I never liked maths at school but here are some stats for you on the day the Chancellor announces where the axe will fall in the comprehensive spending round.

Countries ranked by GDP (in US dollars)

USA                 14,119,050 millions

Japan                5,068,894 millions

China                4,984,731 millions

Germany           3,338,675 millions

France              2,656,378 millions

UK                    2,178,856 millions

Italy                  2,118,264 millions

Brazil                1,574,039 millions

We’re ranked no.6 as you can see.

Now for countries ranked by population

China                1,340,140,000

India                 1,189,110,000

USA                    310,519,000

Indonesia             237,556,363

Brazil                   193,680,000

Pakistan              170,838,000

Bangladesh          164,425,000

Nigeria                 158,259,000

Russia                 141,927,297

Japan                   127,360,000

Mexico                 108,396,211

Philippines             94,013,200

Vietnam                 85,846,997

Ethiopia                 84,976,000

Germany                81,802,257

Egypt                     79,199,000

Iran                        75,078,000

Turkey                  72,561,312

DR Congo              67,827,000

Thailand                 67,070,000

France                  65,447,374

UK                         62,008,049

That’s us at no.22.

Last table coming up – the defence spending of each country (in US dollars).

USA                 661 billion

China                100 billion

France              63.9 billion

UK                    58.3 billion

Russia              53.3 billion

Japan                51.0 billion

Germany           45.6 billion

Saudi Arabia      41.3 billion

India                  36.3 billion

Italy                  35.8 billion

Brazil                26.1 billion

That’s us ranked at no.4. When this figure is expressed as a percentage of GDP then we spend 2.5% of our wealth on defence and Germany spends 1.3%. If they feel they can defend themselves at that level why don’t we?

As I say, I never liked maths at school, but when there will be fewer doctors, teachers, probation officers, and carers as a result of today’s announcement, these are the figures that will be playing on my mind.

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