OVERSEAS AID-SHOULD IT BE CURTAILED?

Now don't get me wrong.  I believe that as a rich country that has benefited from an Empire which built this nation up to what it is today, we should contribute to overseas aid.

The problem is however, that we are skint.  Broke.  Up the Yangtze river without a paddle.  Through the Department of International Development, (DFID), we contribute 0.7% of GDP or currently £9.1 billion.  I don't know about you but I was astounded by that figure.  Both Labour and the Tories have committed as one of their election pledges to maintaining that percentage.  We also of course contribute as part of the EC.  We currently have a net contribution to that fine institution of £7.6 Billion.  That's a total of £16.7 billion.

We as a couple contribute £30 monthly to Medicins San Frontiere.  We did seriously consider if we should stop that payment as we like many other people are financially squeezed.  I decided as I believe in the 'what goes around comes around' principle to leave it in place.  Can you imagine however, if as an individual, you were BANKRUPT like the UK is and you had to make arrangements with your creditors but you insisted on giving a sizable amount to charity, well then I would imagine you would be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms.  I would think that most of these POOR COUNTRIES don't have a national debt of approaching £1,000,000,000,000.  So maybe it's time we cut back, just for a few years, our aid programme.

Oh, BTW, the DFID are boasting on their website that they've just made £150 million pounds of 'efficiency savings'.  UNBELIEVABLE!