Excellent!

Spotted at Liberal Conspiracy by Newmania:

One interesting question in the most recent YouGov survey* asked people to decide “If the Government did decide to cut back on its plans for spending, which two or three of these would you most like it to cut?”

The answers should give all of us some pause for thought. The results were as follows (people were allowed to pick up to three) :

Payments to international bodies such as the UN and EU 72
Overseas aid 67
Projects to avert climate change 39
Subsidies to farmers industry and the Post Office 18
The armed forces 16
Upgrading Britain’s infrastructure (e.g. roads railways) 11
Welfare benefits and tax credits for poorer families 10
Child benefit 7
The police 3
Schools 2
Pensions 1
Hospitals 1

Seeing as education and health are by far and away the highest spending departments (ignoring welfare, which is transfer payments) and at least a third of their budgets is wasted (i.e. doesn't go within a million miles of 'the frontline'), the total waste in those two departments is actually far higher than in the first four categories, which have much smaller budgets but by definition consist of 100% waste, and possibly more than 100% if you include the damaging effect that they have on the economy.

All very encouraging nonetheless :-)

* The 'recent' survey was actually held in January 2009. LibCon links to this but I can't make it work, maybe you have to register or something. The only reference I can find is the original article in The Sun.