before they've made decisions, but your spending decisions showed your priorities do they not?

Hi Jamie, spending rose on welfare during my time in HMT in large part owing to the pandemic and the resultant relaxing of normal controls on spend (eg in person assessments). The international situation has also deteriorated markedly since 21/22. Do I believe defence spending should have been higher even then? Yes, and I spent a lot of my time during my year as CST on defence preparedness, even among the chaos of the Covid situation. But that is not a reason to delay acting now, when things are much more serious.

@IainDale Why do the poor have to be penalised to fund our armed services?

@IainDale

@IainDale How much does the tax payer pay towards MPs pensions and why are we paying towards them, it’s welfare isn’t it?

@IainDale Of the £145Bn spent on welfare, how much gets to work in the domestic economy, keeps greasing the wheels, and is quickly returned back to the coffers? And on defence, what portion of that does the same, and how much disappears into thin air or outside of the UK?

@IainDale Always punching down.

@IainDale Ever worked out that working age welfare is actually the cost of deregulated capitalism you seem to love so much? Asking the state to increasingly subsidize failed salary growth is precisely what you voted for. So quit whining.

@IainDale You were in power for 14 years you disingenuous fraud.

@IainDale Wealth tax now for investment , in grants for start ups repayable interest free.

@IainDale Simon the real failure would be widening the gap at the bottom and calling it reform @Conservatives @UKLabour @reformparty_uk . @LibDems

@IainDale PITY YOU DONT DO SO HONEST! DAYS WORK ??

@IainDale The U.K. is well and truly addicted to Welfare!

@IainDale If only he'd had the chance to do something about it!

@IainDale It seemed like a great sound bite when it was written by a 23 yr old. But in effect it may become Burnam's 'Ratner moment".

@IainDale This is madness & Burnham’s falsely trying to trade off defence for welfare is arithmetic that is clearly not defensible. He’ll spend money on Ukraine but like Chamberline before him risk our safety rather than tackle deep fraud & negligent immigration in our welfare budget.

@IainDale Not what he said. As for the Tories they hollowed out our defences during their 14 years of misrule.

@IainDale Just a reminder tax evasion was 35billion last year think we could maybe look at that before we starve pensioners and the disabled

@IainDale We not at war, WE ARE WITH TARRIFS & POVERTY , LOOK AT THE CAR INDUSTRY, WE WILL NOT TOLERATE OUR YOUNG MEN & WOMEN COMING HOME IN BODY BAGS FOR ANY POLITICIAN, THIS DAY & AGE .