Cross-posted from English Commonwealth
It’s a well known fact that the British government distributes our taxes unfairly, subsidising Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at England’s expense but that sort of thing wouldn’t happen with charity would it? The answer, of course, is yes.
Figures released by the Big Lottery Fund show that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive significantly more funding than England – as much as three times more if you live in Northern Ireland.
The average lottery funding per head in England is just £9.46 compared to £13.49 in Wales, £25.27 in Scotland and £31.33 per head in Northern Ireland. There is a Big Lottery budget for the UK as a whole as well but no figures have been released for this fund so it’s not currently possible to tell whether this disparity is replicated in the UK-wide budget.
A spokesperson for the Big Lottery Fund has tried to justify spending so much more on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by saying that grants are given based on population and deprivation. England’s population is 5 times that of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined and parts of England are the most deprived in the whole UK but England received just a third of the funding Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland got. They also cite a one-off award for £49m to the Life Changes Trust as a reason for the disparity in funding this year but previous years’ figures show that England has always received less funding per head that the rest of the UK.
Some will no doubt point to the money the British government took from the lottery to pay for the London Olympics and claim that it was lottery money given to England but the Olympics weren’t English and the lottery money has to be paid back (eventually) by a corporation owned by the Mayor of London. It was an expropriation of Lottery funds by the British government, not a grant by the Big Lottery Fund.
The Big Lottery isn’t the only charity to unfairly allocate extra funding to the other member states of the UK. The Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal diverts funding to Scotland whilst allowing Poppyscotland, who it merged with, to keep all the money it raises for itself, for example. There are many other charities that have Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and British arms but that’s a topic for future discussion.
“but the Olympics weren’t English” really! So how come the only part of the Uk to derive any benefit, from a structural perspective – (stadia regeneration, housing etc), economically (construction and supply work, contracts awarded to companies plus future benefit) and culturally/sporting-wise (events held in an area) was England, bar a few unique exceptions. This was an England Olympics paid for by the UK. Pull the other one!
They were British Olympics and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all got some of the facilities. This was a British Olympics paid for primarily by England.
If we are being technical the Olympics were paid for using government credit. i.e wealthy money lenders gave finance to the British government, which they created out of thin air. The only question is who pays back the loan with interest.
My solution is nobody, tell them to stuff their usury, let the English tell them to get stuffed, let the Scottish tell them to get stuffed, let the Welsh tell them to get stuffed. We can stick our finger into the eye of Horus.