Did you know that there are 883 executive agencies, monitoring bodies and advisory groups funded by central government? 200 of these have been created in the last two years. Now for the staggering fact - they cost £168bn a year to run (up from a 'mere' £24bn in 1998 - £30bn in 2007 money) and £127bn of that comes directly from tax revenues.
While I am sure most are beneficial to society, it is questionable whether the likes of the Milk Development Council, the Tote or Design Council etc need to be funded at all by the taxpayer (or if they do to such an extent).
If Government were to only half the amount spent (to £84bn - which would still be more than 2 1/2 times spent when they came to office) they could abolish VAT and still have some left over for inheritance tax!
