Former MEP and current lord (…) Daniel Hannan has essentially argued the public sector should be abolished. He spread propaganda from the shadowy ‘thinktank’ the Taxpayer’s Alliance on Twitter (now X) to do so. But the comments ripped him to shreds.
Lord Hannan: no clue about taxes
The prominent Tory claimed:
The biggest item in your family budget, by far, is your tax bill. The average household pays £1,277,580 over a lifetime. Imagine if you kept that sum and bought your healthcare out of it, paid for your kids’ education, set aside a portion for your pension and so on.
The thing is, the anti-public sector Taxpayer’s Alliance cooked up that figure and it’s completely skewed. It’s a mean average in a highly unequal society where 1% own more wealth than 70%. With that inequality in mind, the median average household from the less well off 50% of the country earns £36,000 per year, not including the quarter of families with one parent. If Hannan’s figure reflected the less well off 50%, they would pay 76% of their entire income in tax over their lifetime, leaving them with a combined total of £8,640 per year. That is clearly not true, meaning the claim is nonsense.
Further, taxes do not pay for public services. The government is a sovereign currency issuer that sanctions the creation of money. Taxes, on the other hand, control inflation through making money more scarce. The limit on government spending is the resources the country can access, not the amount ‘raised’ in taxes.
Hannan: roasted
On social media, people pointed out the value of taxes somewhat rebalancing a highly unequal society:
Taxes are incredible value for low to middle earners.
Someone on £37,000 pays around £7,000 payroll taxes, plus maybe another £7,000 in other taxes, say £15,000 total.
About 15% of that goes to NHS – £2250.
In US average healthcare premium is £7,000, £20,000 for a family.
— Neil Harding (@NeilHarding) November 5, 2025
As Neil Harding noted, profit-driven private healthcare is a much more expensive alternative.
Another user branded Hannan “ludicrous”:
So this means that each person will patrol the borders, run their own defence system, build their own infrastructure including roads and bridges, power and water supply and sewerage systems. Ludicrous Dan is at it again.
— Russell Profitt (@kittyvillageboy) November 5, 2025
Unfortunately, energy, water and sewage is privately owned and chancellor Rachel Reeves is eyeing policies for us to rent more infrastructure from the corporate sector.
One user thought the former MEP must be joking, suggesting we’d all need “personal street lights” (torches?) instead of publicly funded ones:
Dan, if I sent my two kids to the private schools you attended, it would cost me £920,000.
U.S-style health insurance would be £339,000.
That brings me to £1.26m.
This leaves me £18k for a pension, private military, road, & personal street lights etc.
Are you having a laugh?
— Jon Burke is mainly posting on Bluesky 🌍 (@jonburkeUK) November 5, 2025
What’s more, Hannan is highly influenced by neoliberal architect and author Ayn Rand. The irony is strong, given Rand took social security payments later in life, after arguing throughout that the state’s role should be very limited.
Featured image via the Canary
