The figures on screen contrast a planned £400 million defence saving with government expenditure rising from roughly £12,500 million to £21,500 million between 1964 and 1970. On that presentation, the total increase is about £9,000 million, more than twenty times the defence cut. The saving was therefore a reallocation within a rapidly expanding state. The government had the authority to choose domestic programmes, but the defence cut was not the only possible response to an unaffordable national budget.
Notable Point · 1:07:08-1:09:05
Putting a £400 million defence cut beside total spending growth
A chart comparison tests the scale of the White Paper's claimed saving against the much larger growth of overall government expenditure.