{"id":13666,"date":"2017-03-06T12:20:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T12:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/?p=13666"},"modified":"2019-07-11T10:56:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T09:56:09","slug":"happy-danes-a-budget-season-reflection-on-why-denmark-is-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/happy-danes-a-budget-season-reflection-on-why-denmark-is-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Danes \u2013 A Budget Season Reminder of Ten Ways That Denmark is Different"},"content":{"rendered":"
    \n
  1. The Danes are officially the happiest nation on Earth. In the UN\u2019s \u2018World Happiness Report<\/a>\u2019 they come first with a score of 7.5 out of 10, compared to Britain which comes 23rd<\/sup> with a score of 6.7.<\/li>\n
  2. And it\u2019s not just down to cosiness and candles. The Danes are richer than us too – with wealth per head<\/a> of around \u00a339,000 compared to \u00a334,000 here.<\/li>\n
  3. Danes are happier than Brits with their health service<\/a> \u2013 with a satisfaction level of 89% versus 82% in the UK.<\/li>\n
  4. Perhaps that\u2019s because they spend more of their money on health<\/a> \u2013 10.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) against 9.1% in the UK.<\/li>\n
  5. More is spent on state education<\/a> too \u2013 around 9% of GDP compared to about 6% in Britain.<\/li>\n
  6. Generally, more is spent on social protection and wellbeing<\/a> in Denmark \u2013 29% of GDP versus 22% in the UK.<\/li>\n
  7. Fewer Danes are out of work \u2013 4.2%<\/a> against 4.8%<\/a> in the UK. And unemployed Danes get generous benefits.<\/li>\n
  8. Denmark\u2019s wealth is spread more equally<\/a> than the UK\u2019s. Denmark scores 0.24 against the UK\u2019s 0.37 in the \u2018Gini co-efficient\u2019 where 0 means everyone has the same and 1 means one person has everything.<\/li>\n
  9. How do they do it? Simple. They have the highest taxes<\/a> in the world. Income tax rates start at 30% and go up to 52%, compared to 20%-45% in the UK. VAT is 25% compared with 20% in Britain.<\/li>\n
  10. And they\u2019re proud of it. Look at the website<\/a> of the Danish tax authority, SKAT. It doesn\u2019t start off by talking about tax, but the services that taxes pay for. It says: \u201cThe Danish welfare state is, among other things, based on the concept of citizens having equal access to the different services paid for by taxes.\u201d It then explains how everyone gets help when out of work or ill, all children get education etc.\u00a0 And then it unapologetically adds: \u201cThe tax rate in Denmark is one of the highest in the world, as Denmark has a very large public sector.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"Just imagine that last sentence with \u2018the UK\u2019 substituted for \u2018Denmark\u2019. It wouldn\u2019t happen, would it? \u00a0Ever since Margaret Thatcher, people in Britain have been told that tax and public spending are dirty words. Remember how David Cameron spun it in the 2015 election \u201c\u2026 the tax, the waste, the spending, the debt, all the things that got us into a mess\u2026\u201d. We\u2019re all against waste, but without taxes and spending we wouldn\u2019t have roads, schools, hospitals or an army. And the \u2018mess\u2019 wasn\u2019t caused by taxes and\u00a0spending so much as rescuing failed private sector banks.<\/p>\n

    There is a reason why the happiest country in the world is also the highest taxed. It\u2019s because they use tax to invest in excellent public services. They believe in the concept of a society that everyone contributes to and benefits from. They realise that taxation, rather than being an evil, is the subscription fee you pay for a civilised society.<\/p>\n

    So, Philip Hammond, as you maintain low taxes, help the rich and cut local services, don\u2019t think you\u2019ve fooled everyone. \u00a0There is another way to run a country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Danes are officially the happiest nation on Earth. In the UN\u2019s \u2018World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}