VIDEO & AUDIO Government expenditure will soon account for almost half of the UK economy. One in five of Britons now works for the state; more than one in twenty work for the National Health Service.
Only in world wars or when it owned the commanding heights of industry has the British state assumed such importance. From the National Health Service, the world’s third largest employer, to the 21 concrete mixers owned by the Ministry of Defence, the public sector reaches almost every area of people’s lives.
