If the UK government tax take as a percentage of GDP was higher it would have no deficit. The UK is in comparison to Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands a low tax economy.
Government tax take as a percentage of GDP
Denmark 50.8%
Sweden 45.8%
Netherlands 39.8%
Luxembourg 36.5%
UK 34.4%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...centage_of_GDP
UK deficit as a percentage of GDP 4.1%
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gover.../aprtojune2016

Indeed but if the UK government's tax take was higher so the deficit was eliminated the UK's GDP would decline.

Oh dear...read on

Total spend expected to be over £20bn, based on previous years.

Which is 4000 times more than people are moaning about.

Those nations in addition to higher tax take as a percentage of GDP also have higher nominal GDP per capita.
2015 World Bank figures
Luxembourg $101,450
Denmark $52,002
Sweden $50,273
Netherlands $44,433
UK $43,734

If a higher tax take would reduce GDP growth I think depends on where the money is taken from and how it is spent.

The Greeting Card Association the trade body representing the UK greeting card industry does not agree with your links figure. For the entire year of 2015 the total sales of all greeting cards in the UK including Christmas cards was about £1.7 billion. Making "Shoppers are tipped to spend £2.6bn on cards during 'Panic Saturday'" hard to believe.

The higher tax take comes from taxpayers and it if it used to eliminate the deficit it can't be spent by the government. The result of that, all other things being equal, is less money is spent in the economy and GDP is lower.

Taxation can encourage economic by acting as a disincentive to doing something not desired.
Less borrowing also leads to less spending in the future on interest payments on the debt.

Taxation means money is transferred from individuals and business to government. Now unless those individuals and businesses were not spending/investing it and it was spare money it won't generate extra economic activity. In any case that wasn't what we were discussing.

One reason the tax system is complex is because it has higher taxes for some activities and lower taxes for other activities creating a disincentive and incentive system to encourage behaviour that benefits the economy.

If you say tax savings and non productive assets you encourage spending and productive use of money. Then there are sin taxes on consumption of harmful goods that long-term cost the economy in lost work days and ill health, and there are sections of the economy that are tax free because they are currently illegal.

Taxation is a tool that can be used to help increase economic growth.

And then there is public spending that can be used to help create a economic environment that is conducive to economic growth.

You can dress it up with as much modern PC office speak as you like,it's still a bloody liberty and a total piss take.
You can bet your life there are some highly paid "charidee" bosses making a tidy sum running that load of crap.

It is not a bloody liberty total piss take load of crap if it achieves results. It's value for money will be assessed on if more girls attend and stay on in school, if fewer get married at a young age, if there are fewer pregnancies at a young age, etc. Real measurable results.

30 years ago,they were happy to get piped water to their village and some bags of grain,now they expect British people to pay for them to make pop videos
it's not the British taxpayers job to subsidize their entertainment
This "charidee" scam is nothing but a jolly up,disguised as educational
As for preventing young pregnancies - Britain could do with some measurable results of its own,in that area

Bloody Cheek

From the ONS 'There were about 23 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17-year-old girls in 2014, compared to a high of 55 in 1971'

How would you decrease that figure further?

A few music songs are only a small part of what the Ethopian Yegna youth brand money funds. The funding covers films, a radio drama series, a radio talk show series, outreach programmes particularly for rural areas aimed at education and empowering adolescent girls. The Yegna youth brand is also only one part of the Girl Effect project that covers multiple nations and includes things like vaccination schemes.

It is edutainment.

There is already evidence its changing cultural attitudes on girls education, forced marriages, violence against girls and women. It's value for money will be assessed on if it actually changes behaviour, if more girls attend and stay on in school. If fewer get married at a young age, if there are fewer pregnancies at a young age, etc.

The aim is slower population growth, less violence against women and increased education and independence of women.

The latest UK under 18 conception rate statistics are for 2014. 22.9 per thousand women under 18. The lowest rate since comparable conception statistics were first produced in 1969 when the rate was 47.1. Of conceptions by women aged under 18 50.8% led to abortion.

The latest UK under 16 conception rate statistics are also for 2014. 4.4 per thousand women aged 13 to 15 (72% were to women aged 15). The lowest rate since comparable statistics were first produced in 1969 when the rate was 6.9. Of conceptions by women aged under 16 63% led to abortion.

Things credited by the government for the drop in UK under 18 conception rate.
Shift in girls aspirations towards education.
Improved relationship and sex education
Improved access to contraception.
Perceived stigma of being a teenage mother.

Above data from UK ONS.

The adolescent conception rate in Ethiopia is 121 per 1,000 adolescent women. Of conceptions by adolescent women 9% led to abortion. Note the figure for conceptions would be much higher if it was just for rural Ethiopia. Data from UN.

Long-term changing a society so it has less poverty is more cost-effective than just providing aid to tackle the effects of poverty.

Do we have a right to change society? It is not our society it is theirs. If we provide money to guide their society down a route that it is not naturally taking are we assuming too much in terms of what is best for others? If we use our own society as a measure then it may mean fewer pregnancies, less poverty but more drug problems and a different kind of poverty. We have not solved all the problems of our own society yet with this money we are assuming that pressure on a cultural shift will have a beneficial result where it may also have exactly the opposite effect.

Its immoral.

What is?

Using UK tax payers money not on UK tax payers, charity should be up to the individual, not the state. Its especially immoral that we are borrowing the money and our children or grandchildren will have to face the consequences of some politicians virtue signalling. Disgusting really.

When you're going to quote someone it's normally appropriate to put it in quotation marks and cite your source.

I've fixed that for you.

By a strange coincidence I was talking to the same source a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me that he would have been a better player than Messi, and that every club in the premiership was after him when he was fourteen, but he sustained a serious injury and that kyboshed his playing career. Then he was refused any more drink and was asked to leave.

Immoral is using tax payers money to subsidise and give tax breaks to multinational companies. Immoral is spending taxpayers money on creating weapons systems that are sold to brutal regimes who drop them on innocent civilians. Immoral is not give a modest amount of money to a cause that is improving peoples lives.

I guess a different set of moral values.

We are changing it by persuasion not coercion so the choice to change is being made by them.

UK poverty is generally nowhere near the severity and scale of poverty in Ethiopia.

Do you think more girls attending and staying on in school, fewer getting married at a young age (often through forced marriages), fewer pregnancies at a young age (the risk to health higher the younger), less violence towards girls and women, more independence for women is detrimental to society and causes poverty?

Do you think UK society would benefit if we stopped educating girls so much, married them off at a young age, had less contraception, and violence against girls by their family and wives by their husbands was more socially acceptable?

I don't find that immoral at all.

My word, you're not doing yourself any favours here, for a start both linked articles contradict each other and you. You do realise that Wales Online article is implying EVERY SINGLE PERSON (Man, Woman,Child or Baby )in Britain is spending £300 on Xmas cards IN A WEEK????
"Saturday is expected to kick off a £17.6 billion week-long spending spree on cards ahead of Christmas Day next Sunday, with card spending expected to reach more than £3 billion on Friday December 23."
:
"YouGov’s Christmas spending intentions survey suggests the UK’s total intended festive spend will be around £22.5 billion. "

Use your own head for once instead of believing everything you're told, Wales Online are obviously employing people with terrible arithmetic.........and your second link totally disproves your £25bn on food alone, each FAMILY is expected to spend £174 on food, £174 for every person in Britain doesn't make half of £25bn.
Apologies as it's off topic but nonsense needs to be called nonsense.

Good point. We should just sit back and watch others suffer.

Maybe we could look down on them and tell them that we would like to help, but would hate to impose our privileged situation on them

A rather silly question at the end. There are many things that I think would make many societies better the question is though if I had oodles of cash would it be appropriate for me to direct society down a route I think best?
The point of the money is to effect cultural change to decrease poverty. The effects of cultural change are not always positive and can increase a different kind of poverty. It is not persuasion it is coercion because the money is directed to particular pursuits and if one does not pursue the approved route one does not receive the cash.

I believe that many things forced on women and young girls are wrong however we have a very significant increase in the incidence of forced marriages female oppression, honour crimes and female genital mutilation here at home yet we are playing to the gallery abroad (and some here at home) by interfering in cultural pursuits abroad as our own protection of female UK citizens is becoming ever more difficult which in part answers your final question becasue all the things you refer to are increasing here in the UK and if not socially acceptable in the wider sense are socially acceptable in a community sense.
Cultural enrichment often has many downsides that is evidenced here in the UK and is a rather strong risk in our interference in other countries.