I'm a bit ambivalent about this. I think reducing the percentage is wrong. It's also designed to win easy plaudits and, of course, votes from people like @Telford rather than having much effect on the national economy. However, from my experience in the past, admittedly 40+ years ago, I'm less convinced about the virtue of aid itself.
I worked for four years abroad, partly funded by UK government aid. I think what I was doing was quite useful, but not very. The prevalence of aid programmes though, had encouraged the recipient country to see everything in terms of getting someone else to pay for everything rather than doing it themselves. And, what they were getting people to pay for was designed through the eyes of the donors, what the donors thought the recipients ought to want and would be good for them, or in some cases to satisfy the internal politics of the donor country, rather than for what the recipients needed. Typical, for example, would be the arrival of expensive hardware, vehicles etc., which were unsuited for a country where most roads didn't have surfaces, and without spare parts for when the vehicles broke down.
As a general principle, the richer and more remote the donor, the more expensive and less useful the aid. What was done by the churches was a bit shoestring but quite good. What was done by governments was institutional and not very good. Anything done by the UN was wasteful and rubbish. Symptomatic of the latter was the sending of an Afghan eye specialist for a year or two who knew none of the languages spoken in the country - not even English - to a hospital where there was probably no one in the entire country who spoke any Afghan language. One can only assume that it had been Afghanistan's turn to demand a posting.
Aid may be symbolically significant for the donor countries but it tends not to have a wholesome effect on the sociological, economic and political cultures of the recipient nations. I'm not really into symbols.
My understanding is that the emphasis in aid has shifted significantly in the last couple of decades, from sending people to places to sending money and a couple of co-ordinators to employ local staff. VSO, for example, is no longer in the business of sending school leavers on gap years to teach kids in poorer countries, but to sending (e.g.) experienced teachers to offer support and training. Could aid be done better? No doubt. Is that a reason to spend less on it rather than improve it? Nope.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
In response to Enoch's post about variability of the quality of 'aid':-
I was working on a project for a well-known water charity in 2002. It was the 3 month project part of my course for working in Relief and Development. I was asked to do a survey of failed water pumps in an area in East Africa where a number of handpumps were no longer usable and find out why failures were so common and suggest remedies. All the pumps had been installed by NGOs in the previous 20 years and many were unusuable when I saw them. The NGO policy until then had been to look for villages without access to clean safe water, survey the location to find a good spot and do all the work to install a nice pump. Then they said "Look everyone here's a water pump which will give you safe water which will help improve your health and make life easier. Please use it. Bye!"
The later realisation was that people felt no ownership or sense of responsibility as they'd say "The pump those people installed isn't working any more and they haven't come to fix it; where can we get water?" so they'd find or dig a hole and use the water form there and probably get sick.
The thinking was changing to get the people involved and give them a sense of responsibility and ownership. So under the new scheme the NGO would go to a community and say "you don't have clean water and it's making your children sick, can we help you? We think it would be good to put a community handpump *here* and if you can get together and agree to set up a committee of respected reliable people and collect some money towards it, we'll provide technical expertise training and money to top up what you can afford to make up the full cost. You will have to provide some of the labour and someone from your village who will be trained to maintain it and someone to collect regular user contributuions to pay for occasional maintenance when external parts or expertise is needed. Would you like that?"
Then when the work was done and a local person trained to do regular maintenance checks they'd arrange a handover ceremony in the village where they presented the village elders with a certificate of ownership and make it clear that the pump belonged to the community, not the NGO. This worked much better and the sense of ownership helped quite a bit. Unfortunately the tendency was for people with a shiny new functioning pump to not feel the need to pay when the pump was new and didn't appear to need maintenance when money was tight - which was often.
The short version: failed or inadequate projects by NGOs are noticed and improvements found. It's very far from all wasted money though human nature can mean that projects in developing countries just as in more developed nations can fall short and need to be managed better.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
@Enoch , I can certainly understand your critique about the quality of aid, and I certainly think that rich countries need to consider quality just as much as they consider quantity.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The gospel, the kingdom, salvation is now.
Just for once, @Martin54, and I don't find myself saying or doing this very often, I find myself agreeing with @Telford.
As is so often the case, Jesus's words do not give you, me or anyone else a clear pronouncement that one answer rather than another is the 'right', one, the one with a divine endorsement, to a specific dilemma that day to day politics throws up.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
Fair enough. Perhaps Mrs Sunak might like to make up the deficit from her own fortune, reputed to be larger than that of The Perfect Monarch?
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The gospel, the kingdom, salvation is now.
Just for once, @Martin54, and I don't find myself saying or doing this very often, I find myself agreeing with @Telford.
As is so often the case, Jesus's words do not give you, me or anyone else a clear pronouncement that one answer rather than another is the 'right', one, the one with a divine endorsement, to a specific dilemma that day to day politics throws up.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
Fair enough. Perhaps Mrs Sunak might like to make up the deficit from her own fortune,
Why would she ?
reputed to be larger than that of The Perfect Monarch?
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
Fair enough. Perhaps Mrs Sunak might like to make up the deficit from her own fortune,
Why would she ?
reputed to be larger than that of The Perfect Monarch?
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
It's your logic in justifying it that I question.
Is my logic based on any lies or exaggerations ?
It's based on looking at competition/comparison rather than principle. As I said in the first place. Your argument is entirely "well at least we're better than them". Which is in no way a statement that you're actually doing objectively well.
All you seem to aspire to is being last in a race to the bottom.
@Telford moreover, it seems to me that you've also relied on a line of reasoning that casts into doubt the value and validity of government spending on overseas development, in defence of cutting it. Unfortunately, the logical endpoint of those arguments is to end all government spending and leave the whole thing entirely to the voluntary sector. But you claim that isn't what you want to see.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
Fair enough. Perhaps Mrs Sunak might like to make up the deficit from her own fortune,
Why would she ?
reputed to be larger than that of The Perfect Monarch?
The phrase *The Perfect Monarch*, referring to HM the Queen, was coined by a poster on these boards a while ago. It's a lovely phrase, and describes her so well, I think.
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
By that argument no-one with a mortgage should ever give to charity.
I disagree. People tend to give to charity out of money they have left after paying the mortgage and all their other committments.
People with a mortgage go into debt to pay for their house. At the same time, they support whatever charitable causes they support.
The government goes into debt to finance capital projects / cause economic growth via countercyclic spending / reduce taxes / whatever. At the same time ...?
The current masive increase in debt is all about the cost of covid 19. Things like Furlough payments
And what do you think the places that won't receive aid any more would have been spending money on? Do you think that covid-19 is a peculiarly British problem?
Covid-19 is exactly the kind of thing where there's a need to think globally, and part of the reason why it's affected so much of the world is because of an inability to think in those terms and organise across the world. It tended to affect rich countries first because rich countries have more citizens who are travelling around and who could bring it back home.
But the longer term effects? They're actually worse in those poorer countries who now aren't going to get your aid money. Who are going to struggle to get vaccines once vaccines are available. And that are going to become reservoirs for the disease and make it difficult to eliminate.
If you don't help other countries deal with the cost of covid-19 when they don't have the capacity to deal with it themselves, when unaided their health systems might collapse that much faster, where's the actual benefit to the UK overall? There isn't one. This is not a situation where you have a particular problem back home that you need to deal with, this is where you're a wealthy country dealing with the exact same problem that everyone else has to deal with.
And when you tell poorer countries that they're going to have to suffer more because you're concentrating on your own suffering, there's a genuine chance that in the longer term that's going to come back to bite you.
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
It's your logic in justifying it that I question.
Is my logic based on any lies or exaggerations ?
It's based on looking at competition/comparison rather than principle. As I said in the first place. Your argument is entirely "well at least we're better than them". Which is in no way a statement that you're actually doing objectively well.
All you seem to aspire to is being last in a race to the bottom.
The phrase *The Perfect Monarch*, referring to HM the Queen, was coined by a poster on these boards a while ago. It's a lovely phrase, and describes her so well, I think.
Well, yes. It referred to my whimsical remark about Very Rich People (Mrs Sunak - reputed, in several news reports, to be wealthier than HM the Queen) being virtually able to make up the deficit in our foreign aid contribution from their own pockets.
I'm not saying that they necessarily should...but there is indeed a great gulf fixed between those who have, and those who have not.
Well, yes. It referred to my whimsical remark about Very Rich People (Mrs Sunak - reputed, in several news reports, to be wealthier than HM the Queen) being virtually able to make up the deficit in our foreign aid contribution from their own pockets.
I'm not saying that they necessarily should...but there is indeed a great gulf fixed between those who have, and those who have not.
But to spell it out, there is something very broken when an entire rich Western nation of some 65 million people's budget for an area of its spending is of the same order of magnitude as the personal wealth of one of those 65 million people.
But to spell it out, there is something very broken when an entire rich Western nation of some 65 million people's budget for an area of its spending is of the same order of magnitude as the personal wealth of one of those 65 million people.
I am impressed that Mr Sunak is happy to put himself under so much pressure when he doesn't need the money.
But to spell it out, there is something very broken when an entire rich Western nation of some 65 million people's budget for an area of its spending is of the same order of magnitude as the personal wealth of one of those 65 million people.
Who are you thinking of? We were talking about Akshata Murthy (Mr Sunak's wife), with a report of her owning a share portfolio worth about £430m (plus some other investments and property which I've not seen quantified, so I assume is worth a lot less than that ... let's call it a nominal £0.5b to round things up).
The UK foreign aid budget had been about £15b per year, now falling to about £10b (combining cut from 0.7% of income to 0.5%, with a fall in income). Even that reduction in spending is an order of magnitude more than the personal wealth of Akshata Murthy (or Her Majesty).
Though, I accept that if we were to take, say, the Dyson family their combined personal wealth is of that order (£16b according to the 2020 Times Rich List) - and, possibly more important their income is (their wealth increased by more than £3b 2019-2020).
Comments
Then you didn't hear Jesus' first sermon then?
I worked for four years abroad, partly funded by UK government aid. I think what I was doing was quite useful, but not very. The prevalence of aid programmes though, had encouraged the recipient country to see everything in terms of getting someone else to pay for everything rather than doing it themselves. And, what they were getting people to pay for was designed through the eyes of the donors, what the donors thought the recipients ought to want and would be good for them, or in some cases to satisfy the internal politics of the donor country, rather than for what the recipients needed. Typical, for example, would be the arrival of expensive hardware, vehicles etc., which were unsuited for a country where most roads didn't have surfaces, and without spare parts for when the vehicles broke down.
As a general principle, the richer and more remote the donor, the more expensive and less useful the aid. What was done by the churches was a bit shoestring but quite good. What was done by governments was institutional and not very good. Anything done by the UN was wasteful and rubbish. Symptomatic of the latter was the sending of an Afghan eye specialist for a year or two who knew none of the languages spoken in the country - not even English - to a hospital where there was probably no one in the entire country who spoke any Afghan language. One can only assume that it had been Afghanistan's turn to demand a posting.
Aid may be symbolically significant for the donor countries but it tends not to have a wholesome effect on the sociological, economic and political cultures of the recipient nations. I'm not really into symbols.
Correct. I wasn't about back then.
If they are not going to like us, are they going to turn to countries who give them less than us
If they are going to bite us, how much more would they be biting the vast majority of countries who will still be giving less than us.
If, as I suppose, Martin is referring to the Sermon On The Mount, you can read it for yourself in your Bible, if you have one.
OTOH, Wikipedia can explain it for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount
I was working on a project for a well-known water charity in 2002. It was the 3 month project part of my course for working in Relief and Development. I was asked to do a survey of failed water pumps in an area in East Africa where a number of handpumps were no longer usable and find out why failures were so common and suggest remedies. All the pumps had been installed by NGOs in the previous 20 years and many were unusuable when I saw them. The NGO policy until then had been to look for villages without access to clean safe water, survey the location to find a good spot and do all the work to install a nice pump. Then they said "Look everyone here's a water pump which will give you safe water which will help improve your health and make life easier. Please use it. Bye!"
The later realisation was that people felt no ownership or sense of responsibility as they'd say "The pump those people installed isn't working any more and they haven't come to fix it; where can we get water?" so they'd find or dig a hole and use the water form there and probably get sick.
The thinking was changing to get the people involved and give them a sense of responsibility and ownership. So under the new scheme the NGO would go to a community and say "you don't have clean water and it's making your children sick, can we help you? We think it would be good to put a community handpump *here* and if you can get together and agree to set up a committee of respected reliable people and collect some money towards it, we'll provide technical expertise training and money to top up what you can afford to make up the full cost. You will have to provide some of the labour and someone from your village who will be trained to maintain it and someone to collect regular user contributuions to pay for occasional maintenance when external parts or expertise is needed. Would you like that?"
Then when the work was done and a local person trained to do regular maintenance checks they'd arrange a handover ceremony in the village where they presented the village elders with a certificate of ownership and make it clear that the pump belonged to the community, not the NGO. This worked much better and the sense of ownership helped quite a bit. Unfortunately the tendency was for people with a shiny new functioning pump to not feel the need to pay when the pump was new and didn't appear to need maintenance when money was tight - which was often.
The short version: failed or inadequate projects by NGOs are noticed and improvements found. It's very far from all wasted money though human nature can mean that projects in developing countries just as in more developed nations can fall short and need to be managed better.
Luke 4:16-21
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The gospel, the kingdom, salvation is now.
I had to study Matthew 5, 6 and 7 for my GCE Scripture, which I easily passed by the way.
I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about biting in terms of some kind of active decision to come and attack the UK. I'm talking about how the problems of those other countries will leak out and affect everyone else.
We live in a highly interconnected world.
Also, your determination to constantly invoke competition rather than principle is fascinating. Has it ever occurred to you that if the world is better, it might be better for everybody? Or is the problem with that that you wouldn't want to be the one to pay for the improvement?
Full disclaimer: I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't want tax cuts when I have plenty of money and can afford to fund government services.
If you read this thread from the start , in post number 5 I said that I wanted to keep the 0.7%.
However, I accept the governments decision to temporarily lower it.
Did Jesus do the marking?
As is so often the case, Jesus's words do not give you, me or anyone else a clear pronouncement that one answer rather than another is the 'right', one, the one with a divine endorsement, to a specific dilemma that day to day politics throws up.
No. Just the inspiration.
Fair enough. Perhaps Mrs Sunak might like to make up the deficit from her own fortune, reputed to be larger than that of The Perfect Monarch?
You can't say how they pronounce for me.
It's your logic in justifying it that I question.
Let me help.
I don't think we can blame Hi for our inadequate response.
It's based on looking at competition/comparison rather than principle. As I said in the first place. Your argument is entirely "well at least we're better than them". Which is in no way a statement that you're actually doing objectively well.
All you seem to aspire to is being last in a race to the bottom.
Thanks @Martin54.
The phrase *The Perfect Monarch*, referring to HM the Queen, was coined by a poster on these boards a while ago. It's a lovely phrase, and describes her so well, I think.
How does this help ?
Fixed broken quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Then you're beyond it.
I read you link and did not understand the relevance.
OK. @Bishops Finger did.
I'm not saying that they necessarily should...but there is indeed a great gulf fixed between those who have, and those who have not.
This is true and also common knowledge.
Someone once said that the poor would always be with us, and I suppose the same applies to the uber-wealthy...
The buggers who boil my piss are the ones who act like he said that approvingly.
I am impressed that Mr Sunak is happy to put himself under so much pressure when he doesn't need the money.
I know that I'm 20,000 km or so away, but I did understand that the minister in question is female.
The UK foreign aid budget had been about £15b per year, now falling to about £10b (combining cut from 0.7% of income to 0.5%, with a fall in income). Even that reduction in spending is an order of magnitude more than the personal wealth of Akshata Murthy (or Her Majesty).
Though, I accept that if we were to take, say, the Dyson family their combined personal wealth is of that order (£16b according to the 2020 Times Rich List) - and, possibly more important their income is (their wealth increased by more than £3b 2019-2020).
However, one person's wealth compared with the poverty of millions is something I find abhorrent - but that may be a subject for another thread.