It pays to ask

There are times when I wonder if I'm the classic voice in the wilderness, or rather a minority voice in the wilderness as you can tell from my blog list. I tend to read quite a few other blogs not mentioned on the list too, though they are mainly what I call the "opposition" and it would be churlish to expect that they blogroll me. Nor do I see any reason to list them, particularly as they rarely have anything on to write home about, though if you do blog and have me on your blogroll and I don't list you, let me know, quid pro quo is the exchange of choice out here in the blogosphere.
In practice though we only tend to go where we feel welcome, so with a few notable exceptions most of my blogroll is of right, libertarian, Anglo-nationalist blogs, one of the few exceptions being Harry's Place which for all I don't tend to agree with them is always a damned good read.
Still, it's nice to know that my views on certain things echo with the public as a whole occasionally.

Express.

SEVEN out of 10 voters want Britain’s spending on foreign aid frozen or slashed.

And 43 per cent want to scrap it entirely, a new poll reveals today.

David Cameron has vowed to increase Britain’s foreign aid budget to more than £12billion by 2013 while ordering most other Government departments to make drastic spending cuts.

But 69 per cent support freezing the budget at its current level of £8.4billion a year, saving £3.7billion, according to the YouGov/ TaxPayers’ Alliance survey.

The poll also reveals support for cutting spending on the controversial high-speed rail project, trade union funding and a Green Investment bank.

Results found that 48 per cent support cancelling the high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester – a saving of £30billion.

And 51 per cent would like to save £67.5million by stopping the practice of paying full-time trade union organisers in large public sector organisations.

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Ordinary families are facing higher taxes and huge pressure on their finances.

“There is strong support for cutting expensive projects like high-speed rail, which they don’t see as the right use of their cash.

“There is no way taxpayers’ money should be supporting thousands of trade union activists who are planning strikes and fighting very necessary cuts to public spending.”

Naturally enough the Tax Payers Alliance are going to have a sympathetic place in my mind, but it's always nice to know that somewhere out there at least half of the people (roughly) agree with a few of the things I have a go at, mainly that charity begins at home and that the government should not be a charitable giver, even to the point of not paying the way of union reps in public service.
There is a direct disconnect between politicians and the use they make of taxpayers money, they see it as their money to spend how they wish and it's not for us to tell them what to spend it on. Which is why I'm also coming round to the idea that Referism is worth supporting, after all if they know we'll get a direct vote on their spending, they'll make damned sure we'll like what they put to us (we can always hope) but most people who could be bothered to vote will at least know the economic realities involved. I can't see the powers that be going for it unless they have their hands twisted up their backs by the weight of public opinion, or more likely their heads in a noose.
It's always nice to know though that in the greater scheme of things, you aren't quite a small minority after all.