On Foreign Aid

Mary Dejevsky in The Spectator writes In defence of the foreign aid cut. This is a particularly good point:

The aid organisations have grow dependent – and fat – on taxpayers’ largesse, with fieldwork with, and for, 'the most vulnerable' having to take its place alongside political lobbying and the bureaucracy to support successful grant applications.Stop and think for a moment. What have the charities been saying in recent weeks? Where have they turned to in their hour of need? 

Their complaints and their pleas have all been addressed to government. Why have they not instead been making their case to the public and asking us to help make up their cash shortfall? 

I have long been of the view that aid should entirely be voluntarily funded, and given that the UK has a massive deficit it is mad for us to be borrowing money to give away.  As Guido pointed out the other day:

'The same people that claim millions of British children are living in absolute poverty, want Britain to borrow billions more to give in foreign aid to governments that don’t look after their own people... The primary mission of governments, at home and abroad, should be to look after their own citizens'

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