The UK government's priorities since 1997 have been education and health, and they massively increased the budgets to those sectors. But on closer inspection, it was clear that a lot of the money ended up being siphoned off by consultants and other businesses services and lawyers. Billions were wasted on projects, like the NHS computerised records system, without any tangible results.
The increase in 'counter cyclical' state spending from the election of the Labour Government in 1997 turned out for the most part to be a massive subsidy to non-manufacturing businesses.
see here for more details: http://www.metamute.org/content/state_capitalism_in_britain