What government spending would you PROTECT? Poll discussion

Mary_Hartnell

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

The answer is "lots" and all you have to do is keep the land in an agricultural condition - so having a paddock for your daughter's pony "earns" you (say) 100 GBP per year (extra payments are available for digging ponds, maintaining hedges and planting wild flowers.)

http://farmsubsidy.org/GB
As the subsidies are based on the land area and the owners ability to "work the system - farm the subsidies"
some deserving cases need a little extra:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tVqQ7GXJVylhbk_UriJsHtw&output=html

We are not even very good at dishing out the subsidies correctly
(What ever happened to the EU joke:
Hell The administration is run by the Italians.
Heaven The UK civil service run the administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/10270419.stm

I guess it needs updating now that the list of countries we subsidise has increased:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden

CamClegg 5% cut in UK ministers salaries saves £180,000 a year. Cutting UK farm subsidies by 5% would save £180 million a year.

There was an interview with the journalist behind the "farmsubsidy" web site on the radio today.
Cameron & Osborne cannot get at the basic farm subsidy for owning land; it is all pledged to the EU for the life of this government.

Only the useful icing on the cake in the form of rural development & wildlife habit grants are controlled by each local country in the UK; however it seems that for every 10 pounds of grant 6 come from the EU and UK plc would lose this repayment of our own money.
So the one community who should be better off is the farming community - as a zero rated business, they will be claiming back 20% on their inputs instead of 17.5%.:T