Pop Goes the Weasel

Director Unknown
Duration 9min 41sec
Release Date 1948
Sponsor Central Office of Information for HM Treasury
Synopsis A simple explanation of how peacetime taxes were spent paying for the enormous cost of the war
Text version of this film

The huge cost of the war

In ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ (as with the cartoon ‘Charley’s March of Time’ from the same year) the Attlee government demonstrated its commitment to inform the country how everyone’s taxes were being spent.

In ‘Pop…’ a simple explanation was given to how the money raised by taxation was divided among the various existing wartime commitments and services that the Government provided for the public’s benefit. Not appearing too preachy, and no doubt to engage the ‘ordinary man’, the explanation was given by an affable park-keeper

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